Paul, Jürgen, History of Herat

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The histories of Herat

Jrgen Paul
a a
Professor of Islamic Studies, Institut fr Orientalistik, MartinLutherUniversitt, HalleWittenberg Available online: 02 Jan 2007
To cite this article: Jrgen Paul (2000): The histories of Herat, Iranian Studies, 33:1-2, 93-115 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00210860008701977
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Iranian Studies, volume 33, numbers 1-2, Winter/Spring 2000
Jrgen Paul
The Histories of Herat

THE BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY IS PERHAPS THE BEST KNOWN AND COMMONEST
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type of local history at least for the pre-Mongol period of Iranian history. It is well known that for quite a few Iranian cities, just as for cities, towns, and regions in other parts of the Islamic world, dictionaries of this type were written from the third/ninth to the seventh/thirteenth century. Until the seventh/thirteenth century, the standard language for this literary genre was Arabic even in non-Arabic-speaking countries. Later, starting with the seventh/thirteenth century, some of the works were translated into Persian. But the translators did not limit themselves to a more or less truthful rendering of the original text, but took many liberties with it. Thus, because of the often important changes introduced by the translators, it seems more appropriate to speak of Persian versions or adaptations rather than translations. In the first part of this article the books belonging to this genre known to be extant are presented, with a brief look at their translations. In the second part the histories of Herat are analyzed. Some of the ways to use biographical dictionaries as a source for Islamic history, beside those discussed by Humphreys,1 are given. A full review of the possible approaches one can employ, however, is outside the scope of this study, and in any case could not be restricted to works written for Iranian cities alone. Local Iranian historiesbiographical dictionaries Wadad al-Qadi has traced the development of the biographical dictionary as a literary genre in Islarnicate civilization in a recent survey article.2 For her, locality is one of several modes of restricting the scope of such works; one of the central points in her argument, in fact, is that biographical dictionaries restricted by locality must be distinguished from a general type. General dictionaries are found from very early times and include entries on individuals from many different professions, not only Islamic scholars, but also poets, scientists, military and political leaders, and so on. Biographical dictionaries organized according to locality are generally relatively late, appearing, as al-Qadi states, only by the fourth/tenth century. As the first example of a local work, she cites
Jrgen Paul is Professor of Islamic Studies, Institut fr Orientalistik, Luther-Universitt, Halle-Wittenberg 1. R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, edition (London, 1995), 187ff. 2. W. al-Qadi: "Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Significance," in George N. Atiyeh, ed., The Book in the Islamic World: The Word and Communication in the Middle East. (Albany: State University of Press. 1995), 93-122. For local histories, see more particularly 107-108. Martinrevised Cultural Written Albany
94 Paul Narshakhi's well-known History of Bukhara? However, the Persian text we have today (we do not have the original Arabic version) is not a biographical dictionary, a genre most helpfully defined by al-Qadi herself in the same article.4 The first works that can be considered biographical dictionaries restricted to a single place were almost certainly written in the fourth/tenth century, but are not extant today. For Khurasan, for instance, the oldest (datable) source used in Fada'H-i Balkh was written by a man who lived around 300/912;5 for Marw, the oldest work is attributed to an author who died in 268/891.6 There are some other works that predate Narshakhi by several generations, but since they are all lost, we cannot be altogether sure if they were indeed biographical dictionaries. The first Arabic biographical dictionary written for an Iranian city to have come down to us is probably the work on Isfahan written by Abu'l-Shaykh (d. 349/960-1, thus probably older than Narshakhi).7 But in the case of Isfahan, it is practically certain that even this author had his predecessors, and that among the texts he used as sources were books we would class as biographical dictionaries, for example, the work of Ibn Manda (d. 301/913-4).8 3. This work has a rather complicated (but not untypical) history. See Richard N. Frye's introduction to the translation in The History of Bukhara (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). The most frequently quoted edition is Muhammad Narshakhi, TarTkh-i Bukhara, ed. Ridawi (Tehran, 1939). The original version was dedicated to Nasr b . Nuh, Samanid amir, in 322/934. This isaccording to al-Qadithe first certain date we can establish for a local biographical dictionary. Narshakhi's work has been studied in detail by O. I. Smirnova ("Istoriia Bukhary Narshakhi: K istorii slozheniia teksta i o zadachakh ego izdaniia," Kratkie Soobshcheniia Instituta Narodov Azii 69 (1965): 155-79) who also gives information on the biographical sections not included in the versions that have come down to us. 4. It is not a dynastic history either, even if dynastic elements are evident. It is astounding that this very early text should differ from most of what followed in being so close to what we would term a "local history:" local perspective, local events and developments, traditions, and so forth. 5. Bernd Radtke, Theologen und Mystiker in Hurasan und Transoxanien," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG) 136 (1986): 537. 6. Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Uteratur 2nd edition 3 vols. (Leiden, 1943-49); 3 Supplements (Leiden, 1937-42) (hereafter GAL); Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums vol. 1 (Leiden, 1967) (hereafter GAS). The oldest local history on Marw is mentioned in GAS 1: 351. 7. Abu Muhammad cAbdallah b. Muhammad b. Jacfar b. Hayyan, known as Abu 1Shaykh: K. tabaqat al-muhaddithin bi-Isfahan wa'l-waridin 'alayha. Two editions were published almost simultaneously: cAbd al-Ghafur cAbd al-Haqq al-Husayni al-Balushi, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1407/1987-1412/1992); cAbd al-Ghafur Sulayman al-Bundari with Sayyid Kasrawi Hasan, 2 vols (Beirut 1409/1989). The edition in four volumes is preferred because of its better manuscript basis. See also the announcement and discussion by Nasrullah Purjavadi, "Qadimtarin tarikh-i Isfahan," and "Chap-i digar-i kitab-i AM Dl-Shaykh," Nashr-i Danish 10 (1368/1950): 36-39, 48-49. 8. See F. Rosenthal, "Ibn Manda," El2 3: 863-64. al-Balushi, in his introduction to the edition of Abu'l-Shaykh, seems to take for granted that Ibn Manda wrote a city history of Isfahan. The work is also mentioned in the city history of Qazwin (see below) written in the seventh century; Ibn Manda's book thus seems to have circulatedor at least been knowndown to the Mongol conquest. On the histories
Histories of Herat 95 Thus, al-Qadi's thesis that the biographical dictionary in its local form originated in lesser centers of Islamic learning located at the periphery of the Islamic world, and that it was a means of cultural reassertion, occurring jointly with the contemporaneous process of Abbasid regionalization, must be reexamined, with her datings corrected.9 The first books of this genre were certainly written in the third/ninth century; we do not know, however, what their scope or size was. Li the case of Isfahan, many scholars of hadith are reported to have written their mashyakha (a list in which they recorded from whom they had heard hadith), and, though this has to remain a conjecture, it would not be at all surprising if one of the roots of writing local biographical dictionaries lay there. Continuing with Isfahan, we find a good example of the style in which local biographical dictionaries were compiled in Abu Nu c aym's Dhikr akhbar Isfahan.10 Like many other books of this kind (which was larger than Abu'lShaykh's book), in his introduction the author provides us with the foundation legends and myths surrounding the origin of the city; the history of the city's conquest by the Arabs; some curious sights and customs found in the region; various details of its climate, topography, notable buildings; and so on, sometimes borrowing from historical or geographical writings, but relying predominantly on oral tradition (e.g., foundation legends). In later biographical dictionaries, this format was adopted almost automatically and was evidently accepted as the best way to highlight the things in which the people of a given place took We do not know whether Idrisi (d. 405/1015) wrote this type of introduction for his history of Samarqand, K. al-kamalfi ma'rifat al-rijal (bi-Samarqand),12
of Isfahan, see Nurit Tsafrir, T h e beginnings of the Hanafi school in Isfahan," Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998): 1-22. I have dealt with this group of sources in a paper presented to the Oxford seminar on "The Shici century in Iranian history" (May 1998). 9. W. al-Qadi, "Biographical Dictionaries," 107. Apart from that, it is highly debatable whether Bukhara was a "less central Islamic cit[y]" in the fourth/tenth century. Bert Fragner for one thinks that Bukhara perceived itself as an equal of Baghdad and more important than other cities like Damascus or Cairo and that the main axis of the Abbasid caliphate ran from Baghdad to Bukhara during the Samanids' heyday. See B. Fragner: Die "Persophonie". Regionalitat, Identitat und Sprachkontakt in der Geschichte Asiens (Berlin and Halle, 1999), 45-46. 10. Ed. Sven Dedering (Leyden, 1931), 2 vols. Abu Nucaym died in 430/1038, but the last entries in his work are from the 410s. 11. None of the works written for Isfahan are included in GAS, although both extant works fall into the period covered; the lost works are not discussed either as they are in other cases, such as Marw. For a typology of local histories such as biographical dictionaries and their introduction, see also the first part of Parvaneh Pourshariati's contribution to this volume. 12. For a discussion of Samarqandi histories, see J. Weinberger, T h e authorship of two twelfth century Transoxanian biographical dictionaries," Arabica 33 (1986): 369-82. I overlooked this article when preparing my own "Histories of Samarqand," Studia Iranica 22 (1993): 69-92. Out of a larger body of texts, two fragments survive which belong to two different versions of a work which itself has a complex history; Idrisi's contribution is the oldest layer of the extant fragments.
