Das Aleppiner Kalifat: Vom Ende des Kalifates in Baghdad uber Aleppo zu den Restautionen in Kairo.

• Author: Preiss-Amitai, Reuven

In early A.D. 1258, the Mongols under Hulegu took and plundered Baghdad and slaughtered its population. The Mongol khan had the Abbasid caliph al-Musta sim put to death, and so - at least thus it seemed then - put an end to the caliphate as it had been known for hundreds of years. But in the aftermath of the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ayn Jalut in 1260, several attempts were made to resurrect the caliphate in the Mamluk sultanate, taking advantage of the two Abbasid scions who had made their way to Syria. The final result of these efforts was the formation - under the aegis of the sultan Baybars (1260-77) - of a new caliphate, albeit very closely supervised, in Cairo, which continued to exist in one form or another until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. The book under review here attempts, in general with great success, to follow and analyze in detail the whole process of the transfer and reestablishment of the Abbasid caliphate. It begins with the contacts between Hulegu and al-Mustasim, takes us through to the conquest of Baghdad and follows this with accounts of the two Abbasid claimants who made their way to Syria. We learn how the Mamluk sultans (first Qutuz and then Baybars) tried to manipulate them for their own purposes. A particularly important discussion is the Aleppan interlude (alluded to in the title), when a local Mamluk warlord acknowledged the title of one claimant - for his own interests, of course. In the end, both these candidates were to have themselves recognized one after the other as caliphs by Baybars. These puppet caliphs played a certain role in providing Bay-bars' rule with legitimacy, as well as in the realm of foreign affairs. Within a couple of years, however, Baybars had shunted the second caliph aside, keeping him under comfortable house-arrest in the Cairo citadel, and away from the public eye. For the remainder of Baybars' reign and for some fifteen years after, the caliphate was to play little role in the political life of the Mamluk sultanate.

Before the appearance of this book, the establishment of the Cairo caliphate had not been the subject of a comprehensive discussion. Some important studies have analyzed in detail particular aspects of the matter, but on the whole the topic was accorded a more-or-less perfunctory treatment. Dr. Heidemann's work is based on a careful and thorough reading of two groups of sources. First, he uses the narrative and other literary sources, primarily those Arabic works which emanated from the Mamluk sultanate. Second, and this is one of the great strengths of the work, he has recourse to a large corpus of numismatic material, which he subjects to a careful and penetrating analysis. In the following discussion, I will first review in some detail the course of the book and some of the arguments contained therein. Subsequently, I will list smaller points which deserve further clarification and comment.

After a short introduction, in which those questions to be discussed in the book are raised, together with a short synopsis of his theses and a discussion of the sources, Heidemann proceeds to the first major subject: the destruction of the Baghdad caliphate and the fate of the caliph al-Mustasim. In the course of his detailed and reliable account, a number of points are made:

1) The destruction of the caliphate was in the long-run inevitable, since the Mongols with their ideal of world domination could not abide the existence of another institution which had pretensions to world rule. The conflict was not religious per se, but rather one of religiously inspired claims to world leadership.

2) The antipathy of the Mongol leadership to the caliphate was strengthened by their entourage of Imami Shii advisors and officials, who, of course, had an interest in the demise of the Abbasid caliphate.

3) The story reported in the Mamluk sources of the traitorous activities of the caliphal wazir Ibn al-Aqlami are not given much credence by Heidemann, who suggests that in this case the various pro-Mongol sources are to be preferred. In addition, it is proposed that among Sunni Muslims there developed a theory of a Shii conspiracy to explain the conquest of Baghdad and the demise of the caliphate.

These conclusions are worthy of further comment. It is convincing that one of the main reasons that the Mongols aimed their sights at Baghdad was the caliph's very theoretical but still annoying claim to supremacy over territory not directly controlled by him, including that now under Mongol rule. Be that as it may, according to Rashid al-Din, Mongke had given Hulegu orders to ask the caliph to submit, and only if he refused was he to be attacked.(1) It would appear then, that an accommodation with the caliphate was considered, providing of course, that Mongol supremacy was recognized. Next, it might be overstating the case somewhat to suggest that Shi i advisors played such a decisive role. Certainly the Shi i Nasir al-Din al-Tusi had no love for the caliphate, and his influence at court was probably considerable. But the argument is weakened by fact that the only two other persons so named are Shams al-Din al-Juwayni and his brother Ala al-Din al-Juwayni (p. 56). Frankly, I do not know what is the basis of the statement that these two were Shiis. I have yet to find any evidence that these two brothers were anything but Sunnis. Indirect evidence for my position is possibly found in Ala al-Din al-Juwayni's book, Tarikh-i jahangusha, who certainly not coincidentally ends his narrative just before the Mongol offensive against Baghdad, perhaps because of his inability to rationalize this act within a Sunni worldview. Finally, I am not convinced that the veracity of Mamluk sources has to be completely rejected in the case of Ibn al-Aqlami. It would appear that contemporary writers in Syria and Egypt were receiving information from refugees who had fled from Iraq. In addition, the treachery of the Syrian al-Hafiz al-Zayni, who was the wazir of the last Ayyubid sultan of Syria (and also a Sunni) and his secret loyalty to Hulegu are well attested, so why not a parallel action by his counterpart in Baghdad? Be that as it may, it is clear that this was the prevailing belief among the Muslim educated classes (and probably beyond) in early Mamluk Syria and Egypt. Whether one can postulate the existence of a Shii conspiracy theory among these classes on the basis of this belief (along with another example given on p. 66) remains to my mind an open question.

In any event, it is shown that with the destruction of the caliphate there arose a certain apocalyptical literature connected to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. In addition, various means were adopted, at least on coins, to deal with the new situation: the posthumous naming of al-Mustasim; the naming of a fictitious caliph; and the replacement of the caliph's name with the shahada. In governing circles, at least, it is clear that the lack of a caliph, nominal or otherwise, was the cause of a great deal of confusion on how government was to be theoretically constructed and presented. This was part of the background to the arrival of the Abbasid pretenders.

The first of these claimants to be discussed is Abu 'l-Abbas Ahmad b. al-Hasan, better known by his caliphal title al-Hakim bi-Amrillah. Ironically, although he was the first candidate to arrive in Syria, he was the second to be recognized by Baybars as caliph. Al-Hakim was a much more politically active character than he is usually portrayed, at least until Baybars finally got his hands on him in early 1262. The rather unimpressive genealogy, which has him related to a ruling Abbasid only after a removal of four or five generations, is an indication of its genuineness, as it seems unlikely that if one were creating a spurious line of descent, such a tenuous one would be offered.(2)

Al-Hakim (or rather still Abu 'l-Abbas Ahmad) had gone into hiding after the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. With a small entourage, he made his way to the bedouin of southern Iraq. These in turn assisted him in crossing the Euphrates further north, and entering the Syrian Desert. Abu 'l-Abbas came...