Diplomacy in the Early Islamic World

A Tenth-Century Treatise on Arab-Byzantine Relations

Maria Vaiou

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781845116521
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786724458
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: European Medieval History

Arab messengers played a vital role in the medieval Islamic world and its diplomatic relations with foreign powers. An innovative treatise from the 10th Century ("Rusul al-Muluk", "Messengers of Kings") is perhaps the most important account of the diplomacy of the period, and it is here translated into English for the first time. "Rusul al-Muluk" draws on examples from the Qur'an and other sources which extend from the period of al-jahiliyya to the time of the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim (218-227/833-842). In the only medieval Arabic work which exists on the conduct of messengers and their qualifications, the author Ibn al-Farr rejects jihadist policies in favor of quiet diplomacy and a pragmatic outlook of constructive realpolitik. "Rusul al-Muluk" is an extraordinarily important and original contribution to our understanding of the early Islamic world and the field of International Relations and Diplomatic History.

Notes

Introduction

1.For various references to the Rusul al-mulūk, see M. Khadduri, War and peace in the law of Islam (Baltimore, 1955), 240, 241, 242, 303; M. Ḥamīdullāh, Muslim conduct of state, 4th ed. (Lahore, 1961), 142, 367; EI², 8, ‘Rūm’ (N. el-Cheikh, C. E. Bosworth), 601–6, 601; C. Bassiouni, ‘Protection of diplomats under Islamic law’, AJIL 74 (1980), 609–33, 613; N. El-Cheikh, ‘Byzantium viewed by the Arabs’ (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard, 1992), 36, 37; eadem, Byzantium viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 60, 79 ns. 102, 109; eadem, ‘Byzantine leaders in Arabic-Muslim texts’, in J. Haldon and L. I. Conrad (eds.), Elites old and new in the Byzantine and early Islamic Near East: papers of the sixth workshop of late antiquity and early Islam (Princeton, 2004), 109–31, 114 n. 21; eadem, ‘Describing the other to get at the self: Byzantine women in Arabic sources (8th–11th centuries)’, JESHO 40.2 (1997), 239–50 at 241 n. 27; R. A. Khouri al-Odetallah, ‘Ὰραβες καὶ Βυζαντινοί. Τὸ πρόβλημα τῶν αἰχμαλώτων πολέμου’ (Ph.D. thesis, Thessaloniki, 1983), 72; F. Rosenthal, ‘Abū Zayd al-Balkhī on politics’, in C. E. Bosworth, Ch. Issawi, R. Savory and A. L. Udovitch (eds.), The Islamic world from classical to modern times. Essays in honor of B. Lewis (Princeton, NJ, 1989), 287–301 at 288; M. Vaiou, ‘Diplomatic relations between the Abbasid caliphate and the Byzantine empire: methods and procedures’ (D. Phil. thesis, Oxford, 2002); C. Robinson, Islamic historiography (Cambridge, 2003), 64, n.14, 201; M. T. Mansouri, ‘Les musulmans à Byzance (VII–XIe s)’, in V. Christides and Th. Papadopoulos (eds.), Proceedings of the sixth international congress of Graeco–Oriental and African studies Nicosia 30 April–5 May 1996, GA vols 7–8 (1999–2000), 379–94, 391 n. 44, 387 n. 33; Y. Lev, ‘The Fatimids and Byzantium, 10th–12th centuries’, in Christides and Papadopoulos, Proceedings, 273–81 at 281 n. 28; J. Shepard, ‘Byzantium’s overlapping circles’, in E. Jeffreys (ed.), Proceedings of the 21st international congress of Byzantine studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, v. 1, Plenary papers (Aldershot, 2006), 15–57, 35 ns. 77, 78; W. Kaegi, ‘Confronting Islam: emperors versus caliphs (641–c. 850)’, in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge history of the Byzantine empire c. 500–1492 (Cambridge, 2008), 365–94, 387 n. 58; and F. Bauden, ‘Le parole del potere nelle lettere scambiate tra i Mamelucchi e i Mongoli’, in Il potere della parola, la parola del potere tra Europa e mondo arabo-ottomano tra medioevo ed età moderna, Atti della giornata di studio –Venezia 7 novembre 2008, a cura di A. Ghersetti (Venezia, 2010), 87–98, 89 n. 3.

2.Ibn al-Farrā’, Kitāb rusul al-mulūk, ed. S. al-Munajjid (Cairo, 1947; ²Beirut, 1972); RM, Cairo manuscript, Dār al-Kutub, no. 12956; and the Persian translation: Rusul al-mulūk = Safrān: Sifārat dar Islām va sifārat dar gharb, tarjumah-i P. Atābakī (Tihran, 1984).

3.It is the conduct of relations between states and other entities by official agents and by peaceful means. There is a vast bibliography on diplomacy and its functions: see, for example, H. Bull, The anarchical society: a study of order in world politics (London, 1977), 162–83; D. Queller, The office of ambassador in the middle ages (Princeton, 1967); E. M. Satow, Satow’s guide to diplomatic practice, ed. Lord Gore-Booth, 5th ed. (London and New York, 1979); G. Mattingly, Renaissance diplomacy (New York, 1988); R. G. Feltham, Diplomatic handbook (London and New York, 1998); J. R. Wood and J. Serres, Diplomatic ceremonial and protocol: principles, procedures and practices (London, 1970). For studies on Muslim diplomacy, and on Islamic law on diplomacy, see Khadduri, 239–50; Ḥamīdullāh, 142–53; A. Iqbal, Diplomacy in Islam: an essay on the art of negotiations as conceived and developed by the Prophet of Islam (Lahore, 1962); idem, The Prophet’s diplomacy – the art of negotiation as conceived and developed by the Prophet of Islam (Mass, 1975).