pride (mafakhir oxfada'il)}1
96 Paul the basis of the "Arabic Qandiyyah." It is quite possible that he did, because on the one hand, such introductions were quite common, and on the other, in a much later Persian work, there is a chapter which might be traced to Idrisi's time.13 The extant fragments of the "Arabic Qandiyyah" also include material originally written for Nasaf (a town smaller than Samarqand and roughly corresponding to present-day Qarshi) by Mustaghfiri (d. 432/1041).14 Idrisi also wrote a shorter work on his home town, Astarabad.15 Idrisi must have been a much admired author of biographical dictionaries, and it is possible that further research will reveal that his books served as a kind of model for subsequent authors.16 Sahmi,the author of the Ta'rikh Jurjan, for one seems to have closely followed the style set by Idrisi, and quite possibly knew Idrisi personally since he died only 16 years after Idrisi.17 The main body of the famous "Histories of Nishapur" also is datable to Idrisi's period. Muhammad b. cAbdallah al-Bayyic al-Naysaburi, known as alHakim al-Naysaburi, author of Ta'rikh Naysabur, died in the same year as Idrisi (405/1015-6). The work, however, is extant only in a very terse abridgement "which amounts to little more than an index to the original multi-volume dictionary."18 As with other city dictionaries, a continuation was written in the sixth/twelfth century.19
13. This work is the "Persian Qandtya", written most probably some time in the later sixteenth century. See my "Histories of Samarqand" cited above. The edition prepared by I. Afshar represents only one of the two versions known (Tehran, 1344/1955). 14. See the articles on Samarqand quoted previously, and Mustaghfiri's entry in GAS. 15. Published as an appendix to Hamzah b. Yusuf al-Sahmi, Ta'rikh Jurjan, ed. Nizam al-Din (Haydarabad, 1967), 466-500; new edition ed. Muhammad cAbd alMucid Khan (Beirut, 1407/1987), 510-548: "I saw what Abu Sacd cAbd al-Rahman b . Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Astarabadi had composed as a history [biographical dictionaiy) especially on the people [ulama] of Astarabad to the exclusion of all others," 510. But Idrisi does not seem to have written a "History of Jurjan" (as one would expect from Hajji Khalifa and GAS). The works by Sahmi and Idrisi are frequently confused: see the discussion of this confusion in the introduction to Mucid Khan's edition of Sahmi, 19-20. 16. He is mentioned in the Ta'rikh Jurjan just quoted (old edition, 219; new edition, 260) and in the Ta'rikh Baghdad (vol. 10, 302f.). His fame may be gathered also from the fact that his death in 405 is mentioned by Ibn al-Athir together with the Ta'rikh Samarqand. (Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi'l-ta'rikh (Beirut, 1965) 9: 252 (year 405). 17. Ta'rikh Jurjan. This work has remained practically untapped down to the present day in spite of its relatively early date of publication. It is not mentioned in GAS, and in GAL, it is included under the rubric "local history" whereas other works of the same type are described under "hadith." Idrisi was an important source for Sahmi: see the index of the Mucid Khan edition s.v. cAbd ar-Rahman b. Muhammad alIdrisi. 18. R. Bulliet, "A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Muslim Biographical Dictionaries," Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient (JESHO) 13 (1970): 196. The work itself was edited in facsimile together with its continuation by R. Frye (London, 1965); the introduction also includes remarks on the history of the
Histories of Herat 97 The latest book of this type preserved in the original Arabic is one written on Qazwin, the K. al-tadwin fi dhikr ahl al-cilm bi-Qazwln by Abu'l-Qasim c Abd al-Karim al-Rafici M which has entries down to the end of the sixth/ twelfth century. Thus, the local biographical dictionary was a well-established literary genre throughout Iran, but particularly in eastern Iran, at the turn of the fourth/fifthtenth/eleventh century, even if much of what was originally written seems to have been lost. Only a few quotations survive from the books on Bukhara and other cities in Transoxiana and Khurasan.21 The genre is older than that, howeverthe earliest works should be dated to the second half of the third/ninth centuryand it seems to have flourished with continuations and compilations until the Mongol conquest. To the best of my knowledge, no more local biographical dictionaries were written after that in Iran, at least not in the Arabic language. It should be noted that, as far as Iranian cities are concerned, the local biographical dictionary is very unevenly covered in both GAL and GAS. GAL sometimes hesitates whether to put a given text under hadith or under "city histories;" for example, the Tarikh Jurjan is listed under "city history,"22 whereas Abu Nu c aym's work on Isfahan is listed under "hadith." GAS is clearly incomplete: all the works on Isfahan are missing even though at least two of them were written before 430/1038; Tarikh Jurjan is also missing, although it is noted in GAL. Likewise, all the works written on the "History of Nishapur" are absent from GAS. As noted above, some local histories which may originally have been conceived as biographical dictionaries are extant only in their Persian translations. First, the city history of Qum should be mentioned. This is not a biographical dictionary, to be sure, and even the Arabic original probably never was one: what
text itself and its transmission (1016). al-Hakim's work is not mentioned in GAS, either. 19. Published in the volume edited by Frye. The author, cAbd al-Ghafir al-Farisi, died in 529/1134-35. There is an abridgement of this latter work, al-Muntakhab min al-siyaq li-ta'rikh Naysabur, by Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. al-Azhar al-Sarifini, edited by Muhammad Ahmad cAbd al-cAziz (Beirut, 1407/1989). 20. Edited by cAzizallah al-cUtaridi in 4 vols. (Haydarabad, 1984-45). R. Mottahedeh worked from the Istanbul manuscript, Ko|ular 1007. See his "Administration in Biiyid Qazwin," in D. S. Richards, ed., Islamic Civilization 9501150 (Oxford, 1973), 33-45. 21. See the list in GAS. Ghunjar, the author of a city dictionary on Bukhara (frequently quoted by Samcani) likewise died in the early fifth/eleventh century (412/1021). Smirnova raises the question whether Ghunjar's work was instrumental in the deletion of biographical material from the extant versions of Narshakhi. (See O. I. Smirnova, "Istoriia." The histories of Marw above all have been lost, but could probably be in part reconstructed on the basis of Abu Sacd cAbd al-Karim al-Samcani Kitab al-Ansab, ed. Yamani, 13 vols. (Haydarabad, 1962-82). See also the later edition of cAbdallah cUmar al-Barudi in 5 vols (Beirut, 1408/1988). Samcani's work is not a book on genealogy, but a real biographical dictionary according to al-Qadi's criteria ("Biographical dictionaries," 96). al-Qadi only discusses dictionaries arranged by first names (asma1), not by ansab and kunan. 22. GAL l:333f.
