Download PDF | E.A. Beliaev_ A. Gourevitch - Arabs, Islam and the Arab Caliphate in the Early Middle Ages-Praeger (1969).
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INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, what we now know as the Arab countries were divided between the two major powers of Byzantium and Sassanid Iran. Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire in 395 a .d ., the year which marked the final collapse of the unitary Roman Empire. Of the latter’s fourteen “Dioceses,” the eight taken over by Byzantium included territories in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor (Anatolia), and the future lands of the Arab East, as well as various holdings in Transcaucasia and what is now the southern Ukraine. Syria, Lebanon and Palestine (today Israel and western Jordan) had been conquered by the Romans in the first century b .c ., while Egypt was annexed to the Empire as early as 30 b .c. In the sixth century a .d ., Byzantium conquered the eastern parts of that part of North Africa (Tunisia and Algeria) held by the Vandals in the fifth and early sixth centuries.
Soviet specialists in Byzantine history have not yet solved the question of the social and economic structure prevailing in early Byzantium (fifth-seventh centuries). Some believe that by then Byzantine society was already incipiently feudal: that feudal methods of production were becoming preponderant, while the slave economy was dying out. But another view, closer to historical fact, is prevalent today [in the USSR],* namely that Byzantium was actually the focus of a slow process of decay of the slave economy with a concomitant slow formation of feudalism In the Eastern provinces of tfie Roman Empire, the crisis of the slave-holding regime was not as acute as in Italy, where violent slave rebellions occurred. Indeed, the Eastern Empire, comprising the lands of ancient Oriental civilization—which had already reached a high level of social production and culture by the Hellenistic period (to say nothing of earliest antiquity)— was richer and economically stronger than the Western Empire. Moreover, rural freeholders played a marked productive role in early Byzantine economy, though slave production still retained considerable economic importance.
This marks one of the main differences between early Byzantium and the Western Empire: in the latter, the crisis of the slave-holding regime, together with the consolidation of the military-political rule of Germanic and other Barbarian conquerors, was paving the way for the development of new, properly feudal relations. The Eastern Empire, having succeeded in holding the Barbarian onslaught on its Danubian frontier, retained its independence. It also preserved the governmental apparatus created by the reforms of Constantine and Diocletian, an administrative-fiscal system (its main task being to exact taxes and dues from the people) which, together with a numerous army of mercenaries, ensured the rule of an aristocracy of big landowners.
The Byzantine Emperor, who was in essence a despot surrounded by this mainly Greek aristocracy, strove with them to preserve the old slave-holding regime and to impede as much as possible the development of feudalism. Even the Orthodox Church (represented by the Patriarch of Constantinople, as well as by ecumenical councils and local synods) was submitted to the autocracy of the Emperor. Firmly supporting him, it made no opposition to his intervention in affairs of ecclesiastic administration or even in matters of religious doctrine.
Indeed, the Church recognized the Emperor as the supreme authority in deciding various controversial points of dogma. During the transitional period at the beginning of Byzantine history, there arose new systems of management of big landed estates (both lay and ecclesiastical) and of handling primary producers on such estates. In latifundia worked by slaves, these new methods aimed at making higher productivity worthwhile for the slaves involved in it; many were actually provided with land and chattels and enabled to retain some of the surplus produce. Some became freedmen, with relative freedom as to their occupation and labor but still bound personally to their former masters. On the other hand, free tenants or coloni became increasingly important in agricultural production.
These were legally free farmers, working npt only land belonging to a big landowner but also their own small plots, using their own tools. Besides these “free” coloni there were also many who were “registered” (coloni enapographi) and held no land of their own. Their status hardly differed from that of agricultural slaves or serfs; indeed, they and their descendants were bound to the land, and had no right to leave one proprietor in order to take service with another. The coloni, like the agricultural serfs, had to give up part of their harvest, varying from one fifth to a half. They also had to provide unpaid labor, the corvée, particularly irksome since it fell due during the busy periods of the year — sowing and harvesting.
