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Harun Al Rashid - Blog Posts
Iran–Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates
By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu (Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)
Pre-publication of chapter XVI of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XIV, XV and XVI belong to Part Five (Fallacies about Sassanid History, History of Religions, and the History of Migrations). The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters.
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Hsiung-nu soldier from Saksanokhur, Tajikistan
However, soon afterwards, Europe faced two major threats that lasted many centuries: the Islamic armies and the Manichaean subversion. Despite their ferocity and their conquests, at a certain point the Islamic armies were stopped either in Western or in Eastern Europe. But the Manichaean tidal wave that hit Europe back was disproportional and beyond any expectation. Starting from the Eastern Roman Empire and the entire Caucasus region and as early as the 7th c. CE, the Paulicians triggered an enormous religious, social and imperial destabilization across vast lands. The famous Eastern Roman Akritai, i.e. the imperial Eastern Roman guards and frontal forces against the Islamic Caliphate, were – all – Paulicians, having rejected the Christian Orthodox Constantinopolitan theology. Digenes Akritas, the Eastern Roman Empire's greatest hero and Modern Greeks' most revered and foremost legendary figure was a Paulician, not an Orthodox.
Constantinopolitan patriarchs, emperors and theologians persistently described the Paulicians as Manichaeans; they used the same term also for the Iconoclasts. This does not mean that these religious, spiritual and esoteric systems of faith were 'Manichaean' stricto sensu, but they were definitely formed under determinant Manichaean impact. The same concerns the Bogomiles across the Balkans, Central and Western Europe, starting in the 10th c., the Cathars across Western Europe from the 12th c. onwards, and also many other religious, spiritual and esoteric systems that derived from the aforementioned.
The Muslim friends, partners and associates of the Paulicians were also groups formed under strong Manichaean impact and historically viewed as such; known as Babakiyah or Khurramites or Khorram-dinan, the 8th c. religious group setup by Sunpadh and led in the 9th c. by Babak Khurramdin made an alliance with the Eastern Roman Emperor Theophilos (829-842), an outstanding Iconoclast, and not only repeatedly revolted against the Abbasid Caliphate but also fought along with the Eastern Roman army in 837 in the Anti-Taurus Mountains to recapture Melitene (Malatya), and on many other occasions. The Khurramite commander Nasir and 14000 Iranian Khurramite rebels had no problem in being baptized Iconoclast Christians and taking Greek names (Nasir became then known as Theophobos), which shows the Manichaean origins and affinities of the Iconoclasts and the Khurramites.
The state of the Paulicians
The massacre of the Paulicians
Kale-ye Babak, the impregnable castle of the Babakiyah (or Khurramites) near Kaleybar – East Azerbaijan, Iran
Afshin brings Babak as captive in Samarra. from a manuscript miniature of the Safavid times
Babak Khorramdin statue from Babek city in Nakhchivan province of Azerbaijan
Within the context of early Islamic caliphates, the Manicheans prospered, definitely marked by their superiority in terms of spirituality, letters, sciences, philosophy and cosmology. It was relatively easy for them to reinterpret the Quran as a Manichaean scripture; it was totally impossible for the uneducated and naïve early Muslims to oppose Manicheans in open debate or to outfox Manichaean interpretative schemes. Among the leading Muslim erudite polymaths, mystics, poets and translators of the early period of Islamic Civilization (7th – 8th c.), many defended all major pillars of the Manichaean doctrine and even the dualist dogma; Ibn al Muqaffa is an example. The illustrious translator of the Middle Persian literary masterpiece Kalila wa Dimna into Arabic was a crypto-Manichaean Muslim, and surely he was not the only. Ibn al Muqaffa was executed as per the order of Caliph al-Mansur (754-775), but the first persecution of the Manicheans started only under the Caliph al-Mahdi (775-785); however, this was the time many groups and movements or Manichean origin started openly challenging Islam and the Caliphate in every sense. However, it is noteworthy that the greatest Caliph of all times, Harun al Rashid (786-809), had a very tolerant and friendly stance toward Manicheans of all types.
Abu’l Abbas al-Saffah proclaimed as the first Abbasid Caliph: the Abbasid dynasty opened the door for a cataclysmic Iranian cultural, intellectual, academic, scientific and spiritual impact on the Muslim world.
However, it is only as late as the time of Caliph al-Muqtadir (908-932) that the Manicheans, persecuted in the Caliphate, left Mesopotamia in big numbers, making of Afrasiab (Samarqand) and Central Asia the center of their faith, life and activities. This was not a coincidence; many Turanians had already been long date enthusiastic Manichean converts and adepts, whereas several Manichaean monuments unearthed in Central Asia date back to the 4th c. At the time of al-Mansur, the Uyghur Khaqan (: Emperor) Boku Tekin accepted Manichaeism as official state religion in 763; the Uyghur Khaqanate stretched from the Tian Shan mountains and the Lake Balkhash (today's Kazakhstan) to the Pacific. For more than one century, Manichaeism was the state religion across the entire Northeastern Asia.