98 Paul is extantand perhaps this is all that was ever writtenis five out of twenty chapters, and we do not know whether the remaining fifteen chapters were meant to form a biographical dictionary. The original Arabic version must have been written towards the end of the fourth/tenth century, since its author died in 406/1015. The Persian version which has come down to us dates to the ninth/fifteenth century.23 The Tarikh-i Qum thus may be counted as part of a boom in local-history writing, whether biographical or not, that is a discernible trend starting around 400/1000. The only work extant for the city of Balkh is also not quite a biographical dictionary, even if the bulk of its material is biographical in nature.24 There are only 70 biographies in it, and they are arranged chronologically, not alphabetically. Whereas a preference for large numbers of entries seems to characterize other works of this genre,25 this does not seem to have been the case here. The original Arabic version was written in 610/1214, only a few years before the city's destruction during the Mongol conquest The Persian translation was made relatively soon after that, in 676/1278.26
The histories of Herat

The city of Herat, now in western Afghanistan, has attracted scholarly attention above all for the Timurid period, the ninth/fifteenth century.27 For earlier periods 23. Hasan b. Muhammad b. Hasan Qummi, Kitab ta'rikh Qumm (original version); Hasan b. cAli b. Hasan b. cAbd al-Malik Qummi (translation), ed. Sayyid Jalal ad-Din Tihrani. On the work, see A.K.S. Lambton, An account of the Tarikhi Qumm," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (BSOAS) 12 (1948): 586-96. Her more recent "Qum: The evolution of a medieval city," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society {JRAS) (1990): 322-39, does not address the text itself, but uses it largely for the earlier periods. See the very detailed analysis of this work, its contents and history, in Andreas Drechsler, Die Geschichte der Stadt Qum im Mittelalter (6501350) (Berlin, 1999). 24. Radtke compares Fada'il-i Balkh to the great dictionaries concerning Damascus and Baghdad in that after an introduction on topography, in the main part, biographies follow ("nach einer topografischen Einleitung folgen im Hauptteil Biografien," ("Theologen," 536). This is generally correct. However, Radtke fails to distinguish between biography and biographical dictionary. 25. Mottahedeh notes that in the dictionary on Qazwin, there are approximately three thousand entries - "a surprisingly large number of entries for a relatively small town" ("Administration," 33). Balkh of course was much larger than Qazwin. 26. Abu Bakr b. cAbdallah . . . Waciz-i Balkhi (original author); cAbdallah Muhammad b. Muhammad.. . Husayni Balkhi (translator), Fada'il-i Balkh. For the history of the text and a summary of the biographies, see Radtke, Theologen." See also Abu Talib Mir cAbidin, Balkh dartartkh wa adab-ifarsi and U. Berndt's master's thesis, Stadtgeschichten von Balkh. Die Entwicklung der persischen Lokalgeschichtsschreibung dargestellt am Beispiel der Fada'il-i Balh und Tarih-i Sahr-i Balh (Halle, 2000) 27. There is a vast literature on Timurid Herat. On geography, see T. Allen. On social history and "history of notables" as well as religious history, see Maria Subtelny's numerous works. For the end of Timurid dominion over Herat and the beginning of Safavid rule, see the works of Maria Szuppe. For even later periods, see
Histories of Herat 99 in the city's history, scholarly works are few and far between. If I am not mistaken, there is no published monograph on the immediate predecessors of the Timurids in Herat, the Kart (or Kurt) rulers.28 The Mongol conquest of the city and its immediate aftermath have only very recently been studied in some detail.29 The pre-Mongol history of Herat has yet to be written, and this period forms the focus of the present study. During the approximately four and a half centuries prior to the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, Herat never or almost never was the center of an empire; "never" if the notion of capital city is implied, "almost never" if we take into account that the center of an empire may not have been a (capital) city, but simply the place where the ruler and his retinue were present at a given moment. The city always retained the status of provincial center. Marw, Nishapur, Ghaznin, Samarqand, Bukhara have all known their moments of imperial splendor in the pre-Mongol period, but for Herat, these moments were yet to come. This is of special interest since Herat provides details of provincial life distant from the court. Works written in Arabic We know that several works of local history on Herat were written during the pre-Mongol period. Katib Chelebi cites five of them by the following authors: (1) Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Yunus [Yusiif?] al-Bazzaz al-Hafiz, d. 234/848; (2) Ahmad b. Muhammad [b.] Sacid al-Haddad (no date given); (3) Abu Rawh Isa alHarawi, d. 544/1149-50; (4) Abu Nasr cAbd al-Rahman b. cAbd al-Jabbar alQaisi al-Hafiz (no date given); and (5) al-Shaikh Thiqat al-Din cAbd al-Rahman al-Fami, wa-huwa awwal man sannafa fihi30 (no date given).
N.N. Tumanovich, Gerat v XVI-XVIII vekakh (Moscow, 1989). In contrast, however, for the pre-Mongol history of Herat there is only Heinz Gaube, "Innenstadt und Vorstadt. Kontinuitat und Wandel im Stadtbild von Herat zwischen dem 10. und dem 15. Jahrhundert," in Giinter Schweizer, ed., Beitrdge zur Geographie orientalischer Stadte und Markte (Wiesbaden: TAVO, 1977), 213-41, and his focus on the evolution of the city's architectural shape. It thus offers little information on political and social affairs. Gaube states that Herat did not play an outstanding political role, but was very prosperous, according to the geographical sources of the fourth/tenth century. Gaube used no biographical dictionaries for his study. 28. They are more or less systematically treated in J. Masson Smith, The History of the Sarbadar Dynasty 1336-1381 (The Hague, 1970). Some specific aspects (notably relations with Central Asia) are analysed in Jean Aubin, "Le Khanat de Cagatai," Turcica 8 (1976): 16-90. 29. Mohsen Zakeri, "The cAyyaran of Khurasan and the Mongol Invasion," in Charles Melville, ed.. Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies (Wiesbaden, 1999), 269-76. See also Jiirgen Paul, "L'invasion mongole comme "revelateur" de la society iranienne," in Denise Aigle, ed., L'Iran face a la domination mongole (Tehran, 1996), 39-53. 30. Katib Chelebi (Hajji Khalifa), Kashf al-iunun. 1: column 309. The quotation at the end could mean that he was the first to arrange his material alphabetically (not according to generations or classes as had been common practice in the first centuries).
100 Paul This list necessitates some qualifications based on entries appearing in other biographical sources. The name of the best-known author, Fami, for example, is given as Abu [Nadr] cAbd al-Rahman b. cAbd al-Jabbar b. cUthman al-Fami in Samcani.31 In Subki it is given as Abu Nasr cAbd al-Rahman b. cAbd al-Jabbar b. cUthman b. Mansur.32 Subki also mentions that Fami's laqab was Thiqat alDin. Finally, Isfizari calls him Thiqat al-Din Shaykh cAbd al-Rahman-i Fami33 and adds that he has written a book on ancient Herat. Thus, it seems obvious that the number of authors who wrote on pre-Mongol Herat should be reduced to four if the last two persons named in the list are one and the same. As for the others, the name of the first author cited by Chelebi is given [somewhat differently] by Sezgin as Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Yasin al-Harawi al-Haddad, with the obituary date as 3S4.34 This date seems better if one takes into consideration the dates given for Abu Ishaq's teachers on the one hand and those who transmitted from him on the other.33 Safadi names the authors of two local histories of Herat among his sources, Fami and a person he calls Abu Ishaq al-Bazzaz, without giving the latter's complete name or his dates. Safadi knows, by the way, neither an Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Yasin (as mentioned by Dhahabi) nor an Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sacid (as mentioned by Katib Chelebi).36 On the other hand, a person called Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sacid Abu Ishaq al-Harawi is mentioned in Dhahabi; this man is said to have transmitted an unreliable (forged?) hadith in Samarqand during the 350s/960s.37 It is thus altogether possible that the two first authors on the list quoted are the
3 1 . Sam c ani, Ansab, 10: 143. Sam'ani does not mention that Fami is the author of a work on the history of Herat. Since the two were contemporaries and since Samcani does not give a date for Fami's death (he begins by "He was bom in" but omits the date), this could be explained by the simple fact that Fami's work had not yet been published. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that Samcani nowhere seems to quote Fami. 32. Subki, Tabaqat al-shafi'iya (Cairo, 1386/1967) 7: 105f. Subki is quoting his master Dhahabi as having said that Fami's work was incomplete, wa-laysa ta'rikhahu bi-mustawcab. 33. Muhammad Isfizari, Rawzat al-jannat fl awsaf madinat Harat (Tehran, 1338/1959) 1: 42. 34. GAS 1: 351, no. 3. 35. See Muhammad b. Ahmad Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-huffaz (Haydarabad, 1375/ 1955) 3: 93. The same author also gives the earlier date, however, see his Mizan ali'tidal, 1: 70 (no. 565). 36. Khalil b. Aybak Safadi, al-Wafi bi'l-Wafayat, vol. 1, ed. H. Ritter (Istanbul, 1930), 48. Fami has an entry in Safadi vol. 18, ed. Fu'ad Sayyid, 155), with references to other dictionaries. Safadi's main source in this case seems however to have been Subki. See also vol. 7, ed. Ihsan Abbas (Wiesbaden, 1969) and vol. 8, ed. Mohammed Yousef Najm (Wiesbaden, 1971), containing the men named Ahmad. Since the authors in question are not found under their given names, it would be pure chance if one came across a quotation from their works in Safadi's gigantic compilation. 37. Muhammad b. Ahmad Dhahabi, Mizan al-ictidal, ed. A. N. Jamici (Cairo, 1325/1907), 1: 65, no. 531.
Histories of Herat 101 same, which, if so, would reduce the number of local histories written on preMongol Herat to only three. As for the third book on Katib Chelebi's list, it is hard for the time being to tell what status should be ascribed to it. Subki mentions Abu Rawh among those who transmitted hadith from Fami; in this respect, Subki classes Abu Rawh alongside Samcani.38 He does not credit him with a work on local history, however.39 ' Thus, we cannot decide at present whether we can start with two or three works written on the local history of Herat. But it is certain that all works discussed so far belonged to the same literary genre: local biographical dictionaries on the ulema who made their home or taught hadith at one time or other in the city, including people renowned for extraordinary piety, with some occasional women mentioned either in the text itself or in a separate section. Later authors, especially those of the great compendia written in the Mamluk dominions in the seventh/thirteenth, eighth/fourteenth, and ninth/fifteenth centuries, often quote the sources for their entries. It seems reasonable to suggest that this should hold true for earlier compilers as well. Above all, numerous quotations from Abu Ishaq (first on the Chelebi list above) should occur not only in Samcani's compilation, but in the works of later authors as well. Samcani, however, appears not to have seen Abu Ishaq's book, and does not even mention Abu Ishaq.40 In other works like Sam c ani's, there are only brief citations, sufficient enough to determine that the work in question really existed and that it was a biographical dictionary.41 Works written in Persian
To the two or three works written in Arabicall of them biographical dictionariessome books written in Persian should be added. The oldest of these, stem38. Subki, Tabaqat, 7: 105-6. 39. A possible explanation for this would be that Katib Chelebi knew Fami's book in a riwaya going back to Abu Rawh. Even a copy made by Abu Rawh could be quoted as a separate work if the copyist had taken such liberties with the text as were common even in the world of hadith. 40. He is included neither under Bazzaz nor under Haddad nor under Harawl. For the Heratis, Samcani seems to rely above all on his personal acquaintances and, for earlier generations, on the work of cAbdallah al-Hakim on Nishapur. Generally speaking, it is hard to resist the impression that ulema from Transoxiana are better served by Samcani since he has made extensive use of works on Samarqand, Bukhara, and Nasaf (by Idrisi, Ghunjar, and Mustaghfiri in that order, see the entries on the corresponding authors in GAS). It is therefore tempting to conclude that in Sam'ani's day, none of the works on Herat had yet gained wide circulation. Another explanationin the case of Abu Ishaqmay be that this author apparently did not enjoy a very good reputation, see Dhahabi, MTzan, 1: 70 and Tadhkira, 3: 9 3 . Dhahabi's ultimate source in this evidently was Idrisi: qala'l-Idrisi kana yahfuzu sami'tu ahla baladihi yat'anuna fthi la yardawnahu, "Idrisi said: He knew the Qur'an by heart. I heard his fellow townsmen denigrate him. They did not accept him [as a transmitter of hadith]." 41. GAS, 1: 351.
102 Paul ming from the eighth/fourteenth century, is the Tarikh-namah-i Harat written by Sayfi;42 the next dates to the ninth/fifteenth century.43 Both books belong to an altogether different literary genre, being essentially dynastic in outlook.44 Sayfi is concerned mostly with the history of the muluk Kart, the dynasty he was writing for, whereas Isfizari gives more details for earlier periods even though his focus is on Timur and the Timurids. For both, the paragons of the Islamic sciences no longer occupy center stage. To the two works just mentioned, another complex of sources must be added. These belong to yet another strand of local history, namely, guides for pilgrims visiting the tombs and shrines of "holy" men and women. This collection of sources, comprising three separate texts, is called Risala-yi mazarat-i Harat. The first text in the collection, which is the only one of interest to this paper, goes down to the Timurid period.45 This literary genre [of guide books] is characterized by biographies which border on hagiography. Most of the entries are devoted to saintly persons venerated in the region. Often, the tombs and shrines are described in some detail. The focus otherwise is on the protocol, that is, the right time and method of making a visit. The texts are clearly directed at pious persons performing ziyarat or else specialists acting as guides to such persons. The text on Herat seems to be one of the earliest specimens of this genre in the region.46 Sayfi provides some information on his sources. Among the authors he quotes, Fami seems to be the only one on the list established by Katib Chelebi. This is the case with the Rawzat, as well. Although Sayfi cites two Arabic works among his sourcesnamely by the imam Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Yasin and Thiqat al-Din Shaykh cAbd al-Rahman-i Famionly the second author is actually referred to in the text of his book. Both Sayfi and Isfizari provide the foundation Iegend(s) for Herat, of which there are several versions, not all of them compatible with one another,47 Isfizari further quotes some prophetic traditions praising Herat over neighboring towns. Such traditions were quite common in
42. Sayfi Harawi, Tarikh-nama-yi Harat ed. M. Z. Siddiqi (Calcutta 1944). For a first approach to this very valuable, but nearly unstudied work, see Lawrence Potter, The Kart Dynasty of Herat: Religion and Politics in Medieval Iran (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1992) and Mohsen Zakeri, "The 'Ayyaran of Khurasan." 43. Isfizari, Rawdat al-jannat. 44. See the brief remarks in A.K.S. Lambton, "Persian local histories," in B. S. Amoretti and Lucia Rostagno, Yadnama in memoria di Alessandro Bausani (Rome, 1991), 230. 45. The collection was compiled and edited by Fikri-yi Saljuqi (Kabul, n.d.) The first text is called Maqsad al-iqbal-i sultaniya and the author calls himself Amir Sayyid cAbdallah al-Husayni macruf bi-Asil al-Din Waciz-i Harawi. The other two texts refer to much later periods. 46. In the case of Samarqand, for instance, local "historical" writing seems to have evolved at a somewhat slower pace. The "Persian Qandiyya" which dates to the second half of the tenth/sixteenth century is not fully a guide for pilgrims; that stage is achieved only with the "Samariyya" written in the nineteenth century. See my Histories of Samarqand" for a discussion of this. For Balkh, see Ulrike Berndt, Stadtgeschichten von Balh. 47. Sayfi, 25; Isfizari, 1: 142. Fami is further mentioned in Sayfi, 142.
Histories of Herat 103 the introductions to biographical dictionaries.48 Elsewhere, Sayfi relies on Fami for information from the pre-Mongol period, especially for a list of governors for the entire Samanid period49 plus some very brief accounts of events.50 We may conclude from this, thatFami's book was still extant in the ninth/fifteenth century, but that it almost certainly was the only Arabic source still available to Timurid-era and later authors; and if reference is made to them in later works, we may surmise that they are quoted via Fami. In the later "guides for pilgrims," no reference is made to pre-Mongol Arabic biographical dictionaries. For biographies (or hagiographies) from this period, the most prominent source is the compilation on sufis' lives by cAbdallah Ansari.51 Thus, from the undoubtedly large body of local biographical dictionaries written for pre-Mongol Herat, we have at our disposal only a few small fragments, drawn almost certainly from the introduction to Fami, transmitted by the authors of more dynastically oriented Persian works from the Kartid and Timurid periods. Because only individual quotations can be ascertained in the later biographical compilations, there is insufficient material to allow for quantitative or other investigation. In sum, what remains from all this literature is hardly impressive. But this does not mean we have to abandon these fragments. Instead, it is possible to make something of these fragments in order to find out what the situation may have been in Herat from the Samanid fourth/tenth century down to the sixth/twelfth century, shortly before the Mongol invasion. Histories of Herat histories of notables It has often been said that local historiography is of special interest since it offers a deeper view of society; that the authors knew their little worlds, and that they wrote from a vantage point well away from the court and its influences. Their perspectives, although in some respects narrower than that of authors of
48. Isfizari, 1: 87, 94. 49. The list occurs at the beginning of the part devoted to "history" in a narrower sense, 1: 378-87. At the end of this list, the author remarks that up to this point, Fami has been transmitting a text by Abu cUbaid-i Mu'addib. He adds that there is another version (riwaya) in the book of Abu Ishaq al-Haddad; however, he does not give this version. If he did know it, it may have come down to him through Fami. Abu cUbaid Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Abi cUbaid al-cAbdi al-Mu'addib al-Harawi is known to Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-acyan, 1: 79 (no. 35) who mentions him as having authored a Kitab al-gharibayn. No work connected with local history is attributed to this author. Lists of governors are not unique to this author; there is another list, for instance, in the Tarilch Jurjan. 50. Isfizari, 2: 49-55. It thus seems that both books, Fami's and before him Abu Ishaq's, consisted not only of biographical notices, but also had an introduction as was current in this literary genre; fada'il were common stuff in these introductions. Short notices on events are not so frequently encountered, there is, however, a section on hawadis. in Ibn Funduq, TarXkh-i Bayhaq. 51. cAbdallah Ansari, Tabaqat al-suflya. This work is sometimes called Tabaqat-i mashayikh-i Hardt in our source.