4.Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims were based on the principle that a permanent state of war (jihād) exists between the dār al-Islām (‘realm of Islam’) and the dār al-ḥarb (‘realm of war’), aiming at the spread of God’s rule over the world. For this concept, which is identified as having emerged in the first half of the second/eighth century and “recognizes the temporary failure of the Islamic conquests to be universal”, and on the gradual emergence of the normative jihād theory, see R. P. Mottahedeh and R. al-Sayyid, ‘The idea of the jihad in Islam before the Crusades’, in A. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (eds.), The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim world (Washington, DC, 2001), 23–9, 28; EI², 2, ‘Dār al-Ḥarb’ (A. Abel), 126; EI², 2, ‘Dār al-Islām’ (A. Abel), 127–8; Khadduri, 52–3. For the terms jihād, meaning ‘fight, battle, holy war (against the infidels)’, see EI², 2, ‘Djihād’ (E. Tyan), 538–40; EI², 3, ‘Ḥarb’ (Majid Khadduri, Cl. Cahen et al.), 180–203, 180–4; E. W. Lane, An Arabic–English lexicon, 8 vols (London, 1863–93), 1, pt. 2, 473 (v. jahada, ‘to strive, exert oneself’); The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New edition: Glossary and index of technical terms to volumes I–VIII, compiled by J. van Lent, ed. P. J. Bearman (Leiden, 1997), 78 (‘effort directed towards a determined objective, a military action with the object of the expansion of Islam’ etc.). For the doctrine and types of jihād in Muslim legal theory, see Khadduri, 55–82. For the theme of the virtues of the jihād, see ‘Abd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), ‘Kitāb al-jihād’, in M. Bonner, Aristocratic violence and holy war: studies in the jihad and the Arab–Byzantine frontier (New Haven, 1996), 119–34; idem, Jihad, index; Mottahedeh–al-Sayyid, ‘The idea of the jihad’, in Laiou and Mottahedeh, Crusades, 26–7, 29. For the terms ghazw (razzia, ‘aiming at gaining plunder’, pl. ghizwān), and ghazwa (‘raid against the infidels, Prophet’s expeditions’, pl. ghazawāt), see EI², 2, ‘Ghazw’ (T. M. Johnstone), 1055–6, Lane, 1, pt. 6, 2257; Bearman, 99, 100. For the term maghāzī (‘campaigns’), see EI², 5, ‘Al-Maghāzī’ (M. Hinds), 1161–4. For the term siyar (‘rules of war and dealings with non-Muslims’, s. sīra) in books of law and ḥadīth, see EI², 9, ‘Sīra’ (W. Raven), 660–3, 660. For the concept of siyar and a number of works on the siyar, see al-Shaybānī (d. 189/804), K. al-siyar al-kabīr, ed. M. Khadduri, al-Qānūn al-duwalī al-islāmī: K. al-siyar lil-Shaybānī (Beirut, 1975); tr. M. Khadduri as The Islamic law of nations: Shaybānī’s Siyar (Baltimore, 1966), 38ff. For examples of works of law on jihād, maghāzī (‘campaign narratives’), and siyar (‘law or conduct of war’), see M. Bonner, Jihad in Islamic history (Princeton, NJ, 2006), index, 194, 194–5, 197; idem, Aristocratic violence and holy war, 107ff. For the term siyar, and the use of the terms maghāzī and jihād and siyar in early legal works, see M. Hinds, ‘Maghāzī and Sīra in early Islamic scholarship’, in L. I. Conrad, P. Crone, J. Bacharach (eds.), Studies in early Islamic history (Princeton, 1996), 188–98, 193–4; H. Motzki, Analysing Muslim traditions: studies in legal, exegetical and maghazi hadith (Leiden, 2010). See also the studies by R. Firestone, Jihad: the origins of holy war in Islam (Oxford and New York, 1999). F. Donner, ‘The sources of Islamic conceptions of war’ in J. Kelsay and J. Turner Johnson (eds.), Just war and jihad: historical and theoretical perspectives on war and peace in western and Islamic traditions (New York and London, 1991), 31–70; idem, ‘The expansion of the early Islamic state’, in idem (ed.), The expansion of the early Islamic state (Aldershot, 2008), xiii–xxxi; M. Canard, ‘La guerre sainte dans le monde islamique et dans le monde chrétien’, RA 79 (1936), 605–23; repr. Byzance et les musulmans du Proche Orient (London, 1973), no. 8. For classic studies of Islamic attitudes to war and peace, see I. Goldziher, Muslim studies (Mohammedanische Studien), edited by S. M. Stern, translated by C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols (London, 1967, 1971), ii, 346–62, 35...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Note on transliteration
• List of plates
• List of maps
• List of figures
• Introduction
• Messengers of Kings
• Notes
• Appendices
• Bibliography