During the same time, Manichaeism was diffused in Tibet and China. Similarly with what occurred in the Islamic Caliphate, Manicheans in Tibet and China had it easy to reinterpret Buddhism in Manichaean terms. As a matter of fact, Chinese Buddhism is full of Manichaean impregnations. For this reason, several anti-Buddhist Chinese emperors (like Wuzong of Tang in the period 843-845) confused the Manicheans with the Buddhists and persecuted them too. However, Manichaeism was for many centuries a fundamental component and a critical parameter of all social, spiritual, intellectual and religious developments in China. And this was due to the incessant interaction of Turanians and Iranians across Asia. About:
During the Sassanid and early Islamic periods, the central provinces of Iran had to embrace many Turanian newcomers. This was one of the numerous Turanian waves that the Iranian plateau and its periphery had to welcome across the millennia. A vast and critical topic of the World History that was excessively distorted and systematically misrepresented across various disciplines of the Humanities is the chapter of the major Eurasiatic Migrations. Various distorting lenses have been used in this regard. It is surely beyond the scope of the present chapter to outline this subject, but I must at least mention it with respect to the persistent Orientalist efforts to divide and dissociate Iranian from Turanian nations across several millennia.
If one accepts naively the 'official' dogma of Western colonial historiography, one imagines that all the world's major civilizations (Sumerians, Elamites, Akkadians-Assyrians/Babylonians, Egyptians, Cushites-Sudanese, Hittites, Hurrians, Urartu, Phoenicians, Iranians, Greeks, Romans, Dravidians, Chinese, etc.) were automatically popped up and instantly formed by settled populations. Modern historians, who compose this sort of nonsensical narratives, are monstrous gangsters intending to desecrate human civilization and to extinguish human spirituality. All civilizations were started by nomads, and there was always a time when all indigenous nations (each of them in its own turn) were migrants.
But modern Western historians intentionally and criminally misrepresent the major Eurasiatic Migrations in a most systematic and most sophisticated manner, by only introducing - partly and partially - aspects of this overwhelming and continual phenomenon, like spices on gourmet dishes. I do not imply that the Eurasiatic Migrations were the only to have happened or to have mattered; there were also important migrations in Africa, the Pacific, and the continent of the Aztecs, the Mayas and the Incas. However, I limit the topic to the migrations that are relevant to the History of Iran and Turan. So, those who study Ancient Roman History are customarily told that, 'although everything was fine and civilized Romans prospered in peace', suddenly some iniquitous barbarians arrived to invade Roman lands and to embarrass the civilized settled populations altogether; this type of bogus-historical presentations is a Crime against the Mankind, because it distorts the foremost reality of human history, namely that we have all been migrants.
There is no worst bigotry worldwide than that of settled populations.
Yet, every manual of history would be easily rectified, if few extra chapters were added, at the beginning and during the course of the narration, to offer an outline of parallel developments occurred in the wider and irrevocbly indivisible Eurasia.
The discriminatory, truly racist, manner by which the civilized migrants are presented in various manuals of (Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Cushitic, Anatolian, Roman, Greek, European, Russian, Iranian, Dravidian, and Chinese) History helps only reinstate the vicious and immoral axiom that 'History is written by the victors'. Every historian, who does not consciously write in an objective manner to reveal the truth and to reject the paranoia of the aforementioned adage, is an enemy of the Mankind.
Beyond the aforementioned points, many historians today will try to find an excuse, saying that, by writing about let's say the so-called 'barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire', they intentionally reflect the Roman viewpoint, because they rely on Roman historical sources. This could eventually be accepted, if stated in 1820, when the modern science of history had not advanced much, and only few archaeological excavations had taken place. But if this is seriously expressed as an apology today, it constitutes an outrage. The least one can say to these forgers is that they must first obtain an interdisciplinary degree, before publishing their nonsensical manual, or – alternatively - study several paperbacks on the History of the Migrant Nations (in this case: Huns, Vandals, Goths, etc.).
An even greater mistake that modern historians make is that they present the continual phenomenon of Eurasiatic migrations in a most fragmentary manner; this creates, by means of Nazi propaganda, the wrong idea and the distorted impression that all of a sudden, every now and then, new migrants appear in the horizon, coming out of the vast Asiatic 'nowhere'. This is an aberration and a fallacy. The absurd factoid, which is deceitfully called "Invasions of the Roman Empire" and is peremptorily dated between 100 CE and 500 CE, is merely an academic fabrication. Why?
First, there were incessant migrations before and after the said period.
Second, the aforementioned factoid is a fallacy due to the fact that, during the same period, other migrations took also place, but the specialists in Roman History do not mention (or even do not know) them; however, these migrations (that they fail to even name) constitute intertwined phenomena with those that they present in their manuals, and consequently their presentation is a conscious and plain distortion.
Third, the events are always portrayed as a menace of barbarism, as breach of Roman legitimacy, and as violation of a hypothetical right of the Roman Empire to exist. This is an outrage; the Roman Empire was not a sacrosanct institution. In many aspects, its lawless formation, barbaric expansion, and bloody wars constitute some of the World History's bleakest pages. But criminal colonial historians never discussed 'unpleasant' topics with the correct terminology; they did not write for instance about the barbarian Roman demolition of Carthage, the monstrous Roman sack of Corinth, the savage Roman invasion of Seleucid Syria or the lawless Roman annexation of Egypt.
This is the disgusting bias of the Western colonial historiographers: when a negative development takes place against Rome, it is 'bad'; and quite contrarily, when an undesirable occurrence happens to others, it is 'good'. And in order to represent this vicious bias as 'historical truth', they mobilize a great intellectual effort, involving many methods. In this regard, the Eurasiatic migrations are absurdly fractured into many parts, and many of these parts are deliberately concealed, when focus is made on only one of them. The pseudo-academic methods involved to disguise and conceal the topic are numerous.
First, some migrations are not presented as such, but named after the migrant nations; examples: Scythians, Sarmatians, Celts. And yet, these nations are basically known due to their migrations across vast lands.
Second, other migrations are not mentioned as such, but called after the name of the location where excavations brought to light the material remains of a migrant nation's civilization; example: Andronovo culture, Afanasievo culture, etc.