104 Paul general (or imperial) history, may by the same token, yield insights into the parochial world of towns and even individual quarters. In the case of Herat, this interest is further enhanced by the fact that the city was to achieve imperial grandeur only in the post-Mongol period, as the center of a regional state first under the muluk Kart in the fourtheenth century, and, later on, as the brilliant center of Timurid imperial culture in the fifteenth century. Before (and after) these two centuries, Herat was a provincial town. Its provincial character should in itself be sufficient reason to encourage efforts to uncover all we can of the city's history. Moreover, we are spared the risk of getting lost in the labyrinthine minutiae of dynastic history. The general theme of the following section is the relationship between a provincial town or city and a central government. This relationship should perhaps not be discussed as a case of urban autonomy, which tends to put too much stress on formal and legal arrangements.32 The issue is not "urban autonomy" vs. "pure submission to the ruler." The city of Herat certainly was not "autonomous" if we are take this expression in its original meaning. There was no possibility, and in fact no concept, of the city or of any body in the city debating and passing laws; there was no municipality and no senate. On the other hand, Herat's inhabitants were neither without rights nor without influence. In the sources, we come across town dwellers (should we call them citizens?), above all notables,53 who were in the habit of looking after their own affairs as well as 52. This is of course an allusion to Max Weber's "gesatzte Regeln." Without taking issue here with the way Weber viewed Islam and Muslim history, we should keep in mind that he had set out to explain why the scientific, industrial, and political evolution characterizing European modernity took place in the West (and nowhere else). This made him take the Western evolution as a model and developments elsewhere as aberrations (to grossly oversimplify). In order to achieve this, he proceededperhaps a little too quicklyto compare the West and the East on a phenomenological level. But it is important to compare the functioning of societies after having studied them on their own terms. The much debated question of "urban autonomy" is not a fit subject of comparison as long as we have no real understanding of how a town interrelated with the central government, the surrounding countryside and so on, and above all, how it functioned intra muros, how social action and activity was organized. I do not hesitate to say that, in spite of real progress in the last decades, we are still far from such an understanding. For a debate of Max Weber's view of Islam and the "Islamic city" see my "Max Weber und die islamische Stadt" (forthcoming). 53. I prefer not to use "patricians" because this evokes "plebeians" on the other side, and thus tends to produce a binary opposition along what could be interpreted as a class divide. Also, because "patricians" is too closely associated with ancient Roman history, I cannot imagine a way of dissociating the term from that context. Bulliet himself introduced it only tentatively. The term "notables" to denote a given section of urban society was introduced into scholarship on Muslim societies by A. Hourani in "Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables" first published in W. R. Polk and R. L. Chambers, Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East (Chicago, 1968) and reprinted in 1981 in A. Hqurani, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East: Collected Papers. Besides the discussion in Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), and his "Local Politics in Eastern Iran under the Ghaznavids and Seljuqs, "Iranian Studies 11 (1978): 35-56, mention must be made of Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, 1988) with further
Histories of Herat 105 those of the city without asking whether they were legally entitled to do so. Often they were driven by sheer necessity: the State, the central government, the ruler and his retinue (or whatver we may call their counterparts) were much too far away and frequently too weak to cope with dangerous situations arising just outside the city walls, more often than not in the form of a hostile army. In the case of Herat, our methodological choice is greatly constrained by the fragmentary character of what remains of the local historiographical tradition. Here, we will simply add these fragments to other available sources mostly from general historiography, especially the work of Ibn al-Athir. The study is informed, however, by what has been learned in the study of other cities of eastern Iran. To summarize very briefly, previous studies have shown that in many Iranian cities (and cities in other parts of the Muslim world as well) there was indeed a group who acted as spokesmen for the city as a whole, conducting talks with the central government, haggling over taxes and the like. These people, the city notables (such terms as a'yan in Arabic, buzurgan, mihtaran in Persian and others were used) were by no means a clearly delimited socio-economic group. The history of these families can be traced in the biographical dictionaries up to a point, and that is indeed what has been done in a number of cases, the most prominent example being Bulliet's Patricians of Nishapur, a painstakingly detailed quantitative analysis of the biographical entries yielding family and other ties, as well as hereditary alliances and hostilities between families. The school of law as a vehicle for promoting family interests has also been an important issue.54 Another approach has been to take seriously the seemingly meaningless epithets included in most of the entries and this has lent new insight into the development of intellectual and spiritual currents.55 These are but two examples of what can be done with the biographical dictionary as a source for the social and intellectual history of the medieval Muslim world. Quantitative methods have been used in other contexts as well on the material offered by the biographical dictionary.56 There is much to be done in this field and other cities should certainly be examinedthough in the case of Herat, there are no viable options because of the scarcity of material. It can safely be assumed, however, that the possibilities inherent in general historiography for the study of local history have by no means been fully exploited. It should be possible to shift their historical perspective from imperial/central to local.
references to his earlier work, and of Boaz Shoshan, "'The Politics of Notables' in Medieval Islam, " in Asian and Arican Studies 20 (1986): 179-215. I have myself discussed the "politics of notables" extensively in my Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in vormongolischer Zeit (Beirut/Stuttgart, 1986). 54. As a recent example, see N. Tsafrir, "The Beginnings of the Hanafi school." 55. See Jacqueline Chabbi, "Remarques sur le developpement historique des mouvements ascetiques et mystiques au Khurasan," Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 5-77. 56. For a discussion of these attempts, see Humphreys, Islamic History (the passage quoted in note 1 above).
106 Paul The Seljuq conquest and other examples How did the city behave when it was useless to appeal to the central government? A look at the way the Heratis responded to the Seljuq conquest of Khurasan will serve as a first example. During the final stages of Ghaznavid rule over Khurasan, many towns and cities were left to act according to their own judgement for all practical purposes. Thus, the notables of Herat went out to meet the Seljuq commanders when they first appeared outside the city gates in order to come to some arrangement with them. Some time later, when the Ghaznavid Mascud succeeded in regaining control over much of the province, the notables chose to leave the city. This might be explained by the fact that in its struggle for the city against the Seljuqs, the Ghaznavid army behaved very much as if it was on enemy territory. The notables of Herat thus had no reason to remain loyal to the Ghaznavids.57 When the Seljuqs defeated Mas'ud at Dandanaqan in 432/1040, they met with little resistance to further occupation of Khurasan. Most cities opened their gates without even token resistance.58 Apparently, immediately after the Seljuq victory, Prince Bayghu entered Herat.59 But when the Heratis learned about a victory won by the Ghaznavid Sultan Mawdud (who succeeded Mascud after the latter's assassination by the leaders of his army), they rose in revolt and drove the Seljuqs out of town.60 The following events are related not by Ibn al-Athir, but by our only source for this event, Fami, as reported in Isfizari. Fami says that after this victory over the Turks, there was disorder in the city until the shaykh and ra'Ts Abu Muhammad b. cUsm b. Abi'l-0Abbas al-cUsmi "took control and began to usurp power in the city and the region without being legitimized by a
57. See Abu'1-Fadl Bayhaqi, Tankh-i Bayhaqi (Tehran 1324/1955), 588, but see the following note for a general appreciation of this source's biases. 58. This had already been the case before the final disaster. Events at Nishapur some years before Dandanaqan are particularly well documented in a passage in Bayhaqi, translated by C. E. Bosworth in The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh, 1963), 252ff. However, there might be reason to read this passage with more caution for it should not be taken at face value. It is presented as the reproduction of a letter written by a faithful servant of Mascud's court to his sultan. In his letter, he gives an account of the city's surrender to the Seljuqs. The notables had held a meeting where they had finally decided not to resist the Turkish onslaught. They knew that they could not expect any help from the Ghaznavid governor who had already left together with the garrison. The octagenarian qadi Sacid then said that on principle,- the city should not resist: Subjects are not expected to intervene in military affairs, the city's master is Mascud, and it is his task to defend it. If he is unable to do so, the citizens should accept the new rule. This report must be read in the context of the whole book; as is generally known, Bayhaqi wanted to show that Mascud was responsible for the loss of Khurasan. 59. Ibn al-Athir, 9: 483. Also Isfizari, 1: 387ff. The Ghaznavid garrison was practically non-existent. This conclusion was reached already by Laugier de Beaurecueil, Khwadje 'Abdullah Ansari (396-481 H/1006-1089), mystique hanbalite (Beirut, 1965), 85. His conjecture is supported by the simple statement in Isfizari that Herat was defenseless after Dandanaqan, 1:388 (quoting Fami). 60. Ibn al-Athir, 9: 488. This cannot be taken to mean that this was a proGhaznavid movement; this would not fit with the Heratis' previous behavior.
