Oriental luxury

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With such an environment, the caliphs of Baghdad could rightfully consider their court to be the best in the world. At the same time, it was also the most resplendent court.

We can get an idea of ​​the Oriental splendor of Baghdad by reading the description left to us by the Arab historian Abu'l-Fida of the ceremony in which the Abbasid caliph received an ambassador from one of the emperors of the East in 305 AH.

One of the views of Baghdad, near the Akhmet-Kaya mosque; according to a drawing by Flandin.

Caliph's Palace

“The entire army of the caliph was armed. The cavalry and infantry numbered six thousand men, the high-ranking commanders were magnificently dressed and wore belts of gold and precious stones, they were all located around supreme commander. There were also seven thousand eunuchs, of which four thousand were white, as well as seven hundred people from the guards of the apartments. Richly decorated boats and gondolas glittered in the waters of the Tigris. Splendor also ruled in the interior of the palace, where there were thirty-eight thousand wall carpets, among which twelve and a half thousand were made of silk embroidered with gold, and twenty-two thousand carpets lay on the floor. The caliph kept about a hundred lions and the same number of guards for them.

Among other fine objects, it is worth mentioning a tree made of gold and silver with twenty-eight branches, on which, as if on real branches, various birds sat. The birds and leaves of the tree were made from the most precious metals. The tree swayed as the trees in our forests sway, and the chirping of various birds could be heard. It was in the very middle of all this magnificent decoration that the Greek ambassador was escorted by the vizier to the throne of the caliph.

Caliph of Baghdad

The military power of the Caliph of Baghdad was matched by the splendor of his empire. We can judge how much he was respected by the fact that even the emperors of Constantinople, the heirs of Greek and Roman civilization, were forced to pay tribute. And in vain they tried to evade payment. Nicephorus, heir to the Empress Irene, wrote to Caliph Harun al-Rashid that he would not pay tribute to him, and received a laconic and strong answer, which confirms how contempt the weak descendants of the Greeks and Romans aroused among the Arabs. The message was expressed in the following words:

"In the name of the merciful and merciful God, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog: I have read your letter, son of the infidel, you will not hear my answer, you will see it."

The “Roman dog” really saw him: Harun completely plundered the provinces subordinate to Nicephorus, and the Christian emperor of Constantinople continued to pay tribute to the follower of the prophet Muhammad.

Asian empire

The reign of Harun and his son is rightfully considered the era of the culmination of the political power of the Arabs in the East. Their Asian empire reached the borders of China, they pushed back the barbarian tribes of Africa as far as Ethiopia, the Greeks to the Bosphorus, and in the West, only the Atlantic Ocean served as their border. In less than two centuries, these courageous Arab tribes, united by the voice into one people, founded an empire as great as that of Rome, and their empire became the most civilized and formidable in the world.

The Arabs declared all the conquered lands the property of the Muslim community. The local population living on these lands had to pay a land tax to the caliph.

At first, the Arabs did not force people of other faiths to convert to Islam. Non-Muslims had to pay only a special poll tax, which brought significant income to the Caliph's treasury. Muslims turned out to be merciful: Christians and Jews in the territories conquered by the Arabs were allowed to live according to the laws of their faith. There were many Christians educated people, whom the Arab rulers attracted to their service. But after a few decades, the attitude of Muslims towards people of other religions changed and their oppression began. Those who converted to Islam were exempt from taxes. They only gave alms to the poor. It was believed that Muslims pay taxes with their blood, fighting against the "infidels."

The first caliphs tried to maintain equality among Muslims by ordering that the wealth of the conquered countries be divided equally. When the Arabs seized the treasury of the Iranian kings, a golden-woven carpet of extraordinary beauty, adorned with precious stones, fell into their hands. In order for all the soldiers to get an equal share of the booty, Caliph Omar ordered the carpet to be cut into many pieces. The conquests changed the life and way of life of the Arabs. The Bedouin nomads who took part in them abandoned their former occupations, populating the captured cities and fertile valleys. Noble Arabs - commanders and rulers of the provinces, began to imitate the nobles of the occupied countries. They built magnificent palaces, accumulated enormous wealth, and owned fertile lands. Caliphs, like other rulers of the countries of the East, surrounded themselves with wealth and luxury. Here is how a 10th-century courtier describes the caliph's court: material from the site

Arab potter's workshop

“Usually the caliph sat on the throne - on a pillow upholstered with Armenian silk fabric ... The caliph was wearing a black caftan made of silk ... His head was crowned with a high black headdress, he was girded with the sword of the prophet. ...Before him lay the Koran of Osman, previously kept in the treasury. On the shoulders of the caliph is the cloak of the prophet, in his hands is the staff of the prophet. Slaves and bodyguards stood behind the throne and around it with swords, battle axes and clubs in their hands. Slave servants stood on either side of the throne, chasing away flies with gold and silver fans. When the time of the reception approached, the servants stood with slingshots in their hands, with which they shot at crows and other birds so that they would not croak and scream.

