Vol. 12 · pages 56–60

35COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES cities or castles, destroyed fourteen thousand churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen thousand mosques for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years after his flight in Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic ocean, over the various and distant provinces which may be comprised under the names of (1) Persia, (2) Syria, (3) Egypt, (4) Africa, (5) Spain.” 1 In this great Mahomedan empire, “ We should vainly seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of Augustus and the Antonines; but the progress of the Mahomedan religion diffused over this ample space, a general resemblance of manners and opinions. The language and laws of the Koran were studied with equal devotion at Samarkand and Seville. The Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris.” 2 The entire trade of history has been to account for his Saracen expansion purely and simply by Religion; but an economic interpretation of this same phenomenon may also stand the test. A well-known writer says “The sudden surging forward of the Arabs was only apparently sudden. For centuries previously, the Arab migration had been in preparation. It was the last great Semitic migration connected with the Economical decline of Arabia. . . . . . . . . In short, long before Mahomet, Arabia was in a state of unrest, and a slow, uncontrolled infilteration of Arabian tribes and tribal branches had permeated the adjoining civilized lands in Persian as also in the Roman territory, where they had met with the descendents of earlier Semitic immigrants to those parts, the Armaneans, who were already long acclamatised there. Hunger and avarice, not religion, are the impelling forces, but religion supplied the essential unity and central power. The expansion of the Saracens’ Religion, both in point of time and in itself, can only be regarded as of minor import and rather as a political necessity. The movement itself had been on foot long before Islam gave it a party cry and an organization.” 3 1 Gibbon’s “ Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, ” Vol. V, p. 401. 2 Ibid, Vol. V, p. 493. 3 Cambridge Medieaval History, Vol. II, p. 331-2.

36 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Prompted both by the ardour of spreading a new religion and also by the economic forces of the time, within forty-six years after Mahomet’s flight from Mecca, the new converts to Muhamedanism appeared in arms before the walls of Constantinople and beseiged it (in A. D. 668-675). The seige lasted for 7 years without any decisive result, the beseigers made light of the strength and resources of Constantinople. The Romans rose equal to the danger of their religion and empire and met the onrushing Saracens with numbers and descipline with so much heroism that it revived their population in the East and the West and for a while, eclipsed the triumphs of the Saracens, who, had they succeeded in capturing Constantinople, would certainly have jeopardised the prospects of Christianity. The Saracens invaded Constantinople a second time and beseiged it (A. D. 716-718) but with the same result. Amidst all these triumphs, the Arabs were being gradually eclipsed by the Seljuks. At the time of their rise, the authority of Quaim, the Abbaside Caliph of Baghdad, was completely overshadowed, first by the Sheite dynasty of the Buyids, and afterwards by the more formidable Fatimite rivals. Placed in such circumstances, the Abbaside Caliph welcomed the rise of the Seljuk Turks, who being the upholders of orthodox Islam were sure to reinvest him all his former power and grandeur. “It is their merit from a Mhommