Oh dang, that sounds both terrifying and awesome! Having the faces veiled would also work, though I can see that being reserved only for prophets.
Rightly Guided: Zaid ibn Haritha and his Rashidun Caliphate
- Thread starter GoulashComrade
- Start date
Oh dang, that sounds both terrifying and awesome! Having the faces veiled would also work, though I can see that being reserved only for prophets.
Al-Hasan's election was very controversial, as there was a vested interest in keeping the instituton of the Shura safe from dynastic ambitions, but Al-Hasan (like OTL) was genuinely popular. The power base that was the radical Banu Hashim monarchists had long since been broken (with the other ones, except Banu Umayya, who were smart enough to limit their goals) by the Shura faction and Ayesha let the election go his way because Al-Hasan was her favorite member of Ali's household anyway. It's telling, though, that the next Caliph is one very closely tied to Ayesha by blood and by shared vision.
Very astute. The Persians and the various Persianted Muslims are boycotting the ceremony, though they are still members of the Caliphate. The vote went badly for them, mostly because Maxentius is a military hero, and having a literal Roman installed as Caliph was something they didn't want to be present for. Interestingly, there's not much of a religious split or even one developing, even though there are various currents of Islam picking up steam. This is another effect of Zaid's teachings - the Caliphs are very hands-off as far as faith and the populace would get quite irate at anything more than very subtle promotion of a particular variant of Islam. The way the government of a Caliph promotes a particular interpretation of Islamic law, then, is through the appointment of the Head Qari or Chief Justice whose interpretation would be influential. The exception, of course, is the destruction of those Muslims who don't hold to the live and let live philosophy that Zaid ibn Thabit promoted *cough* alt-Khawarij *cough* Interestingly, exactly such a situation is how Maxentius became such a loved military hero.
They were still around, though they never became Caliphs. Uthman will serve as one of Zaid's appointed advisors, particularly as the Sahib-Bait-ul-Mal, where his flair for economics and wealth distribution can really shine. I do think that Caliph Uthman was really a good lieutenant who was unprepared to be the actual leader. Instead of being viewed as a mixed Caliph like OTL and having his reign ended by an assassin's blade, Uthman will retire to much public fanfare and celebration after a distinguished career as the treasury advisor.
This is a fantastic idea, Droman! I think that the Caliphs themselves might get faces, since it seems like that was not much of a problem even with the OTL Umayyads, but blank faced statues of the Prophet (or with calligraphy describing his features) everywhere would be really alien to visiting foreigners.
Not describing features, simply just writing "Muhammad" or "The Prophet" or "Peace by upon him". Names or titles instead of describing their features.
I've always sympathised with Uthman. He is the only Caliph to not be mentioned in the Friday khutbah of two out of three sects of Islam, both Ibadis and Shia's don't praise him in their Khutbahs. He gets blamed for the nepotism (which was a huge mistake but...) and his good qualities are frequently shoved to one side. His Economic reforms benefited the Caliphate and increased its prosperity substantially. But I really admire him for his martyrdom. While murderous rebels were surrounding his house and the only people with him were four men, his slaves and his wives he was reading from the Qur'an. I mean that's pure devotion to God If I've ever seen it.
Hamid Al-Khazari? I assume, then, that the Black Sea Provinces are north of the Black Sea, and that the steppe nomads (or at least some of them) have become integral parts of the Caliphate. At least ITTL there won't be any myth about modern Jews being descended from the Khazars.
I also see that there are dhimmis represented in the Shura Council (Fahmi Huwaidi, if he is ever born ITTL, would be pleased), but I would guess that the general-electors are Muslim, given that the election of a Caliph is a religious as well as a political event.
I also see that there are dhimmis represented in the Shura Council (Fahmi Huwaidi, if he is ever born ITTL, would be pleased), but I would guess that the general-electors are Muslim, given that the election of a Caliph is a religious as well as a political event.
I was hoping somebody would mention this! The red-headed general is indeed a Khazar convert, although not all (or even most) of the Khazars in the Caliphate have converted. The invasion of the Transcaucuses is much more sweeping thanks to the successful co-option of a young claimant to the title of Khagan Bek. There is another group of people ITTL who become Jewish for reasons similar to the Khazar conversion in OTL: to keep a separate identity from the state religions of surrounding polities.