The biggest of all the landowners was the Byzantine Emperor himself, who exercized arbitrary control over the vast tracts belonging nominally to the State. The Emperor was surrounded by numerous parasitic court nobles, mainly big landowners, the most greedy and pitiless of whom were undoubtedly the members of the higher Greek Orthodox clergy (in particular the upper echelons of monks), adept at exploiting the lowly and ignorant faith of the common people. Not only did the clergy possess extensive lands of their own, but they knew how to turn to their own profit such objects of ignorant awe and reverence as miracle-working icons, relics and holy places. The most influential groups among the ruling class practiced a policy aiming at the thraldom of the dependent agricultural population: dues owed by the coloni for the land they worked were arbitrarily raised, the corvée increased, and various new means of exploitation introduced.
Nevertheless, in early Byzantium there were still free communities of peasants who paid their dues to the fisc and were not dependent on any landlords. However, they were legally handicapped in fighting oppression by the landlords, who took advantage of this by despoiling them of their communal land, thus turning them into coloni or even into landless tenants who had to pay for working the land that had formerly been their own. The lot of the working people in the cities was no better. Artisans produced not merely for the ruling class and the richer merchants, but also for the export market: Byzantine products were noted for their workmanship and elegance and were in demand in many countries. Slave labor was still widely used in handicrafts, though free artisans already predominated. The textile industry was highly developed, not only in Constantinople and other major cities of the Balkan Peninsula, but also in the Asian and African provinces of the Empire. The raw material was chiefly flax, hemp and wool. Silk production, required for the high-grade brocades fashionable among the ruling class and also for sacerdotal vestments, posed a particular problem. Prior to the sixth century, Byzantium imported raw silk from China and Iran. However, the movements of nomad tribes in Asia and the creation of powerful confederations (the so-called nomadic empires) interfered with the caravan trade on the inland routes to the Far East along the famous “silk road.” On the other hand, the maritime trade with India in silk could hardly meet the total requirements of Byzantium. Silk had to be bought from traders coming from Iran, an awkward problem since Byzantium was more often than not in a state of war with the Iranian Empire.
Moreover, the Iranian rulers and merchants abused their near-monopoly by raising the price of silk. The Byzantines could not even attempt to produce their own raw silk without silkworms, which the Iranian authorities stubbornly refused to allow to be exported to Byzantium. According to legend, the situation changed when some pilgrim monks returning from the Orient managed to smuggle silkworm eggs into the Eastern Empire by hiding them inside their staffs. The silkworms were fed on mulberry leaves from Syria, and Syria thus became the first sericultural province of the Empire.2 Another important industry was tanning and cordwainery, producing suede and morocco boots embroidered with colored silk, beads and diamonds. Of course, such expensive footwear was not intended for the common people, who were content with coarse sandals (especially so in the Asian and African provinces, where the climate was hot). The mining and working of metals (copper, iron, lead, zinc and bronze) played a particularly significant role, producing metalware, weapons and agricultural implements. The luxurious way of life of the aristocracy, the urban rich and the princes of the Church established a demand for jewellery and products of other arts and crafts. The artisans reached very high standards, even virtuosity, in making precious ornaments and church vessels; even everyday objects became masterpieces of workmanship.
The artisans of Lebanon and Syria, who preserved the traditions and trade secrets of the ancient Phoenicians, were outstanding in all glass crafts. Egypt was renowned for its papyrus, which was cheaper than parchment for writing material. Since paper was still unknown, Egyptian papyrus was much in demand both in Asia and in western Europe. The self-employed artisans and the masters of small shops, who often lacked the means to acquire raw materials, had to compete with those well-provided shops belonging to the Emperor’s government or to monasteries. Craftsmen could not turn for help and protection to the “demes” (the organs of municipal self-government), for these were dominated by the richer citizens. Architecture, too, was highly developed, as may be seen from such monuments of Christian art as Saint Sophia, built in Constantinople in the sixth century. The geographical location of Constantinople and the relatively high level of its economic development favored foreign commerce. Unlike the Western Empire, which was conquered by the Barbarians and reverted to a natural economy by the earliest centuries of the Middle Ages, early Byzantium had a fully developed merchant economy based on monetary exchange. The cities, founded in Hellenistic and pre-Hellenistic time, were growing fast, as the rural population fled their villages in an attempt to escape excessive corvées and taxation. These cities were active centers of artisanry and commerce.