Histories of Herat 107 permit or investiture from the sultan."61 Soon after, he was killed in battle along with the Ghaznavid commander of a neighboring fortress. His brother Rafic succeeded him, only to be killed in turn by his own lieutenant. The Seljuqs returned every year, but were unable to take the city and they could only lay waste the region. Finally, the Heratis, weakened by hunger, were unable to hold out and had to surrender. Their fierce and proud resistance is affirmed by Ibn alAthir, who reports that in 434/1042-3, Toghril himself laid siege to the city "because its inhabitants had, up to that point, stubbornly persisted in defending their town and recognizing Mawdud b. Mascud. But even against him [Toghril], the Heratis defended themselves, despite the havoc wrought in the region."62 It is impossible to tell how long this situation persisted. In 456/1064, Alp Arslan drove his uncle Bayghu out of Herat; the latter must thus have entered the city sometime before.63 In short, Herat was able to resist the Seljuqs for several years without assistance from the outside by relying only on its own forces. They were led by men, some of whom sprang from a prominent family of local notables. It is not at all surprising that these leaders are called "usurpers" in the sources. According to prevailing theories of kingship, their power was illegitimate. This does not seem to have mattered to the citizens of Herat who remained loyal to them during a long siege. Even if it was common fear of the "Ghuzz" (the Seljuqs) that bound the Heratis to their leaders, as is suggested by Ibn al-Athir, the fact of their loyalty in itself is remarkable enough. What is more, this situation perhaps was more common in the region than it may seem to modern readers who may be used to the autonomy/submission dichotomy discussed above. A second example illustrating the relationship between a provincial city and the central government takes us back to Samanid times. We are told that in 306/918-9 Ahmad b. Sahl was to take his post as governor of Herat.64 But
61.1sfizari, 1:, 388 (dated 432/1040-1). [...] barkhast wa bi manshur wa mith&l aghaz-i taghallub nihad wa bar shahr wa wilayat mustawli shud. The Usmi family is represented by Abu cAbd Allah b. Abi Dhul al-Usmi in Samcani. This is Muhammad b . al-cAbbas b. Ahmad [...] al-Dabbi al-Usmi, a noted hadith transmitter and prominent scholar. He is given the title ra'Ts. He died in Safar 378 (late-May 988) Kitab alAnsab 4: 204-6. This al-Usmi is probably a forebear of the Abu Muhammad mentioned by Fami. It is evident from Samcani that the al-Usmi family had landholdings. This representative of the family allegedly spent all the tithe (,'ushr) due from these holdings on charity so that most of the city's paupers were being fed by him. This Bu cAbdallah-i Bu Dhul is also mentioned in Ansari, Tabaqat al-suftya, 597 as ra'Ts-i Harat, as watt and as "father of the Heratis" (pidar-i Harawigan). The title ra'Ts does not necessarily denote an official position in my view. See my Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler. 62. Ibn al-Athir, 9: 506. 63. Ibn al-Athir, 10: 34. See also Isfizari, 1: 388-89. No date is given for Bayghu's occupation of Herat. 64. Ahmad b. Sahl came from an old family of Iranian noblemen from the Marw oasis. Soon after his appointment to Herat, he rebelled against his Samanid overlords who "had made promises which they did not keep afterwards." The history of his revolt is retraced in Ibn al-Athir, 8: 117-118. See also C. E. Bosworth, "Ahmad b .
108 Paul because it was not enough simply to be appointed by the amir, the central ruler or overlord, in order to be accepted, the new governor was obliged to lay siege to the city for 20 days. After he and his immediate successor had departed, "the Heratis [elected] cAbd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Shah as amir, who held this position for one year and fifty days."65 Some years and several governors later, "the people of Herat chose Abu cAmr b. Sacid b. 'Abdallah b. cUsm al-Dabbi as amir,"66 but we are not told how long his tenure lasted. From Ibn Hawqal, we see that the inhabitants of Herat (probably the notables) did not readily submit to the governors sent by the Samanid ruler, who was based a long way from Herat in Bukhara. They drove out the governor Muhammad b. al-Jarrah with whom they obviously had quarrelled, and when he left town, it appears that he took some notables as hostages. Later, what was seen as a revolt on the part of the Heratis was quelled with blood.67 The list of governors transmitted by Isfizari gives the impression that the Samanids never held absolute control over the city which had become one of the most important places in the crucial province of Khurasan. The notables had decisive influence, were able to choose their own governors and close the city gates to governors appointed by the Samanid ruler if these appointees were not to their liking; they even fought them and concluded treaties with them to end sieges.68 Military resources: local militias What military resources did the local notables have at their disposal as city leaders? Was there a kind of urban militia or a general military service required of the able-bodied male population in times of need, or were there professional soldiers? It is inconceivable that a city could have acted so independently if it had been defenseless.
Sahl b. HaSem," in EIr 1: 643-44 and my study The State and the Military: The Samanid Case (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1994). 65. Isfizari, 1: 384. 66. Ibid. Both quotations are taken from the list of governors Isfizari transmits from Fami who in turn had it from Abu eUbaid-i Mu'addib. I have not been able to trace the elected persons, but the nisba "Dabbi" is also given to one of the leading families in Herat, the Usmis (see note 61). The genealogy given for the representative of the family in Samcani does not help in identifying these two amirs. 67. Ibn Hawqal, Abu 1-Qasim, Kitab al-masalik wa'l-mamalik, (Leiden, 1892), 2: 437-38. Isfizari dates this event 341/952-3 (1: 385-86. Ibn Hawqal visited Herat in 357/968 (Z.V. Togan, "Herat," Islam Ansiklopedisi, 5: 430-31) and found the walls destroyed by order of the Samanid ruler. 68. Strained relations between the central government and its appointees on the one hand and the notables of Herat on the other are alluded to in a brief reference in c Utbi/Jurfadhaqani: Abu cAli Simjur and Fa'iq, two military commanders with all the features characterizing warlords, went to Herat "in order to save this city from its stubborn resistance and to take the regional army with them," see Tarjuma-yi tarikh-i Yamlni, (Tehran, 1334/1955), 105.
Histories of Herat 109 First of all, there were the city walls, impressive structures in the case of Herat 69 But to hold out in a siege over several months or through intermittent siege warfare over several years, walls were not enough. Men were needed, men who knew how to fight. The sources are not very forthcoming on this matter. There are only a few bits of information if we look only at the city of Herat; but there is more information if we extrapolate from research done on other regions of eastern Iran. The first likely group of fighting men mentioned in the sources is the cayyars.10 A number of them (the source gives their number as fourteen) were killed in an uprising during the reign of Nasr b. Ahmad (301-331/914-943).71 Such groups were very common in Sistan province72 and active also in Khurasan and Transoxiana.73 Another instance of a "civilian" group in Herat armed and involved in military activities is found in Zayn al-akhbar which reports that the Heratis appointed Abu cAli Simjur "commander of the militias of Nishapur, Herat, and 69. It is perhaps significant that the Heratis, in their foundation legends, did not ascribe the building of their formidable walls to some king, not even a mythical one such as one of the well-known empire builders of Iranian mythical history. Instead they ascribed them to the designs and strategems of a "notable" woman, thus to a local initiative. From the very beginning, the city walls are thus seen to serve as a defense against "unjust" rulers, and more particularly against the (always or typically) greedy taxation policy of the central government. External enemies are not necessarily the main concern. It should be noted that rulers not residing in a city are more prone to tear down its walls than to repair them. 70. The early Islamic history of this group is now presented in Mohsen Zakeri, Sasanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society. The Origins of 'Ayyaran and Futuwwa (Wiesbaden, 1995). For the decisive role 'ayyar groups had in Herat in the period immediately following the Mongol conquest, see Zakeri, "The cAyyaran of Khurasan and the Mongol Invasion. " 71. Isfizari, 1:385. The Risala-yi mazardt-i Harat would lead one to believe that there were cayyar groups always active.. In the time of Abu Muslim, a woman lived in Harat called Bibi Sitti. "At the beginning of her [mystical] life, she had a husband called Abu Nasr, a man who roamed around at night (shab-raw). Both of them were engaged in 'ayyarff' (11). In this context, the term probably is to be understood as robbery. It is perhaps worth noting that it was considered possible for women to be c ayydran. 72. Their history is told in the Tarikh-i Sistan where their activities take up a good portion of the text. See the article by C.E. Bosworth in this issue. 73. See for instance Balcami, Tdrlkh-i Bal'ami, 952, 1203. They became a plague after the Seljuq victory at Dandanaqan. (See Ibn al-Athir 9: 483.) Sometimes, they may have been integrated into the "official" army, or at least such an integration may have been attempted, as shown in Bukhara in al-Qadi b. Zubair, Kitab al-dhakha'ir wa l-tuhaf (Kuwait, 1959), 145. See also Bosworth's translation of this text in An alleged embassy from the Emperor of China to the Amir Nasr b. Ahmad: A contribution to Samanid history," in M. Minovi and I. Afshar, eds., Yadnama-yi IranT-yi MTnurski (Tehran, 1969), 17-29. They participated in the defense of Balkh against the Seljuqs, this time at the command of the Ghaznavid governor (Bayhaqi, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, 643). They fought at the side of the "last Samanid" against the Qarakhanids at Samarqand, see Gardizi, Zayn al-akhbar (Tehran, 1347/1969), 176. These are just a few examples. See also my Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler for more.