Yeah, there are non-Muslim council members but as expected, the governor-electors are all Muslim (whether foreign convert or Arab - though by now there are Greek, Coptic, Berber and Nubian people who have been born Muslim.) This isn't actually much of an innovation, but instead a preservation; even Caliph Mu'awiya had the kinsmen of his Syriac Christian wife in his council.
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I mean, it speaks to reason that Jewish and Christian religious leaders would be represented in the court of the Caliph. One of the Caliph's duties would logically be the safekeeping of the dhimmi communities, and leaders like the Armenian and Nestorian Catholicoses, the Catholic, Maronite, Melkite, Orthodox and Syriac Patriarchs, the Coptic Pope, the Jewish Exilarch, the Samaritan High Priest and others would probably have to spend some time in the Caliph's orbit to make reference of any disputes or issues.
It would also make sense that some of these institutions would have leaderships formalized in the wake of the Caliphate's advances, and that the Caliphate (secularily) would prefer that there be as much in the way of disputes and fragmentation among the Churches as possible. For example, if there's Arab Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Assyrian Catholic, Coptic Catholic, Greek Catholic, Maronite Catholic and Syriac Catholic Patriachs in several different seats like Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem all trying to be the leadership of the communities of the region and trying to get papal approval, the Caliphate can just sit back and go: "Hey man, we think you're all on the same level. Below us. So you know, feel free to keep fighting, but take care of your parishes and pay your taxes while you do that."
And that's just the Catholic Church, with as many as 21 different patriarchs.
It would also make sense that some of these institutions would have leaderships formalized in the wake of the Caliphate's advances, and that the Caliphate (secularily) would prefer that there be as much in the way of disputes and fragmentation among the Churches as possible. For example, if there's Arab Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Assyrian Catholic, Coptic Catholic, Greek Catholic, Maronite Catholic and Syriac Catholic Patriachs in several different seats like Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem all trying to be the leadership of the communities of the region and trying to get papal approval, the Caliphate can just sit back and go: "Hey man, we think you're all on the same level. Below us. So you know, feel free to keep fighting, but take care of your parishes and pay your taxes while you do that."
And that's just the Catholic Church, with as many as 21 different patriarchs.
Yeah, the Shura Council is bigger than it used to be, now that it includes:
- The Military Governor-Electors (or rather their delegates, for most of the time)
- The Head Tax Collector
- The Chief Justice (Al-Qadi)
- The Treasury Secretary
- The General of the Caliph's Army (a new position referring to commander of the professional troops directly controlled by the Caliph)
- The Head Scribe or Chief of Records
- The Head Messenger (also responsible for overseeing the maintenance of roads, bridges, seaports, and the like in the provinces of the Caliphate)
- All the accepted religious leaders of the dhimmi communities (or those they delegate.)
- Probably some other functionaries that I forgot to mention.
This gave me a good chuckle, thanks mate.
I wonder, would the Jewish Exilarch get to fully return to Jerusalem under a stable Rashidun? Umar opened the city to the Jews again, allowing in 70 families, then 80 families, then 90 families before he was assassinated. It's not clear why the resettlement program stopped, perhaps it was forgotten about amidst the turmoil surrounding the Fitna? I'm a little biased, because I think a Caliph Zaid overseeing the full return of Judaism to Jerusalem would be fantastic, but is it plausible? @Jonathan Edelstein, do you have any opinions here?
The Caliph is incredibly powerful by modern terms, but there are things that he can't do without the consensus of the Shura Council, like declare a jihad against a new state or change the rate of jizya. The Governor-Electors are appointed by the Caliph, but from a pool of candidates taken from lower-level officers selected by the local army, and they can be recalled by their populace. Some of these things are unwritten convention, but the majority have been codified (remember the scroll of law Caliph Zaid holds in his statue?)
Info Post 7 - The Possible Development of Jewish Leadership in the Caliphate (by Jonathan Edelstein)
As a matter of fact, I do.
