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Abd
al-Hamid: A letter to Secretaries
Bureaucracy has existed as long as civilisation, 5000 years according to V. Gordon Childe[1]. It has always been of fundamental importance to rulers. In the text the chief Khatib, Abd al-Hamid, a mawlā of Persian origin, addresses the secretaries of the Ummayyad Empire (661-750). He reminds them of their value to the Caliph, that he ‘cannot do without them’ because they represent his eyes, ears and tongue. Weber said all ancient bureaucracies had a patrimonial ruler, who saw his great domain as an extension of his household. The highly centralised political administration was treated as a personal affair of the Ummayyad ruler, although it was exercised through the bureaucracy like the Khatib, which he needed to legitimise his rule. This system contained inherent flaws, evident in the way the dynasty easily collapsed under Marwan II. Many other ancient bureaucracies were inefficient, often less so than other types of organisation. For example, imperial China, the archetypal state bureaucracy, was especially riven with patronage and venality. A hierarchical conception of society, similar to that of the Mughal Empire, is clearly in evidence in the letter. It describes the Khatib as the cream of all the classes, below God and the Caliph, but above everyone else. In Pre-industrial societies the ruling elite realised the importance of being sharply demarcated from the ‘the ignorant and vulgar’ masses, for example in their ability to write, their knowledge of History and their appreciation of high culture. Rigorous, highly specialised training from childhood resulted in the Khatib having little in common with the rest of population. He did not ‘speak their language, view things from their perspective or identify himself in terms of their experiences[2]’. A reason the Khatib are held in such esteem is that their position was originally introduced by the Prophet Muhammad. He had 44 Khatibs who would write for him. These are the ‘virtuous, just, and noble predecessors’ described in the letter. Al-Hamid says God should protect those who ‘practice the art of writing’ because only they are capable of maintaining the Caliphate. The bureaucracy was so vital to Caliphs because after the establishment of the Islamic state in Medina, the work of Khatib, which means writer, assumed political overtones, in addition to religious duties. The letter states they are responsible for land taxes as well as the ‘knowledge of the book of Almighty God’. This is similar to the wide variety of activities the Church engaged in throughout early modern Europe or similarly the extensive nature of Buddhist influence in Sung China. In the earlier period of Islam, the extension of Islamic rule had been based on a straightforward desire to spread the word of God. Although Muslims used force when they met resistance, they never compelled defeated enemies to convert, unlike, for example, Christianity in South America. Under Muhammad, the Muslim state was definitely a theocracy, with the Shari'ah law as the law of the land. The Caliphs, whose title meant ‘successor to the Messenger of God’ were both secular and religious leaders. Unlike other heads of empires such as T’ang Taizong in China, they were not supposed to promulgate dogma, because Muhammad was thought to ‘have completely revealed the faith[3]’. However, under the autocratic Umayyads, secular concerns and the problems inherent in administrating a great empire dominated the Caliph’s priorities. That ruling an area that by 750 extended from Morocco and much of Spain to the borders of China and northern India relegated religious concerns disturbed devout Muslims. This is not to say they ignored religious values; they actually grew in strength for centuries. Nevertheless, the fact that religious concerns were not always at the forefront caused the downfall of the Ummayyads. For example Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik was forced to devote his reign to political problems. He established the elaborate bureaucracy al-Hamid addresses in the letter. The specific agencies that were introduced to keep pay records and collect taxes formed an immense bureaucracy. It made the khatib even more necessary to the ruler, as the text shows. Collecting and counting the money is obviously important to any ruler. The Ummayyads established postal routes, primarily to serve the needs of bureaucrats. Arabic coinage replaced Sasanian coins. Most important of the extensive ‘Arabisation’ was Arabic becoming the language of administration, replacing Greek and Pahlavi. This naturally led to Arab Khatibs replacing Persians and Greeks in important financial and administrative positions. Such measures sowed the seeds for the tree of knowledge which was to bloom so spectacularly in Abbasidian Baghdad. The khatib were a fundamental part of the super-elite primarily because they could write which was extremely rare. The letter states every secretary is required to master the Arabic language. Laura Vaglieri wrote that until around the time of Marwan II, ‘there