#Rashidun Caliphate

[racefortheironthrone]

How did all the heresies and theological arguments of the Late Roman Empire lead to "the Arab caliphates getting a decent navy and winning the Battle of the Masts"?

This is actually a fascinating story about the nature of the religious world and religious politics in the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires and the Rashidun Caliphate.

Because heresies and theological arguments tended to start at the level of bishops and patriarchs fighting with the bishops and patriarchs of other metropoles (and that filters out to which missionaries were sent where), there were strong regional variations as to which position was in the local majority.

Skipping over the Arian controversy because it's not relevant to the Battle of the Masts, Cyril of Alexandria was the leader of the Monophysite faction ("physis" meaning "nature," i.e Christ has one nature, which tracks with the Council of Nicaea's declaration that he had one "essence"), and his dyophysite (meaning two "natures") rivals were based out of Antioch - and Alexandria and thus Egypt became Monophysite. However, Constantinople and Anatolia were dyophysite and worked to make sure that the Second Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon declared monophysitism a heresy and dyophysitism as Orthodoxy, thus leading to the Chalcedonian Schism.

Following on from this, the emperors Justin II and Justinian I were Orthodox. Now, Justinian tried to end the Schism through the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but this didn't really work and it remained state policy to persecute Monophysites. However, the empress Theodora was Monophysite and acted as patroness and political defender of Monophysites throughout the empire - which made her very popular in Egypt...and with the Greens in the Hippodrome, who were also Monophysites. Naturally, if the Greens were Monophysite, the Blues were Orthodox, because why not turn your sports rivalry into a religious rivalry and a pseudo-political party system? It's not called the Byzantine Empire because it's simple.

Even though Theodora was a Green, Justinian supported the Blues, which meant that no matter what your sports team or religious views or pseudo-partisanship you could support the imperial family. (Indeed, many historians think that the two at least somewhat arranged their religious and sports affiliations with this in mind.) This worked...up until the Nika riots ended up with Belisarius turning the Imperial army on the sports fans turned revolutionary rioters in the Hippodrome, leading to the deaths of as many as 30,000 people.

And so it went, with Alexandria tending to be the losers in the monoergism vs. dyoergism (does Christ have one "energy" or two?) debate, and the monolethitism vs. dyolethetism (does Christ have one "will" or two?) debate. Notably, these debates saw the Emperors of the time trying to get the Church to adopt a compromise (both monoergism and monothelitism were essentially an attempt by the Emperor Heraclius and his Patriarch to find a new theological formulation that the Alexandrians could live with while pointing urgently in the direction of first the Persians and then the Arabs) and failing due to religious partisans digging in their heels, or Emperors siding violently with one side or the other, ironically in the name of Imperial unity.

And this brings us to the Arab Conquest that gave birth to the Rashidun Caliphate. Now, the Christian population of Alexandria was not exactly thrilled about suddenly being ruled over by Muslim Arabs in 642...but in a genius stroke of enlightened self-interest, the Rashidun Caliphate adopted a policy whereby non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis) would be left alone in terms of religious matters as long as they paid their jizya taxes on non-Muslims (with the idea being to create a financial incentive to convert). While this wasn't the most popular, the Alexandrians realized that having to pay religious taxes and then getting left alone in peace and quiet to be Monophysite was a much better deal than having to pay Byzantine imperial taxes and getting religiously persecuted all the damn time.

This mattered geostrategically, because the Port of Alexandria was one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean, and thus had one of the largest shipyards and a lot of shipbuilders, and a hell of a lot of trained ex-Roman sailors and marines who were heavily Monophysite. These recently-unemployed sailors and marines were very happy to work for the Rashidun Caliphate, especially when the Caliphs started to shift resources into the navy to combat Byzantine dominance on the seas. Thus, only a few years after the Rashidun conquest of Egypt in 642, the Arab navy was suddenly able to fight on equal terms with the Byzantine navy - and then started kicking their ass.

