The Most Noble of People : Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain

Jessica A. Coope

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780472902583

The Most Noble of People presents a nuanced look at questions of identity in Muslim Spain under the Umayyads, an Arab dynasty that ruled from 756 to 1031. With a social historical emphasis on relations among different religious and ethnic groups, and between men and women, Jessica A. Coope considers the ways in which personal and cultural identity in al-Andalus could be alternately fluid and contentious.The opening chapters define Arab and Muslim identity as those categories were understood in Muslim Spain, highlighting the unique aspects of this society as well as its similarities with other parts of the medieval Islamic world. The book goes on to discuss what it meant to be a Jew or Christian in Spain under Islamic rule, and the degree to which non-Muslims were full participants in society. Following this is a consideration of gender identity as defined by Islamic law and by less normative sources like literature and mystical texts. It concludes by focusing on internal rebellions against the government of Muslim Spain, particularly the conflicts between Muslims who were ethnically Arab and those who were Berber or native Iberian, pointing to the limits of Muslim solidarity.Drawn from an unusually broad array of sources—including legal texts, religious polemic, chronicles, mystical texts, prose literature, and poetry, in both Arabic and Latin—many of Coope's illustrations of life in al-Andalus also reflect something of the larger medieval world. Further, some key questions about gender, ethnicity, and religious identity that concerned people in Muslim Spain—for example, women's status under Islamic law, or what it means to be a Muslim in different contexts and societies around the world—remain relevant today.

1. The Umayyads

Julius Wellhausen, in the title of his famous book, described the Umayyad regime as Das arabische Reich, the Arab empire, and held that its passing marked the moment when the Arabs lost control of the movement they had created and the leadership of the umma passed to a new élite, some of Arab origin, many others of Iranian or, slightly later, of Turkish descent. Despite the challenges to this picture, it remains basically intact; no one who could not claim Arab descent played a leading role in Umayyad politics or court life, although the talents of non-Arabs in financial or agricultural administration were certainly used. But it was an Arab kingdom in another important sense as well; it was the period when the Arabic language came to dominate the Near East, not in the sense that the majority of the populations became Arabic speaking but in the sense that it became the language of bureaucracy, high court culture, and, above all, the religion of the ruling class. The dominance of Arabic was bound up with the dominance of Islam, which retained its identity and separateness in a society where there were numerous ancient and highly developed religious tradition.1

Chronology:

• 661–750: Umayyad rule in the Middle East and al-Maghrib
• 750–1258: Abbasid rule in the Middle East
• 711–750, and 756–1031: Umayyad rule in al-Andalus

The quotation above, from Hugh Kennedy, highlights how important Arab culture was during the period of Umayyad rule in the Middle East, and how closely being Arab and being Muslim were linked. Before we examine the specifics of ethnic and religious conflict in al-Andalus, it will be useful to get an overview of Umayyad governance. Although there is much in the Umayyads’ history in al-Andalus that is different from their history in the Middle East, the dynasty faced many of the same challenges in both areas. Those challenges included the tensions between Arab ethnic identity and Islamic values, including values relating to gender; the question of how legitimate the Umayyads’ claim to religious authority really was; and the problems inherent in supporting Arab cultural traditions while at the same time ruling over a culturally diverse population. The specific incidents of conflict and compromise presented in later chapters were linked to these structural tensions in Umayyad rule.

Early Umayyad Rule in al-Andalus

‘Abd al-Raḥmān of the Umayyad family, grandson of the caliph al-Hishām (r. 724–43), arrived in al-Andalus in 755.2 The Umayyads, members of the Prophet Muḥammad’s tribe of the Quraysh, and therefore his distant relatives, had been caliphs, leaders of the Islamic community or ummah, since 661. Their empire included the Middle East, parts of central Asia, North Africa, and Spain, all of which they ruled from their capital in Damascus, Syria. In 747, however, a rebellion against their rule began, and in 750 the Abbasid family, also members of Muḥammad’s tribe and in fact more closely related to him, came to power.3 The Abbasids killed most of the Umayyads and ruled as caliphs until the Mongols sacked Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, in 1258. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, one of the few surviving Umayyads, fled from the Middle East to North Africa, taking refuge with the family of his mother, and then to al-Andalus, where powerful clients of the Umayyads were able to ensure his safety.4