110 Paul Quhistan."74 In yet another instance, the "army of this region" is mentioned, implying Herat75 It is clear that Herat (the city and the region taken together) had its own armed force. This would not have been exceptional although it may have been more an auxiliary force than one destined for warfare in distant theaters. Nevertheless, we have to conclude that these forces were sufficiently motivated, trained, equipped, and numerous to face the Seljuqs and their dreaded army in combat over a period of several years. These forces certainly were not made up of professional soldiers, and they probably did not receive regular pay. Moreover, they cannot have been military slavesmis is evident from the terms used for them. We can thus add Herat to those cases, exceptional we are told, where there were armed citizens or else, citizen armies76 of real militaryalbeit localsignificance. In my view, it is by no means accidental that such information is transmitted mainly in local rather than general histories, even if it is not altogether absent from the latter type as well. Who were the leaders of the city in its dealings with the central government, and, more particularly, who were the leaders of the city's armed forces? I have only been able to identify one of the local leaders. This comes from an episode that took place in 491/1098 in which the Seljuq empire was shaken by a serious crisis. For a time, the pretender Barkyaruq was able to impose himself as sultan. But he was suspected of relying on the help of the Ismailis, the Batinis, whom every good Muslim execrated. He appointed as amir to govern Herat a man who was thought to be a Batini. The amir and his retinue (all believed to be Batinis) decided on a rather crude method of collecting taxes. No one was allowed to take his grain home from the field before he had resolved his fiscal situation. In this way he expected to divert most of the grain to the fortress and into the governor's granaries.77 At this point, the mihtarn of the city, cAbd al-Hadi b. cAbd Allah Ansari,79 took the initiative. He mobilized the townspeople, among whom
74. Gardizi, 165. On Abu c Ali, see note 68. 75. See above, note 68 76. The question of military slavery cannot be addressed in this context. I am referring here to a remark by Michael Cook that "[I]t is remarkably hard to find in Islamic history instances of what might be called citizen armiesarmies locally recruited, by a state identified with the area in question, from a settled population that was not tribal" (Michael Cook, "Islam: A Comment" in Jean Baechler, et. al., eds., Europe and the Rise of Capitalism [Oxford, 1988], 133). It seems to me that we are so used to placing all military activities within the realm of the state that such forces as those mentioned for Herat are likely to escape our attention. The Herati "army" certainly was not recruited by a "state," however identified, since it was at least occasionally actively engaged in fighting against men serving this very state (in the person of the Samanid ruler). 77. Isfizari, 2: 54.This was perhaps not as exceptional as we might think at first. Lambton tells a very similar story in Landlord and Peasant (Oxford, 1969), 307-308. 78. This term is usually used to denote the most respected person in a given place. No official appointment is necessary. The title shaykh al-islam, used for the father of the hero of the following story, cAbdallah Ansari, may be seen as the religious counterpart of mihtar. 79. Aside from this identification, we have little information on cAbd al-Hadi Ansari. He is not mentioned in the biography devoted to his father in Jami's Nafahat
Histories of Herat 111 he had great authority, and together they drove the governor out of town. But after a time, the movement degenerated into pillaging, and other notables asked c Abd al-Hadi to send somebody in order to calm the excited mob. When he did, people left the inner town (quhandiz) where they had been attacking the fortress (qalca), and in the stampede that ensued, more than one hundred people were trampled to death. In the next few days, 'asablya confrontations took place80 which enabled the amir to re-enter the city. He tracked down cAbd al-Hadi and hanged a hundred or so rebels (javanan, literally "young men," a term close in meaning to cayyar). When the amir's men arrested cAbd al-Hadi, they killed him (at the beginning of 493/mid-November 1099). Some members of his family who had also been apprehended were released by Sultan Sanjar later the same year. c Abd al-Hadi without doubt was a descendant, and perhaps a son of the wellknown Herati shaykh cAbd Allah Ansari, the pir-i Harat*1 Although this shaykh distanced himself from the cares of the world,82 cAbd al-Hadi evidently played a leading part in public life. In part this is shown by the religious legitimacy he was able to assign to the uprising on the one hand, and by his personal authority in the city, on the other. In this story we again find a kind of popular "militia" at the command (more or less) of a notable, followed by the execution of "young men" after the movement had dissipated. This story may be taken as evidence that these groups had survived all through the Seljuq period. At the beginning of the sixth/twelfth century, the leaders of mystical families active in Khurasan had begun to take more interest in popular movements and political affairs than their predecessors. It is no accident then that we find a member of such a family at the head of the uprising against the amir appointed to Herat by Sultan Barkyaruq. In sum, the notables in Herat were able to maintain a certain measure of control over local affairs throughout the Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuq periods (fourth/tenth to the sixth/twelfth century, approximately). Rather than being
~al-uns. He is mentioned, though, in the Risala-yi mazarat-i Harat, where he is given his own entry that confirms the year of his death as 493/1099-1100. This short biography says, "When the Batinis ruled over Herat, they caused him much grief, and finally killed him in the citadel. They buried him in the same spot but some days later, these disorders came to an end, and his body was exhumed from that burial ground and transferred to Gazurgah" (34). It is difficult to tell whether the author is relying here on material transmitted by Fami; another possible source could be a family and/or a shrine tradition. 80. It is well known that in practically all cities of Khurasan (and in many other places throughout Iran) during the pre-Mongol period, confrontations were continuous, often serious enough to cause bloodshed, between two, rarely three, parties in the city. These parties were sometimes defined by religious markers such as a law school. The fights themselves are called ta'assub, 'asabiya being the term used for what united the fighting parties. The most prominent example is the city of Nishapur, which met an untimely end in struggles of this kind. See Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur. 81. The Risala-yi mazarat-i Harat states explicitly that cAbd al-Hadi is the son of the celebrated shaikh. 82. See S. Laugier de Beaurecueil, Khwadje 'Abdullah Ansari.
112 Paul entirely subject to their despotic rulers, they were prepared to fight the governors sent in by these rulers. According to our sources, during the entire period they had armed groups at their disposal, young men who formed a kind of urban militia powerful enough even to hold out against the Seljuq army under Toghril. All the same, Herat does not seem to have aspired to "independence;" for the name of some ruler was always invoked during Friday prayers.83 With the ruler far away, the notables were the most perceptible influence in the city. The governor was obviously better off maintaining a working relationship with them or, in case of conflict, coming to terms with them. The overall impression is that the city was self-assured, confident of its own means, its walls, and its men, and not about to be pushed around. On the eve of the Mongol invasion From 536/1141 onwards, Seljuq power was breaking down in Khurasan.84 In 545/1150-1, Ghurid troops took Herat. They had been called in, so we are told, by "the city people."85 This is not altogether impossibleit is reminiscent of the times when the notables elected their own amir during the Samanid period. Certainly, not all of the "city people" were involved in calling in the Ghurids. The Herati notables chose, in those troubled times, a power that they hoped would be strong enough to fend off the Ghuzz (Seljuq) Turks, who had established themselves in the region.86 But apparently, the Ghurids were either unable
83. This probably is the background to the information that the Heratis stayed loyal to Sultan Mawdud b. Mas'ud. See above, notes 60 and 62 84. For roughly a century preceding the Mongol invasion, the Persian sources provide little information about Herat. This is not surprising: Fami wrote his book about 1130 CE (if we presume that Samcani did not know it because it had not yet been published), and other books, if they were ever written, did not survive the destruction of the city at the hands of the Mongols. The principal source for the following section is Ibn al-Athir who does not reveal his sources. Florian Schwarz has shown that Ibn al-Athir must have used some "History of Nishapur" (a regional dynastic history) for information about Ay Aba (a warlord of Nishapur and one of the contenders for power in the second half of the sixth/twelfth century) and his successors. See Florian Schwarz, Der Sultan von Hurasan (masters thesis, Tiibingen, 1993). (I am grateful to Florian Schwarz for providing me with a copy of this work.) I consider 536/1141 to mark the beginning of the end for the Seljuqs because in that year, Sanjar was utterly defeated by the Qarakhitay (near Samarqand), and this loss seems to have done irreparable damage to his hayba (authority of rulership). Various regional dynastiesat least in theory subservient to Seljuq overlordshipbegan their bid for independence at that moment, among them, of course, the Khwarazmshah. 85. Ibn al-Athir, 11: 151. The Ghurids were a regional dynasty based in what is now central Afghanistan and one of the major players in Khurasan in this period. Their history is best followed in Muhammad Abdulghafur, The Ghorids. History, Culture and Administation (Doctoral dissertation, Hamburg, 1960). 86. It is well known that some Ghuzz took Sultan Sanjar prisoner in 1153 CE; he spent three years in captivity. The questions surrounding these tumultuous years are best described in Schwarz. The center of their activities and in the Badghis, too close to Herat to be ignored.