Third, several migrant nations of different origin are regrouped after the geography where they spread; this is totally paranoid, because no one can possibly 'regroup' the Vandals, who crossed Central and Western Europe, reached North Africa, settled in Hippo Regius and Carthage, and then attacked Greece, Sicily, Rome, Sardinia, Corsica and the Iberian coastlands, with the Huns, who crossed Siberia, Russia, and Ukraine, settled in Eastern Europe and attacked the Balkans, Italy and Gaul.
Fourth, several migrant nations are dissociated from one another migrant nation of the same ethnic origin (example: Huns and Turkic nations), whereas in cases of severe distortion, different names of the same nation, attested in diverse historical sources, are tentatively presented as names of two different nations (example: Huns and Hsiung nu whose name is erroneously spelled Xiongnu).
Fifth, several parts of migrant nations are arbitrarily dissociated from their ethnic counterparts and presented separately as settled nations (example: White Huns or Hephthalites).
Sixth, the ethnic origin of several migrant nations is confusingly presented (example: the Bulgars, who were a Turkic nation, are often included in Europe's 'Migration Period' and categorized along with Slavs, whereas they should have been mentioned in the 'Turkic migrations'!).
To the aforementioned inaccuracies, distortions and prejudices, a plethora of false maps is added to comfortably reduce the size of kingdoms, empires and nations whose existence did not happen to please the discriminatory minds of the perverse Anglo-French and American colonial historians.
The end result of this systematization of Western colonial falsehood is that great and highly civilized conquerors and emperors like Attila, Genghis Khan, Hulagu Khan, Kublai Khan, Timur Lenk and others appear as mysterious meteorites, who came from "nowhere", as barbarian invaders, and a "scourges of God", whereas in reality they all (and many others) were far more educated, more cultured, more competent and more heroic than any Greek, Macedonian, Roman or European king or general. To the aforementioned historical reality additional, deceitful tactics and insidious procedures have been added by the criminal, racist, Western European and North American 'historians': they definitely proved to be able to write 100000 words to deplore the destructions supposedly caused to the Human Civilization by Attila, Genghis Khan, Hulagu Khan, and others, but when they happen to write about the fact that Alexander the Great burned Persepolis, they remain malignantly and partially silent, abstaining from any due criticism.
King Attila with the Turul bird in his shield (Chronicon Pictum, 1358)
It would be far easier for all to tell the truth: 'Asia is Turan' for most of its territory. And the moral lesson must be drawn: the existence of a 'state' is not a reason for anyone not to invade its lands. States are not sacrosanct; and in any case, the territory occupied by the nation that setup the local state, in all cases of historical states, was also invaded by the ancestors of that nation in the first place.
The biased Western colonial historians carry out all these distortions as tasks in order to promote the lawless interests of their own disreputable states; for this reason they always concealed the following unwavering reality: throughout World History, various fundamental concepts like 'land', 'state', 'nation', 'sacred place', etc. have had different connotations among nations of nomadic migrants and nations of settled populations.
Furthermore, several fundamental concepts, which are valid among settled nations, have no validity at all among nomads and migrant nations, and vice versa. In addition, some basic concepts that exist among nomads and migrant nations start being altered and becoming different if and when these nations happen to settle somewhere 'permanently'. The concept of 'universe' and the deriving imperative of 'universalism' are fundamental notions of nomads and migrant nations; notably, the Akkadians (early Assyrians – Babylonians), who first produced significant literary narratives to detail the concept, were also a migrant nation that had settled only few centuries before writing down in cuneiform texts their world views.
The History of Eurasiatic Migrations, in and by itself, highlights the extensive presence of Turanians in Iran since times immemorial. Thanks to the Turanians of the Achaemenid Empire, the Turkic nations of Central Asia, China and Siberia came to get detailed descriptions of faraway regions and lands, such as Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, the Caucasus Mountains, the Anatolian plateau, the plains of Ukraine and Central Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, and Egypt. Consequently, further the interaction between Iran and Rome progressed, more details about the western confines of Europe reached the Turanian nomads who were moving around Lake Balkhash (Kazakhstan), Yenisey River and Baikal Lake (Siberia), Orkhon River (Mongolia), the Tarim Basin (China), the Oymyakon River (Yakutia, Eastern Siberia) and other circumferences. The incessant waves of migrations to the West and to the South were not blind and desperate movements of uninformed barbarians, who ran like crazy on their horses; only the distorted publications of Western colonial historians contain similar, nonsensical conclusions.
The pattern of the Turanian military horsemen and skillful soldiers is absolutely prominent and protruding in the History of the Early Caliphates; but it is merely the continuation of a millennia long tradition. This consists in a very embarrassing fact for all the Western Orientalists specializing in Early Islamic History, and more particularly with focus on the 8th c. CE, the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate, and the rise of Abbasid Baghdad. They therefore constantly come up with incredible assumptions, farfetched arguments, nonsensical explanations, and sly innuendos to explain how and why so many Turanian soldiers and military heads appear in the Islamic Caliphate. In fact, without Turanian military skills, the Umayyad dynasty of Damascus may have not been overthrown.
It is well known that the early Islamic armies advanced up to Merv in today's Turkmenistan (651) and they stopped there. For the next hundred years, the only Islamic advance in Asia was effectuated only in today's Baluchistan province of Pakistan; only at the end of the 7th c. and the beginning of the 8th c., the Islamic armies reached the Indus Delta and Gujarat. But how the Islamic Caliphate started being flooded with Turanian soldiers as early as the last decades of the Umayyad rule, if there had not already been massive Turanian populations in the Sassanid Empire of Iran? If the Turanian nations were confined 'somewhere in Eastern Siberia and Mongolia' (as per the distortions of colonial Orientalists), why did they appear to be so deeply involved in battles and developments that took place in Mesopotamia and Syria during the first half of the 8th c.? The answer to this question is very simple: there were always massive Turanian populations in the Pre-Islamic Iranian empires.