The largest city was the capital, Constantinople, “a golden bridge between East and West” (Karl Marx). Economically and culturally, Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt were hardly less important. Other big cities were significant as ports (Thessalonica [now Salonika], Beirut, and Tripolis in Syria), or as crossroads of caravan routes (Damascus). Jerusalem, the focus of Jewish and Christian legend and tradition, was an object of pilgrimage for all Christendom. Early Byzantium continued trading with all the lands of the Orient, using the experience and foreign trade connections acquired in the days of the old Roman Empire. However, the overland caravan trade with China ran into obstacles and losses, as the nomadic tribes became stronger and exacted exaggerated fees for free passage, or simply attacked and plundered foreign merchants. As the commerce with China decreased, greater importance accrued to trade with India via the Red Sea. Greek, Syro-Lebanese and Egyptian merchants sailed into the Indian Ocean, ranging with the monsoon winds as far as the coasts of Ceylon.
The Byzantine trader was primarily interested in silk, but this was not always obtainable on the Indian Ocean markets. Indeed, merchants from Iran quite often managed to buy up all the available silk and resell it to Byzantium at an inflated price. South Arabia, which provided Byzantium with incense and other aromatic substances, lay on the same maritime route. An item in relatively high demand was frankincense, required by Christians for ritual purposes. However, South Arabian merchandise was also transported by camel through western Arabia, along the ancient “incense route,” since in the Red Sea area. Ethiopia-m ore exactly, the Axumite Empire—was then the ally of Byzantium’s commercial policy, the instrument of this policy being Christianity. The ruling class among Axumite Ethiopians had accepted this religion in the fourth century from Egyptian (Coptic) missionaries. In the same century, the Axumites had started raiding the Yemen, and their raids went hand in hand with Christian propaganda. [The kings and ruling class of Yemen—the Empire of the Himyarites—adopted Judaism as their religion in about the same period, perhaps as a gesture of defiance to Axum and to their Byzantine backers.]
Those Yemenites who became converts to Christianity (mainly some citizens of $an‘a and most of the inhabitants of the Nejran oasis) were of course faithful partisans of the Byzantine influence, and, through the agency and help of the Ethiopians, secured the safe passage of Byzantine traders and merchantmen to India.3 Byzantine trade-in the Mediterranean basin expanded greatly under the Emperor Justinian (527-565), whose policy of reestablishing the Roman Empire met with considerable, if incomplete, success. After prolonged and costly wars with the Goths and victory over the Vandals, the Byzantine army and navy conquered Italy, the islands of the western Mediterranean, a few regions of Spain and some stretches of North Africa (in Tunisia and eastern Algeria). Within these formerly West Roman territories the Emperor and his court attempted to restore a slaveholding regime. As a result, slaves and coloni rose en masse, and such risings made the acquisition of the new territories precarious. In North Africa, having triumphed easily over the Vandals, the Byzantine army led by Belisarius encountered stubborn resistance from the native Berber population, especially the nomads. Byzantine rule was in fact established only on the coasts and along a belt of inland fortresses, and the only reason why they were not immediately thrown into the sea was the bitter feud between the sedentary (both farmers and city-dwellers) and the nomad Berber.4
The wars of conquest, the occupation of conquered lands, and the repression of rebellions among the conquered population led to the exhaustion of the Empire’s financial and manpower resources. Also there were frequent mutinies within the army, since the soldiers were not paid for long stretches at a time: the booty, the dues and contributions and the conquered landholdings all went to the military high command, not to the mercenary rank-and-file. In search of additional means, the Byzantine government tried to exact more taxes and imposts from the people. The situation of the working masses was at times unbearable: in the reign of Justinian, a wave of popular risings «wept the Balkan Peninsula as well as the eastern provinces. In addition to the active resistance of slaves and coloni in the rural periphery, there were grave troubles among the commoners in the cities, especially among the destitute, the “Lumpenproletariat. " Like the ancient Roman proletariat, this was a fairly numerous class within the major cities. They had no work nor any permanent means of subsistence, and therefore clamored for “bread and circuses” \panem et circenses], which it was the duty of the government and the municipalities to provide. Indeed, this proletariat was fed with free com received from Egypt, the land of the Nile being at that time the granary of the Byzantine capital. During the biggest of all the rebellions at Constantinople (the so-called “Nika” riots in 532),* * Justinian and his court were in such dire straits that they were on the point of flight to the African