was no prose that deserves to be called literary[4]’. The letter on the secretary’s art, written with many synonyms and clarity of expression, shows how the language had progressed. Throughout Islamic history Classical Arabic has remained the language of royal and princely courts, the bureaucracy and the learned. Mastery of the language through written and oral expression, which every khatib exhibited, has always led to respect and awe and that certainly appears the case in the letter. The main reason why Arabic became so prized was because it was the ‘tongue of the angels[5]’ the medium for God’s word revealed through Muhammad in the Qur’an. In the same way as Arabic was the learned language of the Ummayyad Empire, the Roman Empire had Greek and Latin and Hindu India had Sanskrit. These learned languages enabled educated men to communicate over space and time. Karl Marx said of the Chinese bureaucracy: ‘The class of scholar officials, numerically infinitecimal but omnipotent by reason of their strength and influence…held all the power…because of its monopoly on education[6]’. He could have been describing the khatibs in the Ummayyad Empire or the Catholic Church in the time of the Venerable Bede. In each case an unproductive elite drew its strength and incomparable prestige from coordinating and supervising the productive labour of the majority. Another example would be the officials in Mesopotamia who administered corvée labour and military service. Marx called these bureaucrats ‘the embodiment of the state, which was created in their image[7]’. He called imperial China a totalitarian state, and the dissident, persecute minorities of the Ummayyad empire also believed they lived under a tyrant. The letter states the importance of ‘acquiring a fine handwriting’ to the scholar-official. This notion, which began with the hieroglyphic script developed by the Egyptians persisted right up until Victorian times. The adornment of letters’ mentioned in the letter was particularly important in Imperial China and Japan where calligraphy was by far the most important art-form. The Arabic script Abd al-Hamid would have used evolved from Phoenician writing. In Islamic countries calligraphy assumed enormous significance as a form of decoration. It was so crucial because while the depiction of living things was forbidden, the written word of God was thought worthy of only the finest craftsmanship. The letter emphasises the importance of studying History to any khatib, saying they should learn about ‘the Arabs and the Persians and their stories and heroic deeds’. Like that of the ancient Jews, Muslim fascination in historiography was chiefly because of religion. Muhammad imbued Islam with a strong sense of history. It is significant that Muslim historians like Ibn Khaldun have concentrated on devout men and scholars rather than political and military leaders. This explains the hostility towards the Ummayyad’s autocratic rule. History was also an integral part of the education of the Chinese bureaucracy. Like al-Hamid, Confucius, who preached a hierarchical society similar to that alluded to in the letter, also emphasised the importance of History[8]. The fact they are asked to know military history suggests they played an important role in the empire’s defence. Other scholarly elites who concentrated on military History include the Romans and ancient Greeks. Medieval European education emphasised tales of heroic knights during the Crusades. The
secretaries are told in the letter to learn poetry because it is an another
affirmation of their superior identity as the educated. The
Umayyad period saw an upsurge of poetic creativity. Because of their more
secular approach to affairs, the Umayyads encouraged political poetry as a
method of helping them uphold and defend their rule. Just as in ancient Rome, in
a society where the mass media was non-existent the work of poets like Jarir and
al-Faradaq was thought an effective weapon against the enemies of the regime[9]. The
qualities and skills stressed in the letter were those demanded in other ancient
bureaucracies. For example, in Egypt the temple schools taught not only religion
but also writing, science and mathematics which are all declared as essential by
al-Hamid. Similarly, education in T’ang China stressed Confucianist and
Legalist philosophy, poetry, and religion. The Chinese system of civil-service
examination, which started to select scholars on merit under Wu Zeitan during
the time of the Ummayads, was used in China until the 20th century. The ability of pre-industrial states like the Ummayyads to take decisive action, to co-ordinate and control on a large scale was often inadequate. Evidence of this in the letter is that ‘no competent person can be found, save among you’. Though they had deputies of the Prophet, advisors, secretaries, envoys, commissioners, judges, poets and orators, rulers like Marwan II were chronically short of personnel and other infrastructure, hence the individual importance of each Khatib. Khatibs carried out many diverse essential tasks – initiating, administering, controlling and verifying. Together with the ruler, they formed the political, cultural, economic and religious centre of the empire, from which authority emanated and on which the cohesion of the wider society was undoubtedly founded. We can tell from the letter that the full support of the educated elite is considered necessary for the empire to continue. The fact that al-Hamid emphasises the importance of a secretary remaining loyal to their master suggests he has cause to worry about their disloyalty. An example of the misadministration and corruption that so undermined the Ummayyad throne and left Marwan II easy prey for the Abbasids is the case of ‘Abdullah al-Qasin, who stole 13,000,000 dirhams from a government project[10]. The secretaries are warned against coveting wealth and power because it is ‘a degradation and cause of evil’. Such concerns reflect the reality that the state machinery was often too ponderous, too disunited, too coercive, too mistrusted and above all too corrupt to work with any degree of speed, precision, or efficiency. The low degree of integration combined with the narrow range of services performed by the state meant that there was little to hold them together in times of internal stress or external pressure. For example, 2 million ‘barbarian’ Mongols were able to conquer, relatively easily, over 200 million ‘civilised’ people[11] and the Ummayyad dynasty was easily displaced under Marwan II. The Mongol conquests were merely the most successful of a series of successful invasions such as those of the Assyrians and the Hyksos. The perpetual weakness of the civilised state structures often led to fragile, brittle and transient empires until the invention of firearms empowered larger states, such as those in East Asia, to be more secure. Though the Ummayyad Caliphs apparently enjoyed both political power and religious authority asserting this authority proved the source of their downfall. As in the case of the inherently unstable Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, those with local roots were a constant threat to the centre. Many prominent locals resented the Ummayyad bureaucracy interfering with their independence. Whereas many of the aristocracy of the former Byzantine territories emigrated to Constantinople, the elites of Persia had to remain, subordinated to the Arab rulers. Nor did it help that the later Umayyad caliphs were men of poor quality whose luxurious lifestyle, innovative measures and other mistakes angered the Shi’ites. Under Marwan II, when the letter was written, respect for rule deteriorated to the point that it was no longer widely recognised. Muslims across the empire believed the Umayyads had strayed too far from Muhammad's teachings. A rebel
Muslim army from Khurasan, who felt excluded from power and wealth by
Umayyad policies headed for Damascus and installed Abbas as Caliph.
Marwan II fled into Egypt, where he was beheaded. The bureaucratic system
addressed in the letter, though it would prosper in future Islam states, proved
too weak to save the Ummayyad dynasty. Although the letter mentions God eight
times Muslim historiography has strongly disapproved of the secular nature of
the Umayyad state. Most of
the Umayyad
caliphs are seen as tyrannical and worldly rulers, who often ignored the
interests of Islam and were preoccupied with acquiring power. Frequently they
are not called caliphs and referred to as a dynasty of kings, like those who
ruled non-Muslim lands. Shiite tradition totally denies the legitimacy of
Umayyad rule. Like all other civilisations Islam has witnessed the cycle of gradual decline and decay of empires. Though early Muslim caliphs did enjoy both political power and religious authority, which they were able to exercise through their scholarly, noble and cultured bureaucracies, they were rapidly cut down to size. The fact that the Ummayads were deposed mainly because the learned men switched their alliance to the Abbasids shows the immense importance of the secretaries to the rulers. The new dynasty demanded a return, to use al-Hamids choice of words in the letter, to the purely Islamic values of their ‘virtuous, just and noble predecessors’. The bureaucracy became increasingly elaborate in the flourishing Abbasid empire and its successor states, with the role of the Katib becoming ever more important to the rulers. Bibliography
[1] E. Kamenka, Bureaucracy, Basil Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1989, 9 [2] P. Crone, Pre-industrial Societies, Basil Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1989, 86 [3] ‘Education, History of’, Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000 [4] P.M. Holt ed, Cambridge History Of Islam, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970, 98 [5] R.M. Savroy ed., Islamic Civilisation, Cambridge University Press, 1976, 15 [6] Kamenka, Bureaucracy, 24 [7] Ibid., 24 [8] Waley, The Analects of Confucius, G. Allen & Unwin, London, 1971, 90 [9] Savroy, Islamic Civilisation, 64 [10] P. K. Hitti, History Of The Arabs: 10th Edition, Macmillan, London, 1970, 233 |
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