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Download the chapter in PDF here:
The Fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate
By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu
(Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)
Pre-publication of Part Eight and Chapter XXII of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey - 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian - Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; Part Eight (The Distorted Term 'Persianate') consists exclusively of Chapter XXII. The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters.
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With the aforementioned, one can understand that, despite its vast territory and its broad ethnic base (wider than the Umayyads'), the Abbasid Caliphate was a very weak imperial institution that could be challenged practically speaking by any small group of dissidents. Its rise in terms of spiritual-intellectual breakthrough, cultural diversity, academic-scientific knowledge, artistic-architectural creativity, economic wealth, and military strength was conditioned by one critical prerequisite: the caliphs should be able to compose an unprecedented imperial universality out of all these diverse elements that were being incessantly multiplied by the genius of Islam. Quite unfortunately, very few Abbasid caliphs proved able to pass this test. Then, the fact that this state lasted more than 500 years is rather a miracle!
In fact and to use an anachronism, the Abbasid Caliphate only 100 years after its establishment (850) was already the Sick Man of Eurasia! Neither the short-lived Umayyad Caliphate nor the Abbasid Empire that definitely eclipsed its predecessor in every sense were formed like the Roman (Republic and later) Empire, gradually prevailing over neighboring states and progressively expanding territorially over the span of 250 years (from the First Punic War, 264-241 BCE, until the annexation of Egypt, 30 BCE). Quite contrarily, Harun al-Rashid, 150 years after the early Islamic conquests, was ruling over a territory larger than that of the Roman Emperor Trajan, commanding lands between China and India in the East and the Atlantic Ocean in the West.
As regards its immense territory, linguistic multitude, and cultural–spiritual diversity, the Abbasid Caliphate can be compared only to two earlier empires: that of Alexander the Great and that of Darius I the Great. However, Alexander's empire was split to four kingdoms only 20 years after his death, and the Achaemenid Empire of Iran did not last more than 220 years after its establishment. In fact, 100 years after Darius I the Great's death, Iran was in decay. Pretty much like the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, which was not a Zoroastrian state, but a vast empire with many different religions and with Zoroastrianism as its official religion, the Abbasid Caliphate was not an Islamic state; it was a vast empire with many different religions and with Islam as its official religion. Even more strikingly in the case of the Abbasid Caliphate, new dogmas, doctrines, spiritual orders, mystical groups, theological interpretations, apocalyptic eschatological schools, and transcendental concepts were appearing almost like mushrooms. It is a terrible oversight not to take this reality into account.
What happened to the Abbasid Caliphate was however a historical particularity. Few decades after the death of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), who marked the peak of Abbasid power, several parts of the empire started seceding. One must clarify from the beginning that this was a really new type of 'secession', because it also involved approval by the caliph himself. This phenomenon took the appearance of imperial entrustment of an administrative province to a formidable military combatant, who instantly and voluntarily recognized the imperial authority. The name of the Abbasid caliph was mentioned first in the acclamations and wishes made in all sermons given during Friday prayers in all the mosques of the 'seceded' territory; taxes were paid to Baghdad and coordination was effectual, but in reality, the caliph had only nominal power over the 'seceded' province(s). More importantly, the formidable military rulers who bore significant royal titles (emirs, sultans or even caliphs) formed hereditary dynasties and engaged in various wars with local rebels, occasional invaders, foreign belligerents, neighboring secessionist rulers, and new spiritual, mystical or theological adversaries in a way that truly made of their territories fully independent states typified by their own interests and distinct characteristics.
In fact, after the first decades of the 9th c. the Abbasid Caliphate totally ceased to function as a centralized imperial institution and authority. The weakened caliphs did not have sufficient stability in Baghdad and ample military force in the provinces to quench the incessant uprisings and to avert this type of secessions. Even worse, sometimes the caliphs needed the voluntarily offered help of experienced warriors, who came with a well-trained military force to save the caliphate and eliminate its enemies. What occurred then is a situation almost similar to the appanage, a well-attested practice in Christian times' Europe. This term (from Latin adpanare 'to give bread') involves the grant of an estate as a reward for, or in recompense of, services offered or rights claimed. The final result was that the Abbasid caliph ended up as a totally powerless, decorative figure; of all of these secessionist rulers, the Buwayhi (or Buyids) achieved the unthinkable: they made of Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, their own … capital! No blood involved; no blackmail used; no threat issued!
This happened in 945; Ahmad ibn Buya, usually known in modern historiography under his regnal name Mu'izz al-Dawla, i.e. 'Fortifier of the State' (and in this case, as 'state' was meant the Caliphate itself), invaded Baghdad and made of the Abbasid capital his own capital too in the name of the caliph. It may sound odd, but it was the impotent caliph Al-Mustakfi who gave Ahmad ibn Buya the aforementioned regnal name. There is more 'paradox' to it; Ahmed ibn Buya had thoughts, ideas and beliefs close to (but not identical with) those of the followers of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad and Ali. And of course, the Abbasid caliph opposed the idea that the title of caliph was rightfully claimed by the family of the Prophet.