This at last brings us to the Battle of the Masts in 655, where an Arab fleet (crewed mostly by Monophysite Egyptians) of 200 ships under the command of admiral Abu al-A'war came into contact with a Byzantine fleet of 500 ships led by the Emperor Constans II off the coast of Lycia...and smashed it to pieces. According to the historian al-Tabari, it was called the Battle of the Masts because there were rough seas and both fleets lashed themselves together to allow for marine boarding operations, so that soldiers were literally crossing from mast to mast. Constans II supposedly only managed to escape by changing uniforms with one of his subordinates as a disguise.

The defeat was so crippling that Constantinople was brought under siege for the first time by the Rashidun that same year, although that brief siege (the brevity of which is why historians refer to the siege of 674-678 as the "First Arab Siege of Constantinople") was unsuccessful due to a storm that sunk the Arab ships carrying the artillery and siege engines that the land army was counting on. Naturally, the Byzantines attributed this storm and the first Arab civil war that broke out in 655 (which bought the Byzantines some desperately-needed breathing room) to divine intervention.

Just to show how the past is always with us, I wanted to share a bit of a statement by the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Southern United States:

"The Coptic Orthodox Church was accused of being 'Monophysite' in the Council of Chalcedon. The term monophysite comes from two Greek words meaning "single nature". Monophysitism merged Christ's humanity into His divinity so that effectively it meant that in Christ there was only one single nature, a divine nature. This is NOT what the Coptic Orthodox believes. We believe that "Christ's divinity parted not from His humanity, not for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye" and we recite this statement in every liturgy. As a result, we are Miaphysite and not Monophysite. Miaphysitism (one nature) means the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect human and perfect divine and these two natures are united together without mingling, nor confusion, nor alteration in one nature; the nature of God incarnate."

#byzantine empire #late roman empire #heresy #theology #rashidun caliphate #the battle of the masts

[lightdancer1]

Wrapped up the brief sojourn back into the dawn of the medieval era:

Next will be Napoleon's War with Alexander I in 1812.

This book raises a key point that most of the 'Rome never fell u guise, the rise of Merovingians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and England instead of Britannia is just a hoax' special pleading ignores. Yes, the Germanic tribes had fluid senses of self, but it still counted as a very real sense of self. And if they did, so did the Roman elites that saw themselves as Romans even when the political and economic factors that held together the old Roman world collapsed completely in the West and held together in the East until the Caliphate finally toppled the old world there.

It also addresses the simple reality that to some people in the Muslim world would almost surely get this book burned that the very existence of the Riddah Wars and the older Arab states that were partially still extant and likely to play the vulture ripping into the corpses of partially and fully fallen empires means that the Islamic nature of the early movement is as much hindsight as reality. Because the reality is that only after the end of the Riddah Wars and the crushing of the two potential other prophets did the singular vision of the Ummah stick, and one of them came very close to displacing the Caliphate and the Ummah altogether.

Insights like this make this arguably the best book of its kind, as it has the best possible attitudes to sacred cows and the holy origins of the secular religion of nationalism. Turning the sacred cows into holy hamburger and taking people's nationalist self-conceptions and throwing them on the charcoal to cook the sacred cows.

9/10.

#lightdancer comments on history #book reviews #medieval history #western history #byzantine history #rashidun caliphate #ummayyad caliphate

[dejahisashmom]

Rashidun Caliphate - World History Encyclopedia

https://www.worldhistory.org/Rashidun_Caliphate/

View On WordPress

#1924 #632 #Abu Bakr #Ahura #Aisha #Ali #Arabian Peninsula #Asad Allah #Caliph #Diwan #Farooq #First Fitna #Ghani #Islam #Khalifa #Kharijites #Muawiya #Muhammad #Musaylimah #Rashidun Caliphate #Ridda #Shia #Shia&039;t Ali #Sunni #Umar #Umayya #Ummah #Uthman

[kickasstorrents]

also speaking of old books with movies now i didnt see dune 2 but i heard they made it more nuanced or something which i dont think i like becuase i am fussy

#reading wiki page for rashidun caliphate on cocaina = reading dune

[sane-human]

I'll need to draw these two a lot with the Conquest of Egypt , the amount of details of Egypt's armor will make me die inside , but I have no regrets

#countryhumans rashidun caliphate #countryhumans ancient egypt

[zainab123]

The era of Ali ibn Abi Talib’s caliphate is one of the most difficult times in the history of Islam. However, the events that took place during that time had their roots in previous caliphates.