Al-Andalus at the time of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān’s arrival was the site of considerable competition for power. A Muslim army of perhaps 12,000, mostly North African Berbers with a small number of Arabs, had conquered the peninsula for the Umayyads beginning in 711. After the conquest, Umayyad-appointed governors ruled in al-Andalus.5 Most of the Arabs in that early group were from Yamanī, or southern Arabian, tribes. Then in 740 a Berber revolt against Arab privilege in general and Umayyad rule in particular began in North Africa and spread to al-Andalus. Caliph al-Hishām sent an army of 30,000 Syrian troops to North Africa to put down the revolt. Of those, 10,000, led by the general Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayrī, crossed over to al-Andalus and suppressed the Berbers there. These late-arriving Arabs were mostly from tribes that were originally Muḍarī, or northern Arabian and Syrian. Conflict between Yamanīs and Muḍarīs was widespread in the Islamic empire, and most likely did not in fact go back to ancient territorial conflicts in Arabia; the factionalism probably developed out of the differing political and military interests of various groups involved in the Arab conquests.6 In any event, the Yamanīs in al-Andalus saw the newcomers as a threat to their power. Balj’s troops and the Yamanī early settlers ended up in an armed conflict during which Balj deposed the sitting governor in 741 and became governor himself. He then embarked on policies that favored his newly arrived troops, giving them control of land at the expense of earlier settlers and exempting them from certain taxes. The arrival of Balj and his troops added to the Arab presence in al-Andalus, and more specifically to the presence of northern tribes, many of whom were strong allies of the Umayyads; it also tipped off a damaging round of factionalism.7

The Abbasid takeover of 750 had little immediate impact on al-Andalus. Independent governors, not appointed by the Abbasids, continued to rule for the next six years. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān became amīr (a general term meaning ruler or governor) in 756 after a military struggle that pitted the troops of Umayyad allies against those of the reigning governor, Yūsuf al-Fihrī (r. 747–56).8 As of 756, the Umayyads had lost their role as caliphs and rulers over all Islamic lands, but, with only a short gap during which independent governors ruled, maintained their control over al-Andalus.

The al-Andalus in which ‘Abd al- Raḥmān came to power was troubled, particularly since the coming of Balj, by conflict among Arab factions.9 A discontent Berber population and a majority population of unassimilated Christian Goths and Celto-Romans contributed to the potential unrest. In many respects, the problems were similar to the ones the Umayyads had faced during their years ruling the Middle East, central Asia, and North Africa. After the death of Muḥammad in 632, Arab Muslim troops came from Arabia into the Middle East and beyond as a foreign invading army and ruled over a population that was, for close to two centuries, mostly non-Muslim. As would later be the case in al-Andalus, factionalism among Arab tribal groups—often representing disputes between old and new waves of settlers—was a common problem. The Arab conquerors began as a ruling military aristocracy, in most areas living in separate military bases or amṣār (singular miṣr), then gradually settled on the land and intermarried with the subject population. While conversion to Islam was mandatory for conquered groups whom Muslims identified as polytheists (such as most Berber tribes in North Africa), Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians counted as members of legitimate religions and were not required to convert. They did nevertheless convert, but only gradually, first in urban areas where being Muslim could open up new opportunities in government work and in trade. The Umayyads in al-Andalus faced the same issues as the Umayyads in the Middle East: how to maintain military and political control of a population that was divided not only between rulers and subjects but within the ruling elite itself, how to legitimate their authority, and how and to what extent to maintain an identity for the ruling group separate from that of the subject population.

Despite those basic similarities, however, the Muslim settlement of al-Andalus happened under conditions distinct from those in the Middle East. The defeated Byzantine and Sasanian Persian empires left behind a sophisticated infrastructure in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Persia. Cities, religious monuments, governments with the capacity to keep records and levy taxes, all survived; once the military conquest was complete, it was mainly a question of the new rulers plugging into a system that already worked. It was not until the 680s that Arab rulers developed their own cultural style, and that style was often imposed on preexisting institutions.10 The Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) made Arabic the official language of administration, but Christian and Jewish scribal families continued to run that administration. The Umayyads built the Great Mosque at Damascus, completed between 706 and 715, over a Christian church and with the assistance of Greek craftsmen.11 ‘Abd al-Malik’s Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with its location on the Jewish Temple Mount, asserted both a connection with and dominance over an older religious tradition.12 While Muslims moving into Iberia benefited from some of these same institutions—as a former Roman province the peninsula had cities, roads, cathedrals suitable for refitting as mosques, and trained administrators—the quality of infrastructure was much inferior to that of Byzantine and Sasanian territories.

That difference is explained by the fact that al-Andalus, unlike Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, and Persia, did not go directly from being part of an empire to Muslim rule. By 500 CE, the Roman Empire in the West had collapsed, and groups of Germanic and other peoples invaded and established kingdoms; in the case of Iberia and, for a time, southern France, the Visigothic tribe dominated. There is considerable difference of opinion as to how effective the Visigoths were as rulers and preservers of the Roman tradition, although by 711 conflicts within the ruling elite and over-dependence on a large slave population had become problems.13 Whatever the merits of Visigothic administration, however, it is clear that no Germanic regime was able to replicate the complexity of Roman governance, or the Roman sense of a ruler who held a public office rather than seizing territory as a personal possession. The Merovingians in Gaul, contemporaries and military antagonists of the Visigoths, were arguably the more successful dynasty of the two. They nevertheless saw their kingdom as family property rather than a trust they administered for the public good, as is evidenced by their understanding of the tax rolls as a source of personal income.14 The works of Isidore of Seville and others demonstrate that Latin high culture persisted in Visigothic times, but not at the same level as Greek and Persian literature and scholarship in the former Byzantine and Sasanian provinces. The lack of administrative and cultural complexity in Iberia meant that the Muslim conquerors did not adopt aspects of the local high culture and government as they did elsewhere. When the Umayyads sought models of governance and elite culture, they looked to the Abbasid Middle East and its hybrid of Greek, Persian, and Arab institutions.15