Of course, no one named at the time the caliph Al-Mustakfi a 'Sunni' and Ahmad ibn Buya a 'Shia', and today, it would be ridiculous to brand Ahmed ibn Buya a 'Shia' and the impotent caliph Al-Mustakfi a 'Sunni'. Only modern Western Orientalists and 'Sunni' or 'Shia' militants carry out similar distortions, the former due to their malignancy and the latter because of their ignorance and idiocy. It is definitely noteworthy that this divergence did not prevent Ahmed ibn Buya and Al-Mustakfi from finding common ground. It was however a period of very high messianic and eschatological fever, enthusiasm and fascination.
Muhammad ibn al-Askari, son of Hasan al-Askari {846-874; the 11th imam of those among the Muslims who accepted Musa al-Kadhim as the 7th imam (aforementioned section M 4 i)} and of the Eastern Roman princess Narjis ibnat Yashua (i.e. 'daughter of Jesus'), was born in 869 only to enter his Minor Occultation in 874 (one day after his father's passing away) and then his Major Occultation in 941; after that date and down to our times, the followers of this group expect the termination of the Major Occultation and the appearance of the 12th imam (Muhammad ibn al-Askari), an event prophesied to coincide with the End of Times. This means that the followers of this group identify the 12th imam with the Mahdi of Prophet Muhammad's Hadith (oral tradition). Mahdi is the Islamic Messiah, who was prophesied to lead the battle, along with Prophet Jesus (who will also reappear then), against the forces of Evil (under Masih al-Dajjal, the Antichrist, lit. 'the most fake Messiah') and eliminate them once for all. I mention the above only to show that the rise of the Buyids coincided with a time of immense apocalyptic, eschatological and messianic expectations, as people believed that developments would follow within short time (similarly with early Christians at the end of the 1st c. CE and with believers of other religions in different moments).
Of course, when describing the above, one must be watchful not to fall into the traps of modern states' pseudo-historical dogmas, fanatic pseudo-theologians' inconsistent doctrines, and Western Orientalists' intentional fallacies. It is therefore greatly important to take into account two points:
First, the various secessionists, seceding emirs, and revolting warriors were not Iranians or Persians; they were of Iranian (Persian included), Turanian, Berber, Arab and other origin. Secessions did not start in what is known as historical Iran and they were never limited there. During that period, there was never an ethnic divide 'Iranians vs. Arabs', because most of the Iranians sided with some Arabs (notably the Alids, i.e. the descendants of Prophet Muhammad and of Ali), most of the Arabs sided also with the Alids, and more importantly, most of the Arabs were already dispersed among Aramaeans, Yemenites, Iranians, Turanians, Egyptians, Berbers of North Africa, and other nations and, due to this fact, they never consisted in an 'ethnic group' properly speaking within Islam after 750 CE. Last, there was no ethnic dimension attributed to these secessions, revolts, wars or splits.
Fallacious Western Orientalists start their presentation of the fragmentation and collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate with the Samanid dynasty, which was established supposedly in 819; in fact, this is a lie, because at that time, the four sons of (the newly converted to Islam) Asad ibn Saman were rewarded by the governor of Khorasan Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri and by the Abbasic caliph al-Ma'mun for their bravery in combatting the Samarqand garrison commander Rafi ibn al-Layth who had revolted. Asad ibn Saman's four sons - Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas - were then appointed as governors of four important Central Asiatic cities. Their positions were inherited by their respective sons and only after a 'civil' Samanid war (in fact, a family internal conflict), a unified entity emerged in 892 under Ismail Samani and the then weakened caliph was forced to recognize him as the local ruler. Speaking of a Samanid 'dynasty' before 892 is sheer nonsense, whereas calling the emerged state (one should just call it an 'administrative institution') an 'empire' is ridiculous. Even more absurd is to describe the Samanid state as ethnically 'Iranian'. Its population was almost totally Turanian.
However, this was not the first, gradually emerged secessionist entity. At this point, we have to also take into consideration the fact that few marginal Iranian rulers (of the Qarinvand and the Dabuyid dynasties), who controlled parts of the southern shore of Caspian Sea (in the almost inaccessible region of the Elburz (Alborz) range of mountains) already before the demise of the Sassanid Empire (636-651), continued existing under the early caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids, although having tormented relations with them.
As a matter fact, the first rulers, who seceded from the Islamic Caliphate, were the Rustamids, who established their rule in parts of today's Algeria, Tunisia and Libya as early as 761. Even more importantly, they institutionalized the Ibadi theological, jurisprudential school of Islam, which survived down to our days, being unrelated to what is wrongly defined as 'Sunni' and 'Shia'; they were instrumental in diffusing Islam among the Berbers who made the quasi-totality of the populations of Northern and Northwestern Africa. Not quite differently from the Ibadi Rustaminds, the Muhallabids controlled parts of the caliphate's African provinces from 768 to 795; however, they were known for their animosity against the Berbers and their rule was soon terminated.
Also before the Samanids, the Idrisids (claiming descent from Ali, as Idriss I was indeed the great grandchild of Hasan, the 2nd imam) founded their own kingdom (emirate) with first capital at Volubilis (Walili, in today's Northern Morocco) in 788, acting in full opposition to the Abbasids and in synergy with various forces of the anti-Abbasid opposition. Furthermore, the Justanids (followers of Zayd ibn Ali, who are nowadays mistakenly called Zaydi or Zaidi Shia) were established in the almost unreachable province of the southwestern shores of Caspian Sea (in 791). In addition, the Aghlabids formed their state in parts of today's Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily in 800 (when Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab as hereditary emir of the Abbasid province of Africa/Ifriqiya) and promoted a theological – jurisprudential particularity, namely an amalgamation of Mu'talizite theology with Hanafi school of Figh.