#sultanulashiqeen #sultanbahoo #tehreekdawatefaqr #tdfblog #blog #ali #spirituality #faqr #markazefaqr #sufi #sufism #mysticism #saint #usman #rashidun #caliphate

[tabsq2025]

Abu Bakr is the first Rashidun Caliph. The duration of his caliphate was two years and four months. The time immediately after the demise of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was very challenging. However, Abu Bakr very wisely dealt with all those challenges. 

#sultanbahoo #sultanulashiqeen #saint #islam #allah #faqr #sufism #sufi #mysticism #spirituality #abubakr #rashidun #caliph

[jewish-sideblog]

Any time I see people call Israel a settler colonialist state I think about the history of the Mizrahi Jews who remained in Judea.

Mizrahi Jews in the seventh century, whose families had lived as native Israelites for 1,800 years, watching the Rashidun Caliphate move the first major wave of Arab Muslim migration into the imperial conquest they called "Military Palestine".

Mizrahi Jews who, over the course of the next 1,200 years, remained in the Levant. The ones who faced persecution, pogroms, and massacres under the Caliphates and Ottomans. The ones who stood strong and stayed put, as access to holy sites they had prayed at for three thousand years were taken from them. The ones who were faced with a choice between conversion and death, but chose neither.

Mizrahi Jews who watched as the modern State of Israel was established-- perhaps sighing in relief for just a moment. Maybe now, they would not be persecuted minorities in the land they had lived in for over three thousand years. Only to see other Mizrahim forced to flee their homes in Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran... Muslim-ruled countries that, through official law or social persecution, intentionally forced other Middle Eastern Jews to leave their homes and settle in Israel.

And the Mizrahi Jews today, who are the majority of the population of Israel. Most Israelis today are either Mizrahim who had lived in what is now Israeli territory for millennia, or Mizrahim who lived nearby and were forced by Muslim-majority nations to immigrate to Israel. Now, they get called "settler colonists", they get called "Europeans", they get called "fascists" and "Zionists". The world accuses them of occupying and stealing Palestinian land.

What were they supposed to have done differently?

Edit 12/27/23: Not so friendly reminder that if your "rebuttal" is to blame the actions of the Israeli government on Israeli civilians, I'm not even gonna bother to read the whole thing. I'll start believing that's a valid argument when average Americans get brought to the Hague for what the US government did in Cambodia.

#israel #jumblr #mizrahi jews

[jewreallythinkthat]

I spent a large portion of today researching tekhelet for work as part of a piece on ancient dyes and I got so stupid emotional. Like it's just a dye, but it was such an important thing in ancient Judaism as the dye which would make tzitzit blue and the method of making it was lost around the time of the Arab conquest of Israel in the 7th century. (Also I note that lots of sources date the loss of the secret of the original manufacture but many just gloss over it mapping directly onto the colonisation of Judea/Israel by the Rashidun Caliphate - I know that the two events may not be connected but I have spent too long looking at history to be able to say that these were completely unrelated y'know... Lost knowledge is very, very rarely a coincidence)

They literally, to this day, still don't know how it was made.

There are multiple theories, most of which revolve around the murex snail (where we get Tyrian purple from) and the fact that if you expose the pigment it produces - di-bromo indigo - to light at the right point in the production process, it is reduced to regular indigo from which you can get your blue dye. But this has all been worked out using modern methods. The ancient production method of tekhelet is gone and I honestly find myself mourning yet another piece of lost knowledge form our history.