First, the Exilarch wouldn't be the one to rule the Jews of Jerusalem - he's the Exile-arch (Rosh ha-Galut) after all, and thus has authority over the Jewish communities outside the homeland. Practically speaking, his authority IOTL was limited to Babylonia, and while the Caliphate might possibly extend that authority to other diaspora communities such as the Jews of Egypt, it might be more politically astute (from a standpoint of both encouraging local loyalty and divide-and-rule) to give the governance of Jews in each province to local leaders. For that matter, the Exilarch was not completely supreme even in Babylonia IOTL - the deans of the Talmudic academies in Sura and Pumbedita were also enormously influential - and the Exilarch might well have to share his position at court and on the Shura Council with their representatives.
Second, the period immediately before the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem was one of armed conflict between the Christians and Jews in Palestine. The Jews supported, and supplied troops for, the Sassanian conquest of Palestine in 614, and suffered when Heraclius retook the province in 630. This would be a very recent memory when the Muslims take over, both IOTL and ITTL, and any rights that the Caliphate gives to Jews in Palestine would be opposed by Christians. Much would depend on who supports the Islamic conquest most strongly, and at least as much would depend on whose support the Calphate needs more in order to keep the peace after the conquest. There were many more Christians than Jews in Palestine at the time, so unless the Jews are extraordinarily loyal and the Christians not, you do the math. My guess is that the most likely outcome would be communal autonomy for the local rabbinate but not any widespread settlement rights or control of territory.
So the dhimmi members of the Shura Council have an effective veto over increases in their tax rate, or at least an ability to make such increases difficult? That will lead to some interesting political bargains.
BTW, if the precedent of using Christian (and sometimes Jewish) troops holds, how would that affect the application of jizya to the communities that supply such troops? Jizya is at least in part a payment for exemption from military service, so would the dhimmi soldiers be deemed to have paid their jizya by virtue of such service, and would their communities instead pay a zakat equivalent according to their own religious law (the Jewish law of tzedakah imposes very similar obligations to zakat, and there are also Christian commandments regarding support for the poor)? I suspect that various nuanced gradations of dhimmi status might develop according to the terms on which each non-Muslim community is incorporated into the Caliphate.
Well, to make another in-universe potential quote:
"Hey, you want us to pay more money. Money that we pay because we're not Muslim and also because we don't serve in the army. Well, we're not gonna be any less Muslim or not gonna serve even less in the army... so maybe we should get some say about how the army serves us? Personally, I think the Jewish community in the Sinai could really do with a couple of garrison forts to deal with those Bedouin nomads passing through..."
If by "taxes", you mean the religiously-mandated zakat, then not quite - the categories of what and who can be taxed are rather fixed religious laws set out in the Qur'an. The zakat is required for any Muslim adult in full possession of their mental and physical faculties who are above a threshold of wealth (which is different depending on what form the wealth is in.)
The categories of taxable wealth are:
- The agricultural produce of land (this was actually a higher percentage for undeveloped and unirrigated cropland, to incentivise farmers to develop as much of their fields as they could)
- Livestock wealth, both in heads of animals and their produce.
- Hard coinage, both foreign coins and the coins minted by the Caliphate in Egypt and Damascus.
- A one time tax on inheritance (which, depending on what class you were in financially, could be as much as 15% for the Caliphate. Nobles grumbled about this often, but it was part of the Rashidun "levelling")
- Investments, salable merchandise, jewelry, gold and silver kept in the inventory for full one year and above a certain monetary value (so you can't tax a family under this for stored food.)
Now what the Caliph can do as far as taxes is fiddle around with the percentages and rates for the taxable incomes, but even then, a Rashidun Caliph (at least towards the beginning) is still bound by the weight of tradition to keep the rates progressive (taxing the wealthy harder than the poor, in keeping with Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali OTL.)
As far as law, there's actually very little the Caliph can't do, except probably throw out the Law of Zaid. Since it enshrines the rights of newly powerful convert Muslims, Dhimmis, and non-Qurayshi Arabs, it's become a political third rail in a vein similar to Social Security in the US: touch it and die. In everything else, the Caliph has almost absolute power. He has to share rights, compared to the Emperor of Rome for example, but the Muslims still follow the old creed espoused by Abu Ubaidah:
"Caliph, we are yours to lead, against even the armies of Accursed Satan himself. We are soldiers of Islam, the eyes of the state and the sword of the state - we hear and we obey!"
