Of good Haroun Alraschid
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” (1830)
Renowned for his luxury, hedonism, generosity and piety, Haroun al-Rashid was the remarkable caliph who reigned over the Abbasid Arab empire during its golden age. A lover of poetry, music and learning, Haroun’s fabulous court has been immortalized, and fictionalized, in The Arabian Nights.
Haroun appears in many of The Arabian Nights’ tales as a man devoted to pleasure and sensuality, a ruler who only abandons his magnificent court when he sneaks out incognito into the city at night for amorous encounters. The real Haroun was actually a capable military commander and autocrat. His piety was of the rational sort. He encouraged singing, believing the Koran’s ban on music did not extend to the human voice. A keen horseman, he built race courses and is said to have introduced polo to the Arabs. Feast days and hunting expeditions became occasions of unparalleled splendor.
Haroun’s empire extended from the borders of India to Spain, affording him the pursuit of pleasure on a scale that no other kingdom could match. Occasionally he checked himself, murmuring: “I ask pardon of God, I have spent too much money.” But his largesse was widely distributed: every morning Haroun donated at least 1000 dirhams to the poor, setting an example that his wealthy subjects emulated, and giving rise to rumors that Baghdad’s streets were paved with gold.
The Abbasids had seized the throne of the Islamic empire in 750, moving their court from Damascus to a new capital called Baghdad in Iraq. The court of the Abbasid caliphs was the marvel of the world. Ambassadors from other lands rubbed their eyes as they were shown elephants and lions decked out in brocade and satin, and gasped as they stood under the shade of a tree made of gold and silver, festooned with jeweled fruits. Proceeding through scores of courtyards, miles of marble arcades, innumerable chambers dripping with almost unimaginable wealth, they finally reached the caliph’s presence. Here they were dazzled by the ebony throne and jewels so bright they seemed to eclipse the sun.
The caliphs embraced excess with abandon. When Haroun’s son Mam’un married, the bride was showered with a thousand pearls. Haroun’s 2000 singing and servant girls, twenty-four concubines and five wives seem moderate compared with the 4000 concubines of one of his descendants, who, in a reign lasting only a thousand nights, managed to sleep with every single one of them. Less successful was Mam’un’s wedding night: the newly married couple found the scent of the precious ambergris candles irritating and ordered them to be removed from the bedroom. Mam’un himself subsequently withdrew when it became apparent that the bride’s menstruation precluded consummation.
Legends of the harem abounded, and death awaited any man other than the caliph who gained entry to this shadowy, voluptuous kingdom. Fragranced with saffron and rosewater, each of the seven slave girls who attended Haroun at his daily siesta knew that sensuality could garner unimaginable rewards—Haroun’s mother Khaizuran herself had risen from slave girl to powerful wife of the caliph.
Poets and musicians flocked to the court, which became the cultural center of the Islamic world. Praising their ruler in language as lavish as his surroundings, the poets earned themselves considerable rewards. Musicians, hidden behind velvet curtains, provided the backdrop to long evenings of drinking and feasting. But death could come suddenly amid the hedonism, for intrigues abounded in the shadows.
Haroun made Baghdad the hub of civilization, earning it the name “Bride of the World.” Believing that “It is a disgrace for a ruler not to be learned,” he was on a constant quest for knowledge, and also promoted learning and the arts among his own people. He endowed scholarships, invited wise men from every kingdom to visit Baghdad and encouraged his formerly introspective scholars to profit from their knowledge. Haroun initiated an age of translation of Greek and other Christian classics of philosophy, and mathematics, medicine, astronomy and engineering all flourished.
Haroun’s great love was poetry. No mean poet himself, his knowledge of verse was unparalleled even by learned men—he frequently corrected them on a slipped word. Poets filled his courts and were handsomely rewarded. Poetry was such a consuming passion for Haroun that he gave it up when on pilgrimage as an act of self-denial.
Haroun’s strength as a ruler lay in the personal loyalty he commanded. When he became the fifth Abbasid caliph in 786 at the age of twenty-two, Baghdad’s populace spontaneously crowded the streets to rejoice. He has been criticized for leaving a clan of administrators, the Barmakids, to govern in the early years of his reign, and for being too influenced by his redoubtable mother, Khaizuran. Open and instinctively trusting, Haroun was content to accept the advice of his viziers and theologians. Leaving his administration in capable hands, Haroun preferred instead to undertake extensive tours of inspection across his vast territories, making himself personally known to his subjects. His forays through the streets of Baghdad were in fact more paternalistic than amorous; he was said to roam his capital in disguise to check on his people’s welfare.
Haroun was hot-tempered but quick to feel remorse and rarely vengeful. His most ruthless act was his removal of the Barmakids from power. Yahya al-Barmaki had been Haroun’s boyhood tutor, his first vizier, and the man he called father. After seventeen years of service in which Yahya and his family established a monopoly over the government of the caliphate, Haroun, in a lightning coup d’état, executed or imprisoned the entire clan and its clients. Romance has it that this was revenge for an affair between his vizier at that time, Jafar al-Barmaki, and Haroun’s sister. When Haroun eventually decided to move against the Barmakid clan, he ordered his grand vizier Jafar to spend the night feasting; while thus occupied he received a stream of gifts from the caliph until the arrival of a messenger bearing Haroun’s only request: the head of Jafar. More characteristic of Haroun was his subsequent pilgrimage to Mecca. The last of nine, this time he made the thousand-mile journey barefoot as penance for his acts against a family to whom he owed so much.
Haroun was one of the most respected rulers of his age, acknowledged by both of Europe’s emperors. Charlemagne reportedly sent him gifts, receiving an elephant and the keys of the Christian quarter of Jerusalem in return. The tribute of Byzantium’s emperors, however, was secured by military force rather than goodwilclass="underline" Haroun defeated the Byzantines several times. After Nicephorus I became Byzantine emperor, he tried to renege on the tribute owed to the caliphs and furthermore demanded reimbursement for the tributes made by his predecessor, Empress Irene. Haroun’s response was simple: “You will hear my reply before you read it.” The former civil servant Nicephorus was no match for the military skill of the caliph. After Haroun and his 135,000-strong army laid waste to Asia Minor and a parallel naval force overwhelmed Cyprus, the emperor capitulated and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of 30,000 gold pieces, each stamped with the head of the caliph and his three sons.
Haroun’s death at the age of forty-seven cut short the reign of one of the most admired of the caliphs.
MAROZIA AND THE PAPAL PORNOCRACY
c. 890–932
… this monster without one single virtue to atone for his many vices.
The verdict of the bishops convened by Otto to try Pope John XII, 963
Beautiful, sinister and canny, Marozia was a political harlot and powerful noblewoman who became senatrix and patrician of Rome, queen of Italy and the mistress, murderess, mother and grandmother of popes. Hers was an astonishing career of depravity, greed, murder and ruthlessness that dominated the papacy for decades.