provinces by warship when the mercenaries, led by Belisarius, managed to drive the main crowd of rioters into the hippodrome, where some 35,000 were massacred. The Empire weakened markedly under Justinian’s successors, toward the end of the sixth century. Conquered territories in the West were lost again, though Byzantium still retained some degree of predominance in North Africa [and parts of Italy]. Syria, Palestine and Egypt were shaken by major uprisings of slaves, coloni and peasants who refused to be made serfs. The Constantinople plebeians rose again, and mutinies occurred in the army of the Danube. The Byzantine Empire was, in effect, in a state of civil war. The Slavs at that time played a most important role in Byzantine history. In the first half of the sixth century, the advance of Slavic tribes had been held by the Byzantine army on the Danube, but in the last quarter of the century the barrier was broken and the Slavic invasion overwhelmed the Balkan Peninsula. By the mid-seventh century, Slavs had settled nearly everywhere in the peninsula, and some had crossed to Asia Minor. As the Slavs still lived in primitive-communal conditions, * * they had no need for the existing apparatus of class violence and fiscal exploitation, Consequently, in regions conquered and peopled by the Slavs, the situation of the slaves and of those under the poll tax improved considerably, while imperial [State-owned] land and private latifundia were plundered. Thus it was understandable that the working masses should see the Slavs as their allies and deliverers. The risings of the people and the Slavic colonization resulted in major changes in the socio-economic conditions of Byzantium. Slave production declined and was no longer predominant. Much of the property of the former land- and slave-holding aristocracy now belonged to Slavic agricultural communes and to local farmers, and the free peasant thus became increasingly important in the rural economy. A further significant factor was the presence of first-class soldiers provided by the Slavs in the ranks of the Byzantine army. The Emperor Heraclius (610-641), who rose to power in this period, was a typical representative of the provincial landed aristocracy, taking no stand against these new, incipiently feudal, relationships. Although the old Greek land-holding noblemen were frightened by the extent of civil wars and incensed at their partial expropriation, they had no choice but to support Heraclius, who wisely recognized the new balance of social forces. In foreign policy, the major events of the time were connected with the Irano-Byzantine wars. In 611, the Iranian armies of the Sassanid shahin-shah (“King of Kings”), Khusro II,* conquered Syria, taking Antioch and Damascus; in 614 they invaded Palestine and stormed Jerusalem. Thereafter the Iranians crossed all of Asia Minor and reached the eastern shore of the Bosporus, where they set up camp at present-day Scutari. Another Iranian army invaded Egypt and captured Alexandria (618-619). Heraclius, having obtained a heavy subsidy from the Greek Orthodox Church, was able to raise a battle-worthy army. In 622 - 628, he led it in three successive “Persian campaigns.” In 627, this army decisively beat the Iranian forces near the ruins of Nineveh, in the vicinity of present-day Mosul; it then laid siege to the Iranian capital of Ctesiphon* *and approached Dahesta, the summer residence of the Sassanid kings. In the peace treaty concluded with Iran, Byzantium regained all her Eastern provinces. Heraclius imposed heavy taxes upon the people of Syria and Palestine, who had already suffered from plunder under Iranian occupation. But the Emperor needed vast sums of money to repay his debt to the Byzantine Church. Moreover, he wanted to punish these provincials for their readiness to accept Iranian overlordship. [Indeed, the Jews, still numerous in the Galilee, had risen at the approach of the Iranian army and taken part in the storming of Jerusalem.] Heraclius carried on the traditional religious policies of the Byzantine emperors, who were always eager to appear as zealous defenders of Orthodoxy, and who pitilessly persecuted all Christian sectarians and non-Christians. In its turn, the Orthodox Church was always a staunch supporter of Byzantine autocracy, and attempted to justify and sanctify the existing regime of inequality and exploitation. As to the many and various heterodox doctrines and church organizations, these provided an ideological expression of the widespread protest, by the masses, against Byzantine rule: both Nestorianism and Monophysitism became extensive in the Eastern provinces of the Empire. Claiming to protect the purity of Orthodox dogma, the Byzantine clergy, with the assistance of the lay authorities, persecuted the Nestorians and Monophysites [to say nothing of the still numerous Jews] in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Nestorianism had been declared a heresy at the Third Ecumenic Council at Ephesus in 431, but it still had many adepts among Syrian and Mesopotamian Christians. The headquarters of Nestorian propaganda was Edessa,* * where the sect had its main school and seminary. At the end of the fifth century, Constantinople ordered the Edessa school to be closed and both teachers and pupils to be driven away.
