Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam 193. Marginalization of Muslims – A Brief Review- Part 4
By Professor Dr Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

In the year 1700, the principal Muslim dynasties in the world were all absolute monarchies. The triumphs and tribulations, the hopes and disappointments, the successes and failures of a people depended entirely on the person of their monarch. His training and disposition, his religious inclination or lack thereof, his abilities and foibles all had a direct bearing on the empire. Neither were the rules of succession clearly defined. A reigning monarch could not be removed except through assassination, blinding, imprisonment or military defeat. In much of the Islamic world, the rules of succession followed the Mongol-Tatar-Turkish tradition and had nothing to do with the legacy of Islam. In this tradition, a kingdom was considered a joint property of all the princes. The death of a sovereign, or his illness, was a signal for a “winner take all” orgy of slaughter among the princes. For instance, in Moghul India, the illness of Shah Jehan in 1657 triggered a bloody struggle among his four sons. Dara Shikoh in the Punjab, Shuja in Bengal, Aurangzeb in the Deccan and Murad in Gujrat, each had his own partisans, and his own army. These four armies, totaling more than a million armed men, roamed the vast subcontinent, hunting each other out. When the dust settled, more than a hundred thousand young men had died, Aurangzeb emerged victorious. Shuja and Murad were killed. And the head of Dara Shikoh, the Crown Prince, was presented on a tray to the aging Emperor Shah Jehan. The fratricide left a legacy of bitterness from which the Moghul Empire never recovered.

The law of fratricide was applied with equal ruthlessness in the Ottoman Empire. When Mehmet III became the Sultan in 1595, he executed all of his nineteen brothers, leaving no claimant to the throne beside himself. When Mehmet died in 1603, he left two sons Ahmed, age 14, and Mustafa, age 12. Ahmed became the new Sultan, but the execution of Mustafa was stayed out of concern that if Ahmed were to die before he had a male heir, the Ottoman lineage would come to an end. Ahmed did have a son in 1604 but Mustafa was spared once again because infant mortality was high and the concern about a male heir remained. Instead, Mustafa was confined to the harem, there to spend his time among the eunuchs and the ladies. This was the first instance of the Ottomans not applying the law of fratricide.

The Mongol-Tatar-Turkish tradition of a contest of power between competing princes for the throne had its own ruthless logic. Faced with the prospects of mortal combat, the princes vied with each other to hone their battle skills and cultivate influence in the kingdom. The outcome, presumably, produced a prince most fit to rule. After Ahmed, a new arrangement evolved whereby the throne went from brother to brother until all the brothers in a generation died and then the eldest surviving member of the next generation. Meanwhile, the princes were kept in the harem and had no opportunity to develop their administrative or military skills. Two consequences followed. The ascension of a new prince now became subject to the intrigues of the harem and the eunuchs. In addition, the rules of succession had no criteria of valor or merit built into them. The caliber of the Sultans suffered. As long as the empire was well served by the grand viziers and the centralized bureaucracy, the weakness at the helm of affairs was concealed. But when the Ottomans suffered their first major defeat at the second siege of Vienna (1683), an inexorable process of steady collapse began.

In Safavid Persia, when Shah Abbas I passed away in 1626, all of his brothers and most of his sons who would have a claim on the throne had been either blinded or executed. When no prince from among his own progeny was available, a grandson, Sa’am Mirza was crowned as Safi I. Abbas I, under whom the Safavid Empire reached its zenith, also instituted the practice of confining the princes in the harem. No opportunity was provided to a prospective monarch to learn the affairs of state through training as governor of a province or as commander of a military campaign. The rituals of blinding and execution were carried out with such efficiency in succeeding generations that in 1666, when Safi II was invited before the court nobles for his coronation, he was afraid to leave the harem because he thought he was invited only to be blinded or murdered.

The Islamic paradigm for the selection of a ruler was through consultation. The Mongol-Tatar-Turkish paradigm was through fratricide. Muslim politics had long since moved away from that moment when Abu Bakr (r) was elected the Caliph, or when Ali ibn Abu Talib (r) was nominated as the head of state. It was now governed more by the rules of conquering tribes who had entered Islam 500 years after the death of the Prophet. Tribal customs had supplanted the Sunnah of the Companions. The monarchies were Muslim but the process of ascension to the throne was decidedly tribal.

In the 17 th century, the absolute monarchies came up against the joint stock companies. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the English East India Company. Two years later, the Dutch granted a similar charter to the Dutch East India Company. In 1613, the Dutch Stock Market opened up in Amsterdam. London followed suit. These were the new institutions of the future with an enormous potential to harness the energies of men and material. With a singular focus on profits, they had no religious baggage to contend with or trainloads of priests looking over their shoulders. They did not answer to the Pope; they answered to a Board of Directors. Their structure was more efficient than anything that the despot kings could conjure up and it gave considerable latitude to the administrators and sea captains of the joint stock companies for local initiative and decision-making.

The first skirmishes were between the joint stock companies and the centralized, despotic structures of Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese governors in Goa, for instance, had to look to Lisbon for instructions on major decisions. By the time a decision arrived, circumstances had often changed, making the decision outdated. By contrast, the Dutch and British administrators of East India Companies could make immediate decisions to take advantage of a local situation as long as it helped increase profits. The efficient structure of the companies prevailed over the despotic structure of the Iberians. The North European trading companies quickly supplanted the Spanish and Portuguese monopolies in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. By the year 1700, it was the Dutch, the English and the French, who were the real masters of the oceans of the world.

When the centralized, despotic structures in the Muslim empires came up against the far more efficient structure of the trading companies, they fared no better. In the match between the soldier and the merchant, the merchant won hands down. The two operated in different paradigms and played by different rules. For the soldier-king, personal trust was of paramount importance and a treaty was an instrument that was to be honored and kept. By contrast, to the managers of a joint stock company, a treaty was but a milestone on the way to more profits. It could be overlooked when convenient. Deception couched in diplomacy and backed by intelligence, was a devastating tool in the hands of the company managers. For instance, the English East India Company discarded the treaty it signed with Hyder Ali of Mysore (1781) at Madras as soon as Hyder Ali died. The British proceeded to form an alliance with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas of Central India to isolate and destroy the growing power of Mysore (1789-1799). The despotic structure of the kings, an inverted pyramid pivoted around the monarch, provided abundant opportunities to the merchants. As long as the king was the sole owner of wealth and power, some in his entourage aspired to his riches. The company men were alert to opportunities for bribes, or promises of advancement, to topple the king. Thus it was that Nawab Siraj ad Daulah of Bengal who fell in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 through the perfidy of his own Chief of Staff, Mir Ja’afar and Tippu Sultan fell in the Battle of Srirangapatam in 1799, through the treachery of his Finance Minister, Mir Saadiq. In the competition for wealth, the merchant enjoyed a significant, perhaps decisive advantage over the soldier. Greed has been a more potent force in history than valor.

(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)