In the middle of the 8th century, the caliphs built a new capital on the Tigris River not far from ancient Babylon - Baghdad. The ruins of Babylon were dismantled by the Arabs and became building material for the construction of buildings. Hundreds of thousands of kilograms of silver and tens of thousands of kilograms of gold flocked to Baghdad from all over the Arab state. He turned into richest city East. The population of Baghdad was over a quarter of a million inhabitants. Contemporaries called it "the capital of Islam, the throne of the empire, the center of beauty, culture and art."

Jericho, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, is mentioned many times in the Bible. Jericho is a city in the Palestinian Authority, located in the north of the Judean Desert, about 7 km west of the Jordan River, 12 km northwest of the Dead Sea and 30 km northeast of Jerusalem.

In the late Bronze Age, Jericho was a prosperous city, surrounded by a wall of mud bricks. According to one version, the city was destroyed by the ancient Jews who invaded Canaan, around 1550 BC. e. According to the Bible (Josh. 6:1-26), having captured the city, the Jews destroyed all its inhabitants and their livestock, leaving only the harlot Rahab alive, who allowed the Jewish spies to spend the night. The city itself was burned to the ground. Since that time, almost nothing has been heard about him for a long time, and only in the reign of Ahab did a certain Ahiel break the spell and restore it, while losing all his sons. After that, Jericho again rose to prominence and played a significant role in history. Joseph Flavius, Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny and others mention it. Under Constantine the Great, there was a Christian church here, with a bishop at the head. Over time, Jericho began to decline.

Due to the ideally mild climate and the absence of a harsh winter, many kings and rulers built their winter palaces in Jericho from time immemorial. Hisham Palace or Khirbet el-Mafjar is an excavated chic Umayyad palace of an Arab ruler from the 8th century AD. from the Umai dynasty. In his palace, Hisham surpassed even Herod in luxury and excess. And although already in early Islam, by analogy with Judaism, there was a ban on images of living beings, Hisham decorated his palace with rich mosaics with images of animals. Gorgeous mosaic panels (only fragments of them remain) are probably the main pearl of the modern archaeological park. The room where the mosaic is located is called a sofa, in Arabic - a hall for important meetings and discussions. It is not known exactly what important issues were discussed in the Divan, but the chronicles brought to us curious evidence that the invited guests swore never to tell anyone about what they saw in the palace. And it's not surprising. After all, in the palace all sorts of prohibitions of the religious dogmas of Islam were violated. Not only did the paintings depict animals and people, but also the wine literally flowed like a river. In a chic, huge bathhouse, entire pools were filled with wine, and, of course, girls were sitting in them.

Caliph Hisham ibn Abd el-Malik ruled between 724-43. n. e. and - so they say - was righteous and led an ascetic life. But his nephew and heir Caliph Walid ibn Yazid (743-44) was a libertine and drunkard, and most likely it was he who built this palace. The Arab poet and scholar Abu el-Faraj al-Isfahani relates that Walid, after listening to a poem he liked, in ecstasy tore his clothes, and dived naked into a wine-filled bath, drank so much that the level of wine in the bath dropped significantly, and was pulled out of her in an unconscious state ("Book of Songs" 3:303). You can see the sculptures of naked women that decorated the interior of the palace in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. High columns are not an ancient oil refinery, as you might think, but the remains of the same bathhouse in Hisham's palace, where girls entertained men. What is left of the once beautiful palace is on your screens. Most of the mosaics are now covered with a thick layer of sand. The palace was restored with the money of the European Union (the signs inform about this :)). Opened in a festive atmosphere and almost immediately closed for restoration. The mosaics there, judging by the description, are amazing, the one in the picture is one of the few not covered.