They found refuge, however, within the Iranian Empire, at Nisibis* in Upper Mesopotamia, where they enjoyed the protection of the shahin-shah, who saw in them the irreconcilable foes of Byzantium. The Monophysitic teaching had arisen in Egypt in the early fifth century, and was declared a heresy at the Fourth Ecumenic Council at Chalcedon in 451. However, the Monophysitic preachers, who condemned the cupidity, the riches and the loose life of the Orthodox uf>pèr clefgy and castigated the hypocrisy, avarice and shameless behavior of the monks, found many listeners among the masses of the people. But the principal threat of Monophysitism to the ruling circles of Byzantium was as the banner of separatism within the Eastern provinces of the Empire; thus the Monophysitic creed had rallied not merely the plain people in these provinces, but also many among the provincial land-owners and rich burghers who were dissatisfied with Byzantine rule. The struggle of the Byzantine government and the Greek Orthodox clergy against the Monophysites degenerated at times into cruel and bloody mass persecution. In Egypt, for instance, Monophysites were killed in the streets and even in their homes, and the corpses thrown into the Nile. In the eyes of the Greek Orthodox, the Christian sectarians were not merely ideological opponents: they were a direct threat to those in the higher clerical positions and benefices, which the Orthodox reserved of course for themselves, even in the Eastern provinces. Indeed, the Greek clergy tried to dominate the Orient, and were resented for it. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was the supreme hierarch of the Orthodox Church, and as such exerted control over the Orthodox patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria, who were themselves the highest church dignitaries in the Eastern provinces. All these very profitable positions were usually occupied by Greeks, and so were the positions of archbishop, bishop and abbots of richer monasteries. Convinced that Monophysitism would not be extinguished by mere violence, some of the Greek Orthodox clergy sought a solution of appeasement and compromise. After the reconquest of the eastern provinces in the “Persian campaigns” of Heraclius, the Emperor decreed such a compromise in the form of a new dogma, to be accepted by both the Orthodox and the Monophysites, namely that Christ had one will in spite of the presence of two natures in him.
This doctrine, known as Monothelitism, should have reconciled the Monophysites (believers in a “single nature” of Christ) with the Orthodox Church, but the attempt proved unsuccessful. The dispute was far more than a mere disagreement on dogma; it was a complex of sociopolitical contradictions, insoluble in the difficult and ominous circumstances of Byzantine tyranny over the peoples of the Near East. The Monothelitic dogma was later accepted only by the Maronite Church,* which has to this day many adherents in Syria and especially in Lebanon.5 The Iranian Empire under the Sassanid dynasty was the powerful adversary of Byzantium, competing with it for dominion in Hither Asia and in the Indian Ocean. The Sassanids had overthrown the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids who, since the first century b .c ., had been struggling against the Roman drive to conquer Armenia and Mesopotamia and reach the shores of the Persian Gulf. The Arsacids put up a particularly stubborn defense against the Romans in Mesopotamia around Ctesiphon, their capital, built on both banks of the River Tigris. Mesopotamia was indeed the most developed and richest province of the Arsacid domains, and also the most densely populated. Its southern part, formerly Babylonia, was a land of very ancient agricultural civilization based on artificial irrigation. Under the Sassanids (224-651), Mesopotamia retained its exceptional economic and strategic importance. There is a dearth of sufficiently reliable sources on the type of socio-economic regime prevailing in the vast dominions of the Sassanids and on its development. Such sources as are available6 have still to be thoroughly studied. According to present-day scientific research, two methods of production coexisted in the Parthian Empire of the Arsacids, corresponding to a slave-holding and a primitive-communal state of society. The former existed principally in the fertile land of Babylonia, where irrigated agriculture had been practiced since antiquity. Under the Sassanids, slave labor was still widely used in agriculture; Roman prisoners-of-war were put to farming in Babylonia, Khüzistän (ancient Susiana) and Fars [Persis, Persia proper]. When, in 260, the army of Shapur I [Sapor] surrounded the Roman legions commanded by the Emperor Valerian himself, near Edessa, and fofced them to capitulate, the captives were driven into the catchment area of the Kanin River and inducted into labor on grandiose irrigation projects. Such treatment of Roman prisoners-of-war was the general policy of the Sassanid high command. Certain scholars reason that under the early Sassanids the campaigns of Iranian armies within the Byzantine Empire actually aimed among other things at replenishing the stock of state-owned slaves.7 Even in Mesopotamia, however, where slavery had persisted for over four thousand years, the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. saw a decline in its importance as the principal source of labor for agriculture.