Another difference between the conquest of al-Andalus and of the Middle East was the large number of non-Arabs who entered al-Andalus as part of the conquering army.16 In western North Africa, the dominant group was the indigenous Berber population, divided between farmers and nomads. The Berber tribes became the earliest non-Arab group to adopt Islam in large numbers. In most areas under the early Umayyads, a non-Arab who converted to Islam became a mawlā, or client, of an Arab tribe, meaning someone whom the tribe was obligated to protect but who did not have full equality with members by birth. At that time mawālī probably had to pay a head tax called the jizyah, even though that tax was later levied on non-Muslims only. A mawlā soldier received lower pay than an Arab and did not have a right to share in the booty or to claim conquered land. Because Berbers in the Maghrib were such a vital part of the military, however, making up the majority of the army that conquered al-Andalus, they got better treatment, at least sometimes. Berbers generally had a right to booty and conquered land, and they did not pay the jizyah.17 This policy was apparently not official or universally observed; Yazīd ibn Abī Muslim Dīnār, appointed by the caliph as governor of North Africa in 720, attempted to reimpose jizyah on the Berbers and was killed by his Berber guard in 721.18 In some cases, Berber soldiers or their Arab commanders invented genealogies connecting them to Arab tribes, presumably to sidestep the issue of offering privileges to non-Arabs. Arabs were far more likely than Berbers to occupy command positions in the army. Nevertheless, the Berbers’ military presence meant that in al-Andalus, as in the rest of the Maghrib, there were large numbers of non-Arab Muslims who had a good argument for demanding equal treatment with Arabs.

A final and important difference between al-Andalus and the Middle East is that the Abbasid Revolution never happened in al-Andalus. That revolution in the Middle East meant more than a shift of power from one dynasty to the other. It entailed a move away from the connection between Muslim and Arab identity to an understanding of Islam as a universal religion without a specific ethnic identity. It meant a greater acceptance, at least in court circles, of Greek and Persian high culture and science.19 And it included a mode of leadership that emphasized the Persian-style grandeur and distance of the ruler rather than the traditional Arab style, in which the ruler was first among equals. Although the Umayyads in al-Andalus gradually adopted Abbasid court ceremonial and some aspects of Abbasid high culture, they continued for most of their rule to see Islamic and Arab identity as linked aspects of aristocratic culture.

That emphasis on Arab identity was both a strength and a weakness. To be an Arab meant to be able to trace an unbroken line of Arab male ancestors; the female line could be counted in some circumstances but was not crucial. The Umayyads gained social prestige from the fact that they could trace their ancestry back to prominent Arab figures in the pre-Islamic Ḥijāz (western Arabia), and religious prestige from their kinship with Muḥammad’s family. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān I deliberately styled himself as an Arab shaykh (an elder who led in consultation with other prominent men of his tribe) and invited other Umayyads to immigrate to al-Andalus; they became the Quraysh al-ṣulb, the true descendants of Muḥammad’s tribe, and second only to ‘Abd al-Raḥmān and his immediate family in precedence.20 Other Arab families in al-Andalus could also point to distinguished lineages going back to pre-Islamic times, and they formed an aristocracy that was at times a source of support for the Umayyads. Arabs and Berbers in al-Andalus maintained at least a theoretical commitment to the notion of ‘aṣabīyah, which can be defined as tribal loyalty. More specifically it means a strong sense of loyalty among men who are agnatic (father’s side) kin, a group of men who can trace their common ancestry through the male line for several generations.21 ‘Aṣabīyah also implies a strong commitment to endogamous marriage (marriage among kin), especially for women in the group. While men could and did take wives from outside the kin group, the marriage that Arab society favored for a man was with his bint al-‘amm, the daughter of his paternal uncle, or if that alliance was not possible, with another close cousin. Women were prohibited from marrying outside the kin group. Language was another marker of Arab identity. Although many Arabs in al-Andalus spoke Romance, a good command of Arabic remained an important criterion for admission to aristocratic circles and government service.22

At its most useful, Arab identity was a source of solidarity and prestige for the Umayyads and their aristocratic followers. It was an ethnic identity that was only partially dependent on biological descent, and was in that respect different from modern ideas of race. The question of who was or was not Arab could be answered in different ways, making the boundaries that set off the ruling elite flexible. A man who was not an Arab by descent but who was an asset to the ruling group could become part of it through a fictive Arab genealogy or by becoming proficient in Arabic and assimilating to Arab culture.23

Arab identity was also a source of problems for the Umayyads. Th...