#jumblr #thinking about our history and mourning what was lost #we have lost so much feom millenia of pogroms and genocides and its a fucking tragedy #so many stories #so much knowledge #so much love and joy snuffed out like a candle on a windy day

[racefortheironthrone]

I have a question about immigration/settlement dichotomy. Obviously settler colonization is dodgy and problematic and triggers a progressive nativist response, but aren't the same ideas used to justify anti-immigrant sentiment? That seems to be my limited reading. But where does one draw the line? Like in ASOIAF, the Targaryens are Valyrian refugees who became a ruling family, and so are foreign conqueors, but if they didn't rule and stayed immigrants, they'd be persecuted outsiders, right?

This is something of a hot take, so I might delete this later if it this escapes containment, but I think there's a big problem in post-colonial studies (or rather, the popularized version of post-colonial studies you see in social media discourse and activist communities) where there's this tunnel vision with settler colonialism that magnifies it into the only thing that matters. Because there is also non-settler colonialism, which is at the very least just as bad (if not more so, because you tend to get a higher rate of colonial extraction).

Moreover, when you bring post-colonialism into discussion with the history of the ancient world through to the early modern period, questions of settler vs. indigenous become really complicated. There are a lot of periods of history where population migrations overlapped with military and political transformations that are often described as conquest (both imperial and non-imperial), and those migrations and transformations included intermarriage and cultural change/exchange along a spectrum from voluntary to coercion.

If each of these instances are considered an act of colonialism, then almost every people and culture in the world are both criminals and victims - which leads to a kind of shrugging nihilism about human nature being a nil-nil draw. If on the other hand, we follow revisionist historians of the fall of Rome or the establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate or the Ottoman Empire etc. to their logical conclusion, we likewise run the risk of saying that the conquests we approve of are actually complex and marked by cosmopolitan diversity and cultural exchange and thus isn't colonialism, and only the ones we don't approve of get the scarlet C.

#history #historical analysis #post-colonialism #settler colonialism #asoiaf #asoiaf meta

[totallynotcensorship]

sense Jerusalem is trending rn i thought it was a good time to address this

YES, PALESTINE DID EXIST PRIOR TO ISRAEL COLONIZATION

the oldest use of the name Palestine to refer to that region(i.e. land from egypt to phoenicia) dates to the 5th century BCE in herodotus's histories. and is later used by other greek writers like aristotle, polemon, and later pausanias

later on the name is also used by roman writers like ovid, tibullus, pliny the elder, statius and other. and before a zionist comes in and accuses me of antisemitism. the name is also used to refer to the same region by the philosopher philo of alexandria and historian josephus. two romano-JEWISH writers. have fun accusing them of antisemitism

and if "name of the region" isn't enough, it became the official name for the province under roman authorities, the first mention of the name as an official province name being in 135CE. the name continues on through the byzantine empire(a.k.a eastern roman empire), stayed through the muslim conquest by the rashidun caliphate until the end of the ottoman empire's rule over the region where Britain came in and the "League of Nations – Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan Memorandum" was signed establishing the colony of israel(a.k.a the Zionist fascist actively committing a genocide rn)

now on to the Palestinian people them selves

as for the people, a group named something along the lines of "peleset" is named as a neighboring group starting from 1150BCE in egypt as well the name palashtu(or pilistu) is mentioned in assyrian inscriptions on the nimrud slab around 800BCE

Palestinians are Canaanites by genetics, which means that they are related to other local groups of canaan and the levant like the Phoenicians

and for the zionists who like to pretend to care about Judaism, or the tanakh, the philistines is attested to in the torah and later in the books of judges and Samuel(does the name Goliath of GAZA ring any bills?).

zionists are white colonists who don't represent jews nor care about jews as anything more than a shield for criticism.

don't stop talking about palestine

#gaza #palestine #free palestine #free gaza #social justice #imperialism #colonialism #ceasefire now #palestine resources #palestine genocide #from river to sea palestine will be free #palestinian genocide #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #jerusalem

[pwlanier]

WALL PANEL IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET AND THE RASHIDUN CALIPHS

Damascus, Ottoman Syria, 18th or 19th century

In siliceous ceramic, painted in polychrome under transparent glaze, composed of nine tiles forming a decoration of three niches decorated with cypresses flanking a floral central vase, several fractures glued back, hulls and gaps.