The principal producers were now peasants who owned their lands communally, though with the breakdown of these farming communes their leaders gradually appropriated the communal land and water, turned the land into private property and rendered the rank-and-file peasants serfs who had to yield their surplus produce and later even some of the main produce to their masters. The owner of an irrigation system made by slave labor now hired out an irrigated plot of land to the peasant against a set proportion of the harvest yield. Thus the feudal rent came into being: the producers became dependent on the owners of the means of production. With the incipient formation of feudalism in the Sassanid Empire (principally within the more developed regions), a new social category arose—the “riders”—, small or sometimes middleclass freeholders who had been granted their land for service in the cavalry. An important socio-political role was taken by the landed aristocracy, some of whom had even preserved their holdings and power from the days of the Arsacids. They used slaves on their extensive estates, but also dominated the peasant villages and nomad tribes of the district. Some of the aristocratic clans were politically independent within their hereditary domains, and stubbornly resisted the centralizing policies of the Sassanids, which dated from the first “King of Kings” of the dynasty. The Zoroastrian priesthood, with the High Priest, mobedan-e-mobed,* at their head, were the allies of the aristocracy. This upper crust of the clergy were also big landowners, besides possessing other kinds of real estate; they further derived a vast income in dues from the faithful. Together with the landed aristocracy, this priesthood considerably limited the autocracy of the shahin-shah. The principle of the throne supporting the altar and vice versa (attributed to the founder of the dynasty) in fact held only against the laboring masses, especially when they dared rise in rebellion. Otherwise there was a continual and often bitter state of strife between the Sassanid autocrats and the aristocracy and higher priesthood that generally went against the former. The Sassanid rulers therefore sought other, more trustworthy, allies. Shapur I (241-272), the second king of the dynasty, attempted to broaden the society under his rule by introducing an ideological weapon, the new teaching of Manicheism, of which he became the protector. The semi-legendary founder of this religion, a former Zoroastrian priest called Mani, preached a dualistic doctrine which was basically the same as Zoroastrian or Christian dualism: everything that occurs in the Universe and in the history of human society is but a reflection of an unceasing struggle between the two principles of Good and Evil, Light and Dark. In man himself, both principles are combined: the soul derives from Light, the body from Darkness. In order to achieve the triumph of Light, man must conquer the natural needs of his own organism; he must lead a strictly abstemious life (vegetarian, avoiding worldly temptations, refraining from marriage) in order to free his soul from “the prison of the body.” Actually, Manicheism was simply a blend of Zoroastrianism with the Christian ideals of ascetism and zealotry.
The population of Irak,41 the most advanced of all the provinces of the Sassanid Empire, was basically not Iranian but Aramaic-speaking Semitic. It consisted partly of direct descendants of the ancient Babylonians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, and partly of many Jews, who were either the offspring of those Judeans who had remained in Mesopotamia after the “Babylonian captivity” or were from the Mesopotamian Diaspora. In permitting Manichean propaganda Shapur I pursued a threefold policy: firstly, Mapicheism was made a State religion, with a priesthood dependent upon and faithful to him, so that he acquired a new means of influencing the masses of the people; secondly, he hoped for religious unity among his subjects, including the Christians; thirdly, he expected to deal a crushing blow to the Zoroastrian priesthood and indirectly to the old aristocracy. However, the aristocracy and the higher priesthood resisted so strenuously that Shapur was ultimately forced to break completely with the Manicheans. Moreover, the Manichean doctrine, now widespread among the lowest classes of the urban population, began to direct its energies against the state as an organ of oppression and against all forms of social and political persecution. This triumph of the aristocracy and higher priesthood over the King of Kings resulted in a lasting political instability, which merely enhanced the arbitrary power of the upper classes and the exploitation of the working masses. Within thirty years of Shapur’s death, the court nobility throned and dethroned no less than six kings. In order to safeguard their stranglehold, the nobility proclaimed Shapur II king in 309, when he was still an infant, or, according to other sources, when he was still unborn.