I'll respond to the rest of this when I get on my laptop, since there's a lot of great info, but you read my mind right here. One of Caliph Zaid's great reforms will be that any dhimmi family with a son in either the provincial armies or even the Grand Army of the Caliph will get taxed at the rate that an equivalent Muslim family would be taxed. This wouldn't be true if there was a massive invasion of an enemy and all men were called up to defend the Caliphate (this is already expected of the dhimmis) but any Christian or Jew - or after Umar, Zoroastrian - who fights in the conquering armies of the Caliphate is going beyond what is expected of a dhimmi and will be rewarded by light taxes on top of the high tax-funded pay that soldiers of the Caliphate received after Umar's reform.
The way I see it, this has a couple of effects that help preserve the Caliphate:
- Obviously, even more soldiers for the Caliphate on top of the increased Arab troops thanks to the reduction in civil strife. This program wouldn't be attractive to noble dhimmis, who actually preferred the jizya since it was a flat rate and not a percentage, but I think townsfolk and villagers would flock to the opportunity.
- Brings dhimmis and converts into the semi-meritocratic military hierarchy, which is very powerful in the Caliphate. If your soldiers are half-dhimmi, you certainly won't be presented by your troops as a possible candidate for governor-general to the Caliph if you espouse Arab supremacism.
- I'm not super-sure how to phrase this last one, but I think that having sons and husbands warring, winning glory, and dying for the Caliphate just like Muslims could invest the dhimmi community more in the state - in the sense that it's no longer their army but our army. It's certainly not nationalism, but maybe a feeling of shared imperial glory. I'd imagine that Copts, Syriacs, Jews, and others would be exhilarated by stories of how their sons laid low their former Imperial masters (some might actually remember the not-so-great life of a minority faith member in the ERE.)
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Would the local leaders be secular or religious in nature? Is that something that depends on location or is it standard? A little bit off topic, but would we see something like Karaitism start up earlier ITTL?
This was entirely new to me, so thanks for sending me down a wonderfully informative Wikipedia jaunt. Could Talmudic academies become more commonplace institutions in other parts of the Islamic world?
This makes sense - the facts on the ground make it hard for anything like large scale control by Jewish leaders. That's a little sad, but we'd definitely see the continuation of Umar's smaller scale resettlement to Jerusalem under Caliph Zaid. Maybe not enough to significantly shift the demographics in their favor, but even a stable number of a 100 families coming in yearly like where Umar left off would be something.
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There are regional variations, and the Jewish communities of the Levant and Egypt during the 7th century aren't well documented. The most likely variation is a nasi (prince in literal terms, mayor in practical terms) from a wealthy family, and other rich men serving as councilmen and synagogue officials, with the line between religious and secular being blurred. Generally, wealth and family background counted for more than scholarship because the leaders were expected to finance the synagogue and communal activities - in fact, the offices were often semi-hereditary and in some places amounted to a de facto minor nobility - but it was also far from uncommon for prominent wealthy men to be scholars.
Karaites: nearly anything can happen there. The seeds of Karaism were hundreds of years old at this point, and with the Babylonian Talmud approaching its final codification and with the political disruption from the Islamic conquest, almost anything might bring them into the open or alternatively suppress them. With the right or wrong scholar or charismatic leader, the Karaist schism might happen earlier or later, or it might not happen at all and continue as an undercurrent in which individuals or small groups find their own reasons to reject the Talmud. (In the last of these cases, I'd bet that a lot of people who might otherwise have become Karaite would convert to Islam.)
There wasn't any other place at that time with the critical mass of both Jews and Jewish scholarship to support such authoritative schools, and as mentioned above, the Talmud was pretty much in final form by then anyway. What might happen instead is the establishment of local schools in areas such as Egypt and Syria where Jewish scholarship was suppressed under the ERE, founded by graduates of the Babylonian schools but eventually becoming intellectual centers and sources of legal interpretation in their own right.