Histories of Herat 113 or unwilling to ensure the protection of the city in the long run, for only a few years later, in 552/1157-8, we find a "group of Turks" entrenched there, who in turn were driven out by a warlord called Sunqur al-cAzizi. The latter was told (probably by the Herati notables) to defer to die Ghurid sultan, but he rejected this advice and tried not to acknowledge any overlord. Consequently, Ay Aba, the warlord at Nishapur, appeared before the city. When the Heratis made a show of fighting him, the Turks (probably those previously under Sunqur's leadership) joined Ay Aba. Apparently Sunqur had disappeared from die scene.87 Some time later, the Ghurids were once more in command in Heratthe Ghurid prince Sayf al-Din Muhammad b. al-Husayn was killed by Ghuzz in 558/1162-3,88 suggesting that he must have installed himself sometime earlier. Following him, a Ghuzz leader named Aytegin took over.89 He in rum met his end while besieging Bamyan, which he was unable to take. (Bamyan was one of the principal Ghurid centers; he was thus continuing the Ghuzz efforts to carve out a domain at the expense of the Ghurids). At this point, an ally of the Ghuzz, another warlord called Athir al-Din, appeared before Herat. But the people of the city defended themselves and killed him. His successor likewise was unable to penetrate into the city. Again the Heratis "elected" their own amir and sent to Ay Aba at Nishapur, offering him their allegiance. Ay Aba responded by dispatching a corps under Sayf al-Din Tengiz, and the Ghuzz were forced to lift their siege of Herat. In the fifteen years between 545/1150 and 560/1164, the city changed masters many times, but did not undergo these changes passively. More than once, the notables called in a military leader whom they expected to be strong enough to ensure at least a certain measure of security. Their choice seems to have been informed by dieir assessment of the momentarily prevailing balance of power with a marked tendency to throw in their lot with die most powerful bidder. Moreover, a decided distaste for Ghuzz and other Turkish warlords (as well as tribal leaders) makes itself felt in the sources. The notables believed themselves to be strong and important enough to advise one of these military leaders, and it seems probable that they had a hand (or more man that) in his ignoble end. But all die same, common sense would suggest that tiiey were not satisfied widi what they were achieving for die city. The sources never mention big losses, and it is possible that all these surrenders, sieges or pseudo-sieges, battles or pseudo-batdes did not take a large toll in human lives. However, mis is not to say that the situation was not painful for the inhabitants of the region, since the economyboth trade and agriculturemust have suffered heavily from die marches and counter-marches of die various fighting forces.90 In the following years, Herat seems to have formed part of the Ghurid domain but in the beginning of the seventfi/thirteenth century a new crisis descended on the city. When the Ghurid Sultan Shihab al-Din died in 602/1198, his governor
87. Ibn al-Athir, 11: 227 (year: 552). 88. Ibid., 294. 89. Ibid., 311 (year: 559). 90. Such consequences are graphically described by Ibn Funduq, Tarikh-i Bayhaq, (Tehran, 1317/1939). See also Parvaneh Pourshariati's contribution to this volume and my Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler 118-121.
114 Paul in Herat, Ibn Kharmil, organized a meeting of the city notables. He invited the qadi, the mudarris (professor) of the Nizamiya madrasa, c Ali b. cAbd al-Khaliq b. Ziyad; the shaykh al-islam, who is given the title ra'ls but is not mentioned by name; the head of the sayyids; and the representatives of the city quarters {jnuqaddamVl-mahall). The bargain he offered them is highly indicative of the influence they wielded. He wanted them to swear that they would follow him against any one who might pose a threat to him. To this, the qadi and the mudarris of the Nizamiya madrasa replied that they would do so with one exception: they would not support him against the person who legitimately succeeded the deceased sultan. This shows that Ibn Kharmil knew full well that he could not make good his bid for independence (which apparently is what he had in mind) without being assured of the unconditional backing of the notables, which was just what they refused to give. We can assume that their main reason was that they could guess what the consequences of such a bid would be, at least for them and for the cityonce again, years of certain trouble and uncertain rewards. The purpose of this study is not served by expanding upon the fights and troubles that followed. In brief, Ibn Kharmil did try to establish himself as an independent regional ruler in Herat, siding alternately with the Khwarazmshah and the Ghurid sultan. The notables remained loyal to the Ghurid sultan, and it is tempting to think that this was because of the relatively long period of comparative security they had enjoyed under Ghurid dominion. After two years of inconclusive fighting, Ibn Kharmil was killed by a general sent against him by the Khwarazmshah, Jaldak b. Toghril, whose father had been governor of Sarakhs under Sanjar. The Heratis, however, did not surrender to the Khwarazmians (it appears that they did not expect to be treated well by them because of their known sympathy for the Ghurids). Ibn Kharmil's wazir continued the fight, and the city held out even against substantial reinforcements. Eventually though, the situation inside the city walls became untenable, and the wazir promised to surrender if the Khwarazmshah came in person. But when the shah arrived, the wazir refused to honor his promise and continued fighting. At that point, the famished and exhausted Heratis decided to give in and come to some agreement with the Khwarazmians. But the wazir was informed of their plans, and the measures he took against them were enough to trigger an uprising in the course of which the Khwarazmians entered the town.91
Conclusion
During the eighty years preceding the Mongol invasion, a change seems to have taken place in the relationship between the city of Herat and the central government (or central governments since there were several contenders). The notables still tried to retain a measure of influence: they called in the Ghurids at first, but, as a matter of principle, did not take hostile stands against other powers, not even against the main Ghurid rival, the Khwarazmians (even though a proGhurid bias on their part is clear in the sources). The fate of the city was still enviable; it enjoyed relatively long periods of calm (compared to other towns and 91. For the whole story, see Ibn al-Athir 12: 225-7, 260-5; see also cAta Malik Juvayni, Tarikh-i Jahan-gusha (London and Leiden, 1912-1937), 2: 62-65.
Histories of Herat 115 regions, such as Nishapur and Sarakhs, which suffered much more). But this policy of siding with the power momentarily strongest and thus never declaring formal independence did not suit some of the more ambitious warlords, in particular Ibn Kharmil, who tried to make Herat his base in a bid for independent power. Instead he ended up caught in the middle. He had tried playing the Ghurid card against the Khwarazmian and vice versa (and other cards as well), but, in the end, nothing worked. The notables never joined him in seeking independence or "autonomy;" they knew all too well what the price of independence would be. The city, thanks to its renowned fortifications, was able to resist "nomad" armies for a long time, and the Khwarazmian army was no exception. But in the sources, no further evidence of urban militias or other armed forces is any longer discernible. We can only presume that they must still have existed in some form because it is difficult to see how the city could have resisted the Khwarazmians in a long siege (more than a year) without its own fighting force. But there is no mention of them in the sources. Internal struggles went on unabated. In 602/1197, violent fighting broke out between the blacksmiths' (haddadiri) and the coppersmiths' saffafiri) bazaars.92 It is also possible that the explicit invitation extended by Ibn Kharmil to the chiefs of the city quarters, who were thus elevated to the rank of notables, is indicative of a greater tendency to division within the city. The notables still furnished the city with leadership, but did the mudarris who acted as a spokesman for the notables still hold the same degree of authority as the mihtar cAbd alHadi had a century and a half earlier? Thus, in the case of Herat, we can see the strength and weakness of a provincial city. It was strong in its resistance toconquerors; it was by no means prepared to accept every one who just happened to come along. It was remarkably consistent in its desire, if not for peace, at least for non-aggression. It adhered to a defensive policy, taking the initiative only to confront grave danger. Its main weakness was its failure to provide itself with a permanent kind of overall leadership except on these very rare occasions of need.
92. Ibn al-Athir, 12: 207.

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The histories of Herat

Iranian Studies, volume 33, numbers 1-2, Winter/Spring 2000

The Histories of Herat

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pride (mafakhir oxfada'il)}1

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The histories of Herat

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92. Ibn al-Athir, 12: 207.

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