However, when he reached his majority, this particular king curbed the nobility in the interests of his personal power. This lay mainly in his army, which was proving victorious over the Romans. After the death of Shapur II in 379, the nobility and the higher priesthood again managed to suppress the autocracy of their Sassanid masters. They removed the famous shahin-shah Bahram Gor* from any participation in State affairs, and he contented himself with hunting, music and love affairs. One of his successors, Peroz (459-484),* * fell victim to a conspiracy by the nobility, who then enthroned his son after extracting from him a solemn oath to respect their prerogatives (that is, arbitrary dealings) in affairs of government. The long period in which the nobility guided the administration of the State marked the decay of productive forces in the Iranian Empire. The unlimited opportunities of big landlords to exploit the producers ran against the general interests of the State, and furthermore went hand in hand with the actual plunder of State property. This decline in production was accompanied by manifestations of separatism on the part of the provincial propertied aristocracy, so that entire provinces seceded and civil war raged among the rival provincial claimants. Even in years of disaster, famine and plague, the workers were still exploited by State fisc officials, avid tax-farmers and the big landlords. Their intolerable sufferings gave birth to the new mass movement of Mazdakism. This movement, which flared up in Mesopotamia in the late fifth and early sixth century, has been grossly misrepresented in the writings of later feudalists [sic] historians of the Near East. Indeed, Moslem authors of the Middle Ages picture the Mazdakites quite falsely as amoral troublemakers, given merely to plunder and fornication, under the guidance of a leader, Mazdak, who is represented as an impudent fraud, mad with the lust of power. However, Soviet historians have refuted this ideological bias and have revealed the essence of Mazdakism.8
The Mazdakite movement started at Ctesiphon, where the number of hungry and dissatisfied people was rapidly increasing due to the influx from rural districts ruined by famine and fiscal oppression. The leadership of the movement (which legend embodies in the figure of Mazdak [originally a Zoroastrian priest] clamored for the private and State-owned granaries to be thrown open to the needs of the populace, threatening to take the food by force if necessary. The Mazdakite ideology revolutionized the pessimism, decadence and impotence of Manicheism. From the very inception of their movement, the Mazdakites believed that the cause of famine and other evils resided in the unequal distribution of property and other earthly goods, and that thus the happiness of all required simply a redistribution, depriving the rich of their economic and political power. This, they maintained, was only possible by returning to the primeval regime of early agrarian communities, which they pictured as a state of total equality without domination or oppression.
The Mazdakite doctrine reflected the interests and hopes of toilers of the soil reduced to serfdom in the period of incipient feudalism. After increasing suffering under the new social system, the masses of producers sought redemption in a reestablishment of the old communal status. In northern Iran, the Mazdakites formed their own communes on land expropriated from the legal owners. It is remarkable and quite typical that these revolutionaries, while freeing the peasants from social oppression, were not at all in favor of liberating the slaves. In fact, they considered it necessaiy to preserve slavery in their communes: in addition to communal property in land and means of irrigation, they wanted the slaves to be communally owned, and the commune itself thus became the slave-owner and exploiter. The spread of the Mazdakite movement and its obvious success prompted King Kavad I (488-531) to join the Mazdakites: unable to fight them, he wanted to make use of them to destroy the aristocracy. According to legend, Kavad appointed Mazdak himself as director of the food depots, with the task of distributing grain and meal to the population. The King sympathized with the setting up of Mazdakite communes, which entailed the expropriation of the noblemen. According to sources hostile to Mazdakism, he even favored Mazdak’s proposal to “hold the women in common,” and personally participated in this measure.