So, the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate was not due to Iranians or Persians and did not have any Iranian or Persian character.
Second, there is no 'Shia' character or dimension in the overwhelmingly apocalyptic, eschatological and messianic fever, enthusiasm and fascination of the 8th, the 9th, and the 10th c. It is wrong to imagine that, at those days, the Sunni Muslims did not have a messianic fever and the Shia Muslims did. There were no Sunni and Shia at those days; practically speaking, all the populations of the Caliphate, Muslim or not, were characterized by an apocalyptic fascination. However, this fascination had no ethnic and no religious background; it was general and overwhelming, and it would take an independent study to explore its reasons, which may eventually be related to the complete disappointment from - and the total disgust about - the Islamic Caliphate's methods of rule and administration.
Long before the 12th imam (of today's Twelver Shia) went in Occultation (Minor Occultation in 874 and Major Occultation in 941), and already before Ja'far al Sadiq's eldest son Isma'il ibn Ja'far (of today's Sevener Shia) died (762), Abu Muslim al-Khorasani, a formidable combatant and a gallant general of Iranian origin (possibly Turanian, but surely not a Persian from Fars, because most of the people in Khorasan were Turanians), died in 755; his military action and imperial advice proved to be determinant in overthrowing the Umayyad dynasty and in integrating non-Muslim Manichaeans, Nestorians, Gnostics, Mazdakists, Zervanists, Mazdeists (wrongly described as Zoroastrians), Buddhists and the followers of many new mystical doctrines into the early Abbasid Empire. So, he immediately became a legendary and occult personality for various groups, who claimed that Abu Muslim al-Khorasani had not actually died, but would come back as the prophesied Mahdi. This means clearly that what was later developed as Sevener Shia messianic eschatology and as Twelver Shia apocalyptic occult doctrine were merely some aspects and dimensions of a far more general phenomenon that took place across the Islamic Caliphate during the 8th, the 9th, and the 10th c., involving Muslims, non-Muslims, and followers of mystical orders at the confines of every strict doctrine.
Of course, Abu Muslim al-Khorasani was not the only case of occult literature and messianic eschatological fascination and indoctrination; he was only one. The Khurramites were an 8th c. spiritual, mystical order and rebellious group that accepted a doctrine established by rebellious mystics like the Iranians Sunpadh, Behafarid, and Ustadh Sis and the Turanian Ishaq al-Turk. All of them were Muslims with a strong impact of earlier apocalyptic, messianic and eschatological traditions (Manichaean, Gnostic, Nestorian, Mazdakist, Mazdeist, Zervanist, and other) and all of them performed impressive spiritual exploits and magnificent transcendental acts.
An obscure figure named Hashim al-Muqanna (the 'Veiled'), probably a Turanian, organized the Khurramites into a successful military unit characterized by spiritual discipline; he appeared as the incarnation of God and as spiritual continuity of Prophet Muhammad, Ali and Abu Muslim al-Khorasani. His posthumous fame through the Nizari Isma'ili (Assassins), the Knights Templar, and several Western European Freemasonic orders reached Napoleon, who even wrote an envisioned conversation between himself and the mystical visionary al-Muqanna (named "Le Masque prophète").
More determinant role in the transformation of the Khurramites into a formidable military force and major challenge for the Abbasid armies was Babak Khorramdin (795-838), a Turanian from Azerbaijan, i.e. pre-Islamic Iran's most sacred province, which was the center of monotheistic Zoroastrian doctrine and tradition. In fact, due to his military mastership, the Babakiyah (as the Khurramites were renamed) were practically invincible. Based in their famous and almost inaccessible castle known as Kale-ye Babak (Babak Castle), which is one of Modern Iran's most spectacular monuments (in the mountainous region of Southern Azerbaijan, near Kaleybar), the Babakiyah attacked the armies of the Caliphate and tormented many northern provinces in the Caucasus and Central Asia regions.
Having organized a clandestine network of affiliated groups, they were able to get insightful and be prepared for devastating hits against the forces of the Abbasid caliph. All major historians of Islamic times dedicated long pages to describe their valor, exploits, heroic deeds, doctrinal particularities, and mystical visions. At the end, Babak Khorramdin suffered an excruciating death at the hands of the monstrous soldiers of the cruel, pseudo-Muslim Abbasid caliph; the tortures described by illustrious historians as applied to the master of the Babakiyah order are all strictly prohibited in Islam.
However, Babak Khorramdin's messianic legend survived for centuries; his clandestine organization endured and carried out subversive activities and frontal wars against the Abbasid caliphs across vast territories spanning between the Eastern Roman Empire and China; and the ramifications of the Babakiyah order's mystical doctrine and military practices can be attested later among various Islamic traditions and groups, involving the Isma'ili Assassins and the Qizilbash of the Ottoman – Safavid times.
What is falsely described by Western Orientalists as Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate is an effort to
i- distort the nature, character and dimensions of the Golden Era of Islamic Civilization,
ii- depict it as a 'Persian' (not even Iranian) cultural by-product,
iii- culturally subordinate numerous Central Asiatic (Turanians), Western Asiatic (Aramaeans, Caucasians, and Eastern Romans), and South Asiatic nations (Dravidians, Malay) to Persians,
iv- erase the extensive Turanization of the entire Eurasia,
v- conceal the majestic role played by the Aramaeans in the formation of the Islamic Civilization
vi- develop and detail the next historical stage of the fallacious Orientalist divide 'Iran vs. Turan' (1037-1501: from the emergence of the Slejuk to the rise of the Safavids),
vii- avert any possible reference to the impact that Manichaeism exerted on the Islamic Civilization,
viii- depict as non-Islamic the peak of Islamic Civilization (and in the process promote Western propaganda related to Islamism, Wahhabism and Islamic Terrorism),
ix- advance a global, racist, Indo-European agenda, and
x- promote a certain number of fake divides and mistaken identifications that would be politically and geopolitically useful.