Built in the 8th century, the palace was destroyed by an earthquake 4 years later. It consisted of two colonnades above the palace courtyard, two mosques and two baths with a magnificent mosaic floor. Probably only in Hisham's palace can one see the best preserved magnificent mosaic. The remains of stone carvings found at this site give an idea of ​​how impressive the palace itself was.

Plan of the Khirbet al-Mafjar castle (2nd quarter of the 8th century): 1 - palace; 2 - yard; 3 - mosque; 4 - bath; 5 - large yard; 6 - pavilion with a pool. The palace, with a composition typical of Umayyad castles (a square courtyard surrounded by a gallery and stone 2-storey rooms with brick vaults), to which a courtyard with a mosque and a bathhouse adjoined from the north.

The palace was opened in 1935-36 of the last century. The sculpture, a fantastically beautiful ceiling and fragments of carving, as well as many of the finds, are exhibited in Jerusalem, in the Rockefeller Museum, in a special room. ( http://www.ilmuseums.com/museum_rus.asp?i d=13) (http://www.imj.org.il/rockefeller/eng/index.html). Naturally, they were extracted from the ruins of the palace in separate fragments, and restored according to the technology that was then adopted.

Actually naked girls from the palace.

Cable car The same monastery on the Mount of Temptation, where the monk constantly sleeps.

Arab Caliphate. The capital of the caliphate from 661 to 750 was the city of Damascus, and from 762, under the Abbasids, the city of Baghdad became. The heyday of this state was associated with the legendary Caliph Harun-ar-Rashid (766-809).

The system of government of the Arab Caliphate:

Features of the feudal system of the Arabs: The owner of the whole land is the state and its head is the caliph. Caliph - Deputy, successor of the prophet. Tax from the land goes to the treasury of the caliph. Tax from the land goes to the treasury of the caliph. The religious nature of the state (theocracy, life according to Sharia law).

The reasons high level cultures of the Arabs: The Arab Caliphate included ancient civilizations Africa and Asia, as well as ancient world. The Arabs assimilated the achievements of the conquered peoples and contributed to their spread. The rise of culture was facilitated by the economic upsurge.

Discoveries and inventions of Arab artisans discovery of Damascus steel; in the manufacture of steel mirrors; in the manufacture of paper; in the production of silk, wool, brocade; in leather production; in the production of sugar cane and rice; in the development of horticultural art.

Education in educational institutions caliphate was conducted on Arabic. It was highly valued and was necessary for obtaining government positions. primary schools were private and public (free). At mosques in big cities higher Muslim schools were created - madrasahs.> Writers and scientists lived and worked at the palaces of caliphs and emirs. The cities created large libraries, for example: The House of Wisdom in Baghdad contained about 400 thousand volumes. "Baytul-hikma" ("House of Wisdom") - Academy of Sciences.

The main discoveries and achievements of Arab scientists in the field of science: Mathematics: Arabic numerals, the concept of "zero" (borrowed from the scientists of Ancient India and contributed to the penetration of this knowledge into Europe); knew the works of Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes; created algebra - Al-Khwarizmi; could calculate the circumference; knew the number pi.

Astronomy: the presence of observatories in large cities; calculated eclipses, planetary movements; approximately calculated the circumference of the earth; described the location visible stars gave them names; Al-Biruni (late X - early XI centuries) - The Earth revolves around the Sun. Persian manuscript with a drawing by Al-Biruni explaining the phases of an eclipse

Monument to Al-Biruni in Laleh Park in Tehran.

Geography: Masudi - created maps of countries known to the Arabs; essays for merchants to find profitable markets; description of the countries that are part of the Arab Caliphate; Divide all the earth by 5 climatic zones, described the influence of climate on cultural development. Al-Masudi world map.

Botany: created the first classification of plants. Physics: knew the laws of optics. Chemistry: knew how to get alcohol and sulfuric acid. A page from an Arabic treatise on alchemy. 13th century

Medicine: Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) (late 10th - early 11th centuries) - created 100 works, the main of which is the Medical Canon. a person becomes infected through water and air; described the symptoms of many diseases; medicinal infusions on herbs and their use in various diseases; Zahrabiy, a surgeon, translated from the Greek Hippocrates, his works formed the basis of European surgery.

Philosophy: Ibn-Rushdu (Averroes) - scientific discoveries may be wrong from the point of view of religion, but religious dogmas can also be rejected scientific discoveries. The doctrine of "double truth". History: glorified the conquests of the Arabs; briefly outlined the history of Roman, Byzantine and Arab rulers.