Feudalistic historians of the Orient maintain that this involved an extreme looseness of Mazdakite mores: the normal forms of marriage were allegedly not respected, and “communalization” of wives was considered necessary on a par with communal property in land, water, slaves and stock. Fantastic though this allegation be. Western orientalists have accepted it quite uncritically. In fact, “community of women” meant simply the abolition of those class and caste rules that prevented commoners from marrying women of privileged status. The Mazdakites, profiting by the defeat and confusion of the upper class, married into it. Now the Mazdakites were acceptable allies to the ruling dynasty only as sworn foes of the aristocracy and higher priesthood. But when this upper crust of society had been sufficiently weakened economically and politically, the Sassanid rulers no longer deemed it necessary to share their rule with the Mazdakite leadership, by which they forfeited part of the State’s tax income. As might have been expected, the ensuing reaction saw Mazdakite activists liquidated amid streams of blood. Kavad’s son, Khusro I Anushirvan (531-579), had participated in the suppression of Mazdakism and the destruction of the Mazdakite communes. According to some reports, his mother was the daughter of a small landlord, and Kavad had married her casually and for a short time only. The Mazdakites suffered extermination at the hands of a new social class, the small and moderately big feudal landlords, to whom Khusro granted their fiefs in return for faithful support.
The upper ranks of this class formed the new aristocracy, which was devoted and obedient to the king. A few clans of the old nobility survived, but they had lost their former influence. A number of measures aimed at strengthening the power of the King of Kings were formulated, known as “the reforms of Khusro I,” the most important of which was fiscal reform, which established set rates of taxation. Dues were now exacted not only in produce but also in money (silver). The main income of the exchequer was through a tax on land, the Kharäg*, the amount of which depended on the crop, the area cultivated and the kind of fruit tree, grain or fodder grown. For instance, one “garib” sown with grain was taxed one silver dirhem [drachma] as against 8 dirhems for the same area planted as vineyard, and 7 dirhems if it was sown with lucerne. The poll-tax—gezit**'—was levied on every person aged from 20 to 50, except for landlords, soldiers, clergy and state officers or employees.
The gezit amounted to 4, 6, 8 or 12 dirhems per capita, depending on the property status of the individual. A complete land survey was made in the time of Khusro I and all taxable heads were counted, so that a state budget, with items of income and expenditure, became feasible.10 A fairly complex bureaucracy dealt with taxation, both in produce and money, as well as with customs dues, and thus ensured a measure of centralized government. However, even after the reforms, tax-farming was not abolished with any finality. Under Khusro I, the Iranian Empire entered its period of early feudalism. Slave labor was still used, however, chiefly in artificial irrigation and in the handicrafts. Artisanal production in Sassanid Iran was closely connected with the export trade. Due to its geographical location, this vast empire was the center between China and India on the one hand and Byzantium and all the Mediterranean on the other. Silk was the main item in caravan and maritime trade; from raw silk received from China and India, expert Iranian craftsmen manufactured high-grade material which was sold in the Byzantine Empire. Iran also exported products of flax and cotton, valuable rugs and artistic gold- and silverware produced in workshops attached to the castles of big feudal lords or by free artisans work- ing in the cities. In such centers as Ctesiphon, Gundeshapur, Hamadhân, Iç^akhr, Nishapur and Rayy, there were many craftsmen who worked for both the domestic and the foreign market; these free craftsmen were organized in corporations, which seem to have been incipient forms of professional guilds.
The development of Iran’s artisanal production was enhanced by the forced resettlement of townsmen from Mesopotamia and other parts of the Sassanid realm then in the Byzantine Empire. Among those who had left their native cities in order to escape religious persecution were many expert craftsmen. Moreover, the number of artisans increased sharply after each campaign of the Iranian army in Syria. Together with prisoners-of-war, the Iranians brought many craftsmen as captives, who improved and enlarged the scope of their crafts in the Sassanid kingdom. In foreign policy, the aims of the early-feudal Sassanid Empire, which had grown much stronger economically and militarily under Khusro I and his successors, were to expand its dominion over Transcaucasia and the Asian provinces of Byzantium and to gain a footing on the shores of the Black and the Mediterranean seas. During the sixth century the Sassanids conquered the Yemen and also Lasica [in Transcaucasia], and invaded Syria.
In the early seventh century, under Khusro II, the most ambitious plans of conquest seemed, for the time, to have been fulfilled. The Iranian armies by then occupied nearly all the Byzantine domains of the [Asian and African] Near East, and stood at the gates of Constantinople, when the successful counteroffensive of Heraclius regained for Byzantium all the territories she had lost, and more : it posed a direct threat to the Sassanid capital itself. This long-lasting, bitter conflict between Iran and Byzantium resulted in the utter exhaustion of both empires, so that they were quite unable to resist the onslaught of the new conquerors, the Arabs.
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