Artcurial

[tamamita]

whats the difference between the groups of Muslims? what are they fighting about.

In short, there are three major denominations of Islam, and various sub-branches, but I won't go into the latter.

Sunni, literally standing for those who follow the traditions of the Prophet, are Muslims who believe that politically, the Prophet's companions, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman were successors of the prophet, and the ones to establish the Rashidun Caliphate. Sunni Muslims base most of their traditions on various companions of the Prophet. The concept of Adalat al-Sahaba maintains that any companion that was present during the Prophet's time is a reliable person in terms of how they narrate traditions, thus establishing a multitude of hadiths from them. Although Sunni Islam (as a separate branch) didn't exist at that time, it became the standardized version of Islam when the Shi'as and Khawarijs rebelled against the Umayyads and the Abbasids, seeing the birth of the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence to counter their theological principles.

Shi'a, literally partisans of Ali, hold that through traditions and scriptural basis, Ali, the brother in law to the Prophet had chosen him to be the leader of the Muslims upon the latter's death, as a result of various events that took place, the Prophet's household were treated unfairly and the repercussions of these events subsequently led to their martyrdom, which is an essential pillar of Shi'a Islam. Due to their rejection of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and various other companions, they do not accept their chains of narrations in hadiths. Shi'as ultimately reject the concept of Adalat al-Sahaba, because traditions can not be accepted from unjust people. Most Shi'a Muslims (Twelver and Ismailis) put extreme emphasis on the Prophet's family and the line of Imamate through Ali and the Prophet's daughter, Fatimah, believing that only the Imams have the right to interpret the Qur'an in its esoteric and exoteric nature due to their infallibility, thus giving them absolute authority over the Muslims. Ali's tenure as the caliph saw much turmoil and ultimately led to his martyrdom. The subsequent death of Ali marked the end of the Rasidhun caliphate and transitioned into a monarchy with many of the Shi'as experiencing centuries of oppression.

Ibadism, a branch of Islam stemming from an extremist group called the Khawarij, they are a group of Muslims who did not agree with Ali's agreement to engage in arbitration with an opposing force that waged war against him over the caliphate. This led to a group of Muslims in Ali's army to defect, believing that judgment belongs to God alone, thus separating themselves from the rest of the Muslims. This group is known for their extremist approach and theology of Islam, but was quickly surpressed as they harassed innocent Muslims. The only remnants of the Khawarijs are the Ibadis and are relatively peaceful, albeit with some strict religious beliefs. They have their own collection of hadiths, but much of it is very close to the Sunnis corpus of traditions. They make up the majority of Muslims in Oman.

[sane-human]

A bunch of drawings to get into drawing mode again c:

Two new characters are for the ancient Etruscans that lived in the general zone of Tuscany before the Romans conquered everything and the city of Alexandria!

(also decided to change the way the text boxes work, as in I'll color them also with the language colors!)

#countryhumans #countryhumans christians #countryhumans alexandria #countryhumans rashidun caliphate #countryhumans roman kingdom #countryhumans etruscans #countryhumans jews

[zainab123]

Abu Bakr is the first Rashidun Caliph. The duration of his caliphate was two years and four months. The time immediately after the demise of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was very challenging. However, Abu Bakr very wisely dealt with all those challenges. 

#sultanulashiqeen #sultan_ul_ashiqeen #markazefaqr #tehreekdawatefaqr #allah #prophetmohammad #spirituality #faqr #sufi #sufism #islam #divine #abubakr #rashidun #caliph

[centrally-unplanned]

Alright lets settle this once and for all:

Of course choose the answer closest to your own chosen time, I can't cover all the options, but let me know your takes in the comments or w/e.

#Byzantine Empire discourse