In the literature of the Arab Caliphate, the following main genres can be distinguished:

From folk tales The collection "A Thousand and One Nights" received the greatest popularity.

Ferdowsi - the poem "Shah-name" ("The Book of Kings") - about the struggle of the Iranian people with the conquerors, contained a call for unification and cessation internecine wars. The author used legends about the first shahs of Iran, legends about heroes-heroes, real events and legends connected with the stay of Alexander the Great in Iran. He worked on his poem for 35 years and completed it in 1011.

In the 9th century, Ziriyab, a singer, musician, a contemporary of Harun-ar-Rashid, who founded a conservatory in Cordoba and had a huge impact on the lifestyle of Spanish Muslims, was very famous in Baghdad, and then in the Emirate of Cordoba: he introduced the rule to wear different clothes in different seasons ; convinced that fine glassware is more elegant than gold and silver; established a strict sequence for serving dishes at feasts: soups, meat dishes, poultry, dessert; love for bathing. In the baths, masseurs, healers, barbers; sophistication and sophistication of palace culture, brought together ancient, Byzantine and Persian traditions; music at court (the words "lute", "guitar", "timpani" are of Arabic origin).

Features of the development of the architecture of the East: mosques - Muslim temples. square buildings with a straight roof or dome; decorated not with drawings of people and plots, but with ornaments - arabesques; The Koran forbade depicting people, Muhammad in the mosque; The columns are not along the movement of the worshipers, but across, there are many of them, this is a series of arches; There is no clear center, the gaze moves in different directions, a mood of contemplation is created; There are no icons and frescoes, a holy place - a mihrab - a niche in the wall facing Mecca. This place is richly carved; There are minarets next to the tower mosque.

Mosque in Cordoba (VIII century) has 900 columns

Mosque in Kairouan (Tunisia) Kairouan is a Muslim shrine in Africa.

The name Alhambra (translated from Arabic - "red castle") comes from the color of sun-dried clay or bricks from which the walls of the castle are made.

The contribution of the Arabs to world culture: Europeans learned from the Arabs a lot of valuable scientific knowledge(numbers, maps, globe, medical knowledge, etc.). The Influence of Arabic Poetry on the Poets of the South of France. Separate elements of the medieval architecture of Europe are borrowed from the Arabs; Arabs are intermediaries between the West and the East, Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Reasons for the collapse of the Arab Caliphate: huge territory, many peoples, cultures, languages ​​- it is difficult to retain power; uprisings of conquered peoples; the desire of the emirs for independence; a mercenary army that voluntarily erected and overthrew caliphs, which led to political instability; the split of Islam into two currents: Shiites and Sunnis.

CHALIFA'S PALACE
HISHAMA
history teacher and
social science
Skopkareva K.P.

In Israel. Not far from the market
the square of modern Jericho has a hill
20 meters high. Here at the beginning of our
century, archaeologists discovered what was left of
ancient Jericho, one of the oldest
cities of the world.
North of the excavations of ancient Jericho
(approximately three kilometers) are
ruins of the palace of Caliph Damascus Hisham ibn
Abdal-Malik, who lived in the first half
8th century AD.

Hisham Palace or Khirbet el Mafjar is from
well-preserved monument of Omeyadskaya
architecture. The construction of the palace began at the time
reign of Walid II - Caliph of the Omayyad dynasty
at a time when the caliph was the ruler in the Holy Land
Hisham ibn Abd el-Malik (724 - 743).

This palace, which is a large
two-storey square building
magnificent mosaic patterns. He
consisted of two colonnades, two mosques and two
baths with a magnificent mosaic floor. He was
destroyed by earthquake 4 years
later. Probably only in Hisham's palace
can
see
most
preserved
magnificent mosaic of Israel. Remains of carving
by stone found in this place give
idea of ​​how impressive
was the palace itself.

"Tree of Life" - this is the name of one of the most
beautiful mosaics of the Middle East, if not the whole world.
She covered the floor of the guest room of the bathhouse.
complex. Imitating beautiful Persian
carpets, mosaics are relatively well preserved,
only slightly affected by earthquakes.

Many statues, columns, mosaics, etc. today
kept in the Israel Museum and the Rockefeller Museum in
Jerusalem

Hisham Palace was a national park.
Today, it is an architectural monument under protection
Palestinian Authority.