Just reopening the city would be significant - it would become a place of pilgrimage, Jewish families would move there to serve the pilgrims, and eventually there would be a sizable population.
BTW, while we're on the subject of Jerusalem, please tell me the Dome of the Rock will still be built.
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Oh man, am I inspired here. I've picked up some books on early Karaism and looked through some academic articles (thank god for university digital library collections) on interactions between Islamic scholars and Jewish thinkers during the early Caliphate. Since the ATL equivalent of Mu'tazilism is both much older and is more-or-less the reigning interpretation of Islamic kalam, there's going to be a really interesting transferal of ideas between the two groups. I talked to one of my professors about this (very obliquely, I just asked a series of what-ifs instead of trying to explain this hobby
) and she said that in a mixed Rashidun Army like TTL would have, the military itself would probably become the most progressive institution in the Caliphate - being both the home of barracks cultural admixture and the Muslims who travel the farthest from home before settling down. Though there will be strong caliphs, meh caliphs and caliphs who almost wreck the institutions of the Caliphate, I think the long period of Soldier-Caliphs that follow the Companion-Caliphs will be a period of building on early reforms, the preservation of the Principate-esque quasi-republican nature of the Caliphate, and the forging of a Caliphal identity (similar to Romanitas) out of the many peoples in the empire.I'll be clear that the TTL Caliphate isn't a pluralist paradise or anything - although minority faiths literally having a seat at the table, serving in the army which is the pride of the Caliphate, and having the ear of the Caliph is nice compared to the old Sassanids or the Eastern Romans, Muslims are given preferential treatment with the stratification between Muslims on the top, Jews and Christians in the middle, and Zoroastrians on the bottom still remaining.
Despite all of this, the idea that there might actually be a peaceful Jerusalem with real and thriving communities of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Samaritans in the TTL Caliphate is something that really makes me happy.
And don't worry, Caliph Umar will still build the Dome of the Rock. Commemoration of the Is'ra wal-Mi'raj doesn't seem like something that would be butterflied away (although TTL's Dome of the Rock might feature very intricate images of Muhammad meeting the various prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus in the heavens.)
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Oh man, am I inspired here. I've picked up some books on early Karaism and looked through some academic articles (thank god for university digital library collections) on interactions between Islamic scholars and Jewish thinkers during the early Caliphate. Since the ATL equivalent of Mu'tazilism is both much older and is more-or-less the reigning interpretation of Islamic kalam, there's going to be a really interesting transferal of ideas between the two groups. I talked to one of my professors about this (very obliquely, I just asked a series of what-ifs instead of trying to explain this hobby
I'll be clear that the TTL Caliphate isn't a pluralist paradise or anything - although minority faiths literally having a seat at the table, serving in the army which is the pride of the Caliphate, and having the ear of the Caliph is nice compared to the old Sassanids or the Eastern Romans, Muslims are given preferential treatment with the stratification between Muslims on the top, Jews and Christians in the middle, and Zoroastrians on the bottom still remaining.
Despite all of this, the idea that there might actually be a peaceful Jerusalem with real and thriving communities of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Samaritans in the TTL Caliphate is something that really makes me happy.
And don't worry, Caliph Umar will still build the Dome of the Rock. Commemoration of the Is'ra wal-Mi'raj doesn't seem like something that would be butterflied away (although TTL's Dome of the Rock might feature very intricate images of Muhammad meeting the various prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus in the heavens.)
As beautiful as early Islamic art was, I can't help but think that it could've been even more beautiful had it allowed the representation of human beings... and doing so might help Islam gain more converts as well, especially among those who are not literate: Christian art depicting figures of both Testaments was after all deemed the Bible of the poor...
Heya, everyone. I'm not dead, just taking a break from writing any big things post-final exams, and there'll be a new update posted soon! This time, we'll swing back to Madinah and deal with some politicking. The Mothers of the Believers Ayesha, Hafsa, and Saffiyah will have to save the Ummah from factional discord yet again and Khalid's army will return triumphant (bringing up the question of just how the new territories should be administered.) Stay tuned, y'all!
markus meecham
Banned
relax dude, take your time (deep inside not really, go do it), real life comes first, and we don't want to see your quality suffer.