HARUN AL-RASHID

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 674, 28 October 1933, Page 3

HARUN AL-RASHID

IMMORTAL CALIPH . ✓ BRILLIANCE OF REIGN IN A MIGHTY EMPIRE. ENTH'RALLIN G HISTORY. "There was, in the days of yore, and in ages and times long gone bef ore, in the City of Bagdad, the Abode of Peace, a Galiph, Harun al-Rashid hight, who had cup-companions and tale-tellers to entertain him hy night." So writes Sir Richard Burton in his priceless translation of the "Arafoian /Nig-hts," that iminrortal compendium of roniance wihich in various diluted formis has for; generations entraneed the nurseries of the civilised world. The true story of the real Caldph Harun, fifth in succession of the great A:bbasid Dynasty, which at the height of its glory ruled "an. empire that ex'tended from the Pamirs to the Pyrenees land from the Indus to the Atlantic," is told by Mr. St. John Philby in "Harun al-Rashid." Once again history proves more enthrallingi than fiction, writes E. 0. Lorimer in "John o' London's Weekly." Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of MJuhammad, fourth of the Orthodox Caliphs, was the first to ahandon Medina as capital of the new and miraculously growing empire of Islam. For some hundred years Damascus was the Caliphs' se;a.t until, after the fall of the Umaiyyids, the centre of gravity shifted to various sites in the land of the Two Rivers. It was the igenius of Mansur which pitched on the ideal site for a- great Mesopotamian metropolis; far enough inland. to ;be invulnerable, at a junction of infiany well-worn caravan routes, where the waters of the Tigris were sufficiently navigable to attract "the argosies, huit not the armadas of the world." Her® in the year 763 Harun's famous grand father laid out the Round City of .B'agdad, to which his greater igrandson was to lend undying fame. While Mansur was consolidating his empire his heir apparent, MJah'di, was five hundred miles away in Persia, quelling rebellions in the northeast, and there he took to himself two Persian maiden to wife, one of whom became the mother of the Princess Abbasa and the other of Hadi, the future short-reigned Cialiph. Tn the very year that Mansur laid the foundations of his Round City a younger brother was born to, Hadi and was named Harun. In the sui'te of the young commander was a trusted mentor, Yahya i'bn Bax*mak, to whom two sons were born about the same time as the royal children. So much affection sprang up between the mothers that they at times fostered each other's infants, and the' five children grew up in happy intimacy. The Bianished Poet. Harun's most impressioniahle years were thus spent in Persia, and the tastes which made him later the enlightened patron of art and science owed more to Persia than to the arid Arabia of his forefathers. A ple:asant anecdote is told of the Caliph and the poet Ibn Jami, who was a favourite of the two young princes in their boyhood. Their father, fearful of th'e lenerva'timgi influence of song and mindful perhia.ps of the puritanisms of Islam, banished the poet from his Court. Years afterw'ards the great Harun in his luxurious palace heard tales of a wanderdng minstrel and had him summ'oned from the blazaar. The musician played and sang to an ■invisihle audience. "Wh'ose is that song?" demanded the Caliph's voice. "My own," replied the singer. "You lie, it is Ibn Jami's." Again he sang, again clame the same ques'tion and the same answer. On the third occiasion the tattered singer added: "I myself am Ibn Jami," whereupon followed delighted recognition and rich reward. "Wpien Harun was about eighteen, his father — now Oa.liph — .sent himi with an immense army to restore success in Syria. The campaiigp was brilliant, and the young c'onqueror was rewarded with much renown and the eognomen of al-Rashid, the Orthodox, the Virtuous. On the death of Mlahdi, Harun, with rare chivalry, resisted the persuasions of his mother and the clamours of his vietorious army, and stood aside in favour of his abs;nt .elder brother, Hadi's reign was short, and lat the age of 23 Harun succeeded to the sceptre of Muhammad. A Colossal Fortune. Much of the statesmia,nship for which poets 'and chroniclers have sung •his fame — the builaing of roads, the organisation of posts and intelligence services that linked the wide-flung State — is rather Mansur's glory than his (Mansur, however, was no patron of the p'oets), but the grandson at le"ast upheld the good tradition. And in' spite of the incredible brilliance and extravagance of his Court, and the cost of imperial progresses, he left behind ta colossal fortune, estimated at thirty-six million sterling. His wealth was won in part by the plunder of outside enemies and in part iby abrupt confiscations of the illgotten gains of fallen favourites — but mainly by inhuman extortion from the peasant and the marchant. Such was, then, the way of autocracy in the immemorial East, is now, and — one is tempted to prophecy — (ever shall ihe. By .the distrihution of alms and by bursts of capricious and spectaculiar generosity the Caliph nevertheless contrived to keep alive his

popularity and fame. Hsi title of "the Orthodox" has well vindicated, for he pnnctiliously obeyed the Call to Prayer and spent, it is caluculated, four hours a. day at his devoti'ons. Ten times he made the weary pilgrimage to Mecca, which must in all have cost him three years of pious journeying. His revellings and nightly orgies, his religious preoccupations, his patronage of learning and letters left him little time for affairs of State, and these were more and more relegated to the capable hands of his foster-brothers and their father, Ibn Barcnak. I't may be that he grew jealous of their power or gave ear to sllanderous tongues; it may be that he was stung by Ja'far's aspirinig to marriage with the royal sister, Abbasa; certain it is that on a day he turned and rent the enltire clan of the advisers that for three generations had served- his family so well. Their wealth and palaces were confiscated and three segments of the dismembered body of his booneompanion and foster-brother, Jla'far, ibleaohed for years on the three bridge s of Bagdad. ■With the passing of the Barmaks his own star began to wiane. Hiis persecu'tion of the Jews and Christians dimmed his famie. Reverses ahroad and fatal illness darkened his last years. He died dn 809 at the early age of forty-six on his way to meet an insurrection beyond the Oxus.