The underlying concept of this historical falsification is the fallacy that 'Shia Persians' took the upper hand in the Abbasid Caliphate only to be later superseded by – the already Persianized (!?) – Turks, starting with the Seljuk dynasty. For this purpose, there are many fabricated terms, such as Iranian Intermezzo or Iranian Renaissance and Sunni Revival. These fake terms help distort the presentation of
A- the period from the rise of the Samanid dynasty (892) to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks (1037) and the demolition of the Buyid parasites in Baghdad (1055); this period is falsely called 'Iranian Intermezzo', and
B- the period from the rise of the Seljuk (1037-1055) to the rise of the first Sufi dynasty in Iran, i.e. the Safavids, in 1501.
Several determinant historical facts are enough to refute the fallacy of the Persianization of the Caliphate:
i- The presence of Turanians as basic component of the Achaemenid, Arsacid and Sassanid empires refutes the nonsensical distortion as per which 'Turks' (Turanians) appear in Iran only with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks. The same is valid for the early Islamic period until the peak of the Abbasid Caliphate. In all the parts of the unit VI (from A to L), I expanded on this highly concealed topic.
ii- The terms of Turanian – Persian interaction within the wider Iran – Turan were known since the Achaemenid times and they were only repeated across the ages and during the various periods of Islamic History. In the aboce unit VI (part D. Iranian and Turanian nations in Achaemenid Iran), I wrote: "The Persians, among all Iranians and Turanians, had an inclination to poetry, literature, epics, lyricism, arts and symbolism, whereas the Turanians were known for their tendency to martial arts, military discipline and life, asceticism and religious mysticism. The Turanians found it therefore normal to write in Old Achaemenid Iranian in the 1st millennium BCE, in Middle Persian (Parsik) during the 1st millennium CE, and in Arabic and Farsi after the arrival of Islam".
iii- One very well-known fact is comfortably forgotten, when Orientalists, Iranologists and Islamologists study the Early History of Islam between Tigris and Indus. Similarly with the invasion of Alexander the Great, the early Islamic conquest caused an overwhelming destruction of Fars (Persia). The principal Iranian capital Istakhr was totally erased from the surface of the Earth. Alexander the Great's destruction of Persepolis pales in comparison of the Islamic armies' pulverization of Istakhr. This can be easily noticed by any non-specialist traveller who happens to visit the two sites. Whereas other provinces of Iran, notably Atropatene / Adhurbadagan – Azerbaijan (also known as Abakhtar in Sassanid times), were not destroyed at all, Fars was left in ruins already before 651, when the Islamic armies reached Merv in today's Turkmenistan. And Persians were slaughtered to the last, except for those who were lucky enough to flee to the southeast, reach Sistan and Baluchistan (in today's SE Iran and SW Pakistan), and settle there.
iv- This is exactly what happened: Turanians preserved Middle Persian (Parsik) and developed Farsi after the arrival of Islam, because the Persian language had always been their means of cultural-literary expression, pretty much like Turanian (Turkic) was the language of the army. With this I don't mean that all Persian Iranians disappeared with the arrival of Islam; there were Persians living in Mesopotamia, in the Northeast (Khurasan), the Middle Zagros (Khwarawaran), and other southern regions except Fars, but they were few. The bulk of Persian populations lived in Fars and most of them were slaughtered, as they were viewed as the most polytheistic element of the Sassanid Empire.
v- Of course, the terms Iranian Intermezzo and Iranian Renaissance are not wrong if understood properly, i.e. if considered as involving the contribution of Iranians, Turanians and other nations, notably the Aramaeans, in the formation of the Islamic Civilization. Furthermore, these terms must be totally deprived of any religious or denominational connotation.
It is absurd to portray the anti-Caliphate forces, arbitrarily called 'Shia', as the driving force of the Iranian-Turanian-Aramaean Renaissance, because there were also many pro-Caliphate elements that participated in the rise of the Islamic Civilization.
And it is totally wrong to view the Seljuk Turks and other Turanians either as 'Sunni' or as the driving force of an otherwise nonexistent 'Sunni revival' during the following period 1055-1501. As a matter of fact, Turanians were the major force behind the rise of the apocalyptic, messianic, eschatological mysticism of the 8th, 9th and 10th c., which is viciously distorted (by Western Orientalists and today's silly, uneducated and intoxicated 'Sunni' and 'Shia' theologians) as 'Shia doctrine'.
As conclusion one can simply say that, as early as 651, there were not enough Persians left to possibly 'persianize' or 'indo-europeanize' the Islamic Caliphate.
As a matter of fact, the terms 'persianization' and 'persianate' or 'persianate society' were introduced only in the 1970s by Marshall Hodgson, but within a totally diverse context and with a greatly different connotation. In fact, Marshall Hodgson was an erudite scholar and a pioneer intellectual who took a staunch anti-Eurocentric stance and introduced several new terms in an effort to demolish the fake colonial model of historiography. Rejecting the fallacy of Western, colonial, racist Orientalism, in his celebrated "The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization" (3 vols.), Marshall Hodgson tried to offer to the Islamic Civilization something that almost all earlier Western Islamologists and Orientalists worked hard to deprive it of: its universality.
