De Re Militari | Book Reviews
Patricia Crone
From Arabian Tribes to Islamic Empire: Army, State and Society in the Near East c.600-850
Variorum Collected Studies 895, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, 320 pp. ISBN 978-0754659259, $124.95HB
From Arabian Tribes to Islamic Empire is a collection of papers by Patricia Crone that focus on the early period of Islam and specifically on the military institutions of the time. In any pre-modern nascent society, individuals from the general population were recruited for military campaigns. As such, they identified themselves with the sub-groups of the population they came from, and their military tour of duty was generally a sabbatical of sorts. As these societies became more established and distinct institutions began to emerge, the need for dedicated military personnel also manifested itself. As a military institution begins to establish itself, it creates its own sub-culture (as it has become one of that society�s sub-populations itself). A complex set of interactions between society and the military order begins to emerge. The military begins to influence the society�s character and is, in turn, shaped by it. This book focuses on this interaction in the early period of Islam.
In the century after the Prophet Mohammad�s death in 632, the Arabs created an empire stretching from Spain to the Indus valley. Conquest did not bring with it mass conversion however, as the Arabs were content to have the conquered people retain their own religious beliefs while they, as conquers, collected tax revenues from non-Muslims. As the Arabs encountered more advanced systems of governance through their conquests, they assimilated portions of these systems to address the pressing needs of their growing empire. Developing political situations within the empire and the differences among the conquered peoples meant that the Arabs had to develop different solutions when working with the conquered people. Hence, in Syria and Egypt the conquerors allowed both Christians and Jews to keep their faiths as dhimmi (protected peoples) upon payment of a special tax. Local resistance in Persia and North Africa made the conquests there slower. After the first civil war (656�661) the Arab capital was moved from Medina to Damascus by the Umayyads, and under the Abbasids to the new city of Baghdad where, with the encouragement of the caliphs Harun al Rashid and al Mamun (786�833), Islamic culture flowered.
The first part of this book can be viewed as an introduction, and consists of only three chapters. The first chapter attempts to draw distinctions between a state and a tribe. This is a rich and ongoing discussion in academia, and the chapter provides insight to the ongoing debate. The following chapter explores tribes in the Middle East, and the chapter after that provides a unique perspective on the concept of higra (lit. �breaking off relations, abandoning one's tribe, or migrating�) in early period of Islam. The focus is specifically on how this concept was used to recruit people for military campaigns and what this concept conferred as far as expectations and obligations on the part of the individuals recruited and the obligations of the state. The chapter suggests other motivations in addition to booty that may have motivated the early Muslim Arabs to engage in territorial expansion.
The remainder of the book covers the period after the death of the Prophet Mohammad to the Abbasid period and provides readers with roughly chronological snapshots of the Arab community emerging under the banner of Islam.
The military is a formal institution but, although it is shaped by society, it does not simply reflect it; rather the military generates its own practices and values that reshape its society. When studying the military within a given society, some basic questions arise. These include:
- Who serves in the military and what are their motivations?
- What are their ethnic, legal and social/economic statuses?
- How are the resources of society used for war?
- What are the social and economic impacts of war?
- How do people in the larger society justify and think about war?
- How does warfare affect and interact with other political structures and behavior?
- What are the theological ideologies and their effects on warfare in a theoretical and practical framework?
- What are the goals and results of war?
- Why did some societies prefer ritualistic forms of combat?
- What were the various categories of armed forces that each society mobilized?
- Is armed robbery warfare?
Sources of the period invite us to view the world through the eyes of the victors. It takes concerted effort to balance the record. Second, there is a gender bias. Women are usually the victims of war weather theirs is the winning or losing side. This book shows how early Islamic warfare was marked by the rise of free men, apart from the military organizations controlled by the state. War and society is a controversial category and there is a tendency to look at social and military entities in more or less equilibrium. However, one also needs to consider that societies undergo periods of rapid military change and crisis. One is thus tempted to ask what is the primary generator of change: the society or the military or something else? One may investigate cohesion and disintegration of military focus, while cleavages in civil wars could help illuminate social structures and problems.
In pre-modern times, military institutions need to take into account their reliance on food production and food sources. All agrarian states maintain permanent military establishments in order to secure their tributary base from neighboring politics and to expand that base if the opportunity presents itself. The stationary army was also used to enforce the state�s collection of surplus from its agrarian base and to secure access to sources of valuable raw materials.
Throughout the book, several questions persistently arise. The most salient ones include:
- What is a tribe in the Middle Eastern context?
- What is a �state� in the same context?
- How have tribes influenced the rise, continuity, and decline of their respective states?
- How have patterns of tribe-state interaction varied through time and space?
- What part has Islam played in the process?
As the questions are discussed, myths are exploded. Some of the salient conclusions include the following. Tribes and states are not necessarily opposed; rather, they influence and often sustain each other. Tribal groupings often have been the seed from which states have emerged and states have often sponsored the development of tribes. Generally, imperial states ostensibly holding dominion in the area have not, in fact, effectively ruled large parts of it but have shared substantive control with tribal groups. Prevailing theoretical constructs designed to explain the nature and evolution of �the state� are derived primarily from contemporary experiences and, typically, do not mesh well with the realities of state formation and function in the Middle Eastern context. Tribes are culturally based coalitions of which the development, structure, and function vary according to time and place.