Marshall Hodgson contributed greatly to an improved viewpoint over China's contribution to World History, again rejecting earlier Eurocentric fallacies of demented Western Orientalists and Sinologists. Marshall Hodgson coined the term 'persianate society' in a – very correct – effort to reject and rebut the fallacy of the so-called 'Arab-Islamic' civilization and the deprecatory presentation of Islam as an 'Arab religion' (see above parts 1, 2 and 3 of the unit M. Western Orientalist falsifications of Islamic History: the Arabization of Islam and the Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate: 1. Identification of Islam with only Hejaz at the times of the Prophet; 2. The fake, Orientalist Arabization of Islam; 3. The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History).
But as it usually happens, when evil gangsters are allowed to control Western European and North American universities, libraries, museums, foundations and associated research institutions, the original scope of the new term was removed, the term was decontextualized, and its further use proved to be totally erroneous and in striking opposition to the original use (by Marshall Hodgson).
Then, the decontextualized and distorted term was used for the above mentioned purposes i-x. Many tricks have been used for this purpose, especially false etymology of various names (to present them as of Persian origin) and incongruous linguistics. The foundation of Beit al Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in the first years of Abbasid rule played a tremendous role in the promotion of the academic life, the scientific exploration, and the intellectual advancement across the caliphate. This tendency was mainly based on Aramaean scholars of Tesifun (Ctesiphon), Nusaybin (Nisibis), Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene), Antioch, Gundeshapur (the greatest Sassanid library, university, archives and research center, museum and scriptorium), who were variably Muslims, Manichaeans, Gnostics or (Monophysitic or Nestorian) Christians. Iranian, Turanian, Yemenite, Egyptian, Berber and Indian scholars flocked to the House of Wisdom, which was located in Baghdad. The whole movement was supported by great Iranian families that had sooner or later abandoned Mazdeism and accepted Islam, like the Naubakht family (originating from Nemroz, i.e. the Sassanid Empire's southern administrative region) and the Barmak family, which was native to Khorasan.
The name of the Barmak family is evidently of Turanian origin (Parmak) and it was turned to al-Baramikah (البرامكة) in Arabic and Barmakian (برمکیان) in Farsi. However, paranoid Western historians and racist Orientalists attempted to distort this family name enormously in order to depict as … Indian and Buddhist. The ridiculous effort reached the point of even associating the historical name with the Sanskrit word Pramukha; this was suggested by the irrelevant English Indologist Harold Walter Bailey, who tried to indo-europeanize everything he studied in Central and South Asia. This idiotic and racist pseudo-scholar, who was shamelessly venerated in colonial England, forgot that first, Sanskrit was never used in Khorasan; second, it was already a dead language in the 8th c. CE; third, if truly the influential family's name were Pramukha, it would never be vocalized as al-Baramikah in Arabic and as Barmakian in Farsi.
Even more absurd is the Western Orientalists' effort to portray the prestigious Islamic family as having Buddhist affiliations prior to their adhesion to Islam. Nothing proves that the Barmakids were Buddhists and not Mazdeists (the late form of Zoroastrianism that was the official religion of the Sassanid Empire). Plenty of Islamic historical sources describe the pre-Islamic family members of the Barmakids as priestly, which means Mazdeist mobedh. Their homeland was Balkh which was a major Zoroastrian religious center since the Achaemenid times.
The ridiculous association of the Barmakian with the so-called Nawbahar Buddhist monastery (reconstructed as Nava Vihara in Sanskrit) is totally unsubstantiated because such a monastery is delusional and unsubstantiated, as it has never been identified, let alone excavated. Many Islamic sources it describe the Nawbahar temple as a fire place (so, evidently a Mazdeist shrine), and not one colonial Orientalist published a single article to refute these historical sources. Although there are certainly Chinese historical sources testifying to the existence of a Buddhist temple in the wider region of Balkh (Bactra), nothing proves that they refer to the Nawbahar shrine. All the same, if the Barmakian were Buddhists, this only strengthens the argument in favor of the Turanian ancestry of the said family, because the Persians in Khorasan were all followers of the official religion of the Sassanid Empire (Mazdeism) and the only eventual followers of Buddhism in Khorasan and Central Asia were Turanians.
The only correct term to describe the real nature of the Abbasid Caliphate until the arrival of the Seljuk Turks (1055) is 'Turanian – Iranian – Aramaean Renaissance of Islam'. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate#Abbasid_Golden_Age_(775%E2%80%93861)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As-Saffah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmakids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_Barmak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_ibn_Khalid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Muslim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasr_ibn_Sayyar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Harith_ibn_Surayj
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nawbakhti
https://iranicaonline.org/articles/nawbakti-family
http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_publications&Itemid=75&pub=47
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarinvand_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabuyid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustamid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibadi_Islam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhallabids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghlabids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justanids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idrisid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahirid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbari_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffarid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banijurids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulunids
http://alamahabibi.net/English_Articles/The_Al-Ferighun.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdanid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uqaylid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_Caliphate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziyarid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27izz_al-Dawla
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mustakfi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_al-Askari
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narjis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hujjat-Allah_al-Mahdi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultation_(Islam)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Occultation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Occultation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwanids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallarid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikhshidid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Chaghaniyan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhtajids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Ilyas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawadid_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarmatians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasanwayhids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrighids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27munids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizari_Ismaili_state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soomro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soomra_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuq_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tughril
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Muslim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunpadh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behafarid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustadh_Sis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaq_al-Turk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Muqanna
http://www.bmlisieux.com/archives/bonapart.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khurramites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babak_Khorramdin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babak_Fort
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleybar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persianization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persianate_society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Hodgson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turco-Persian_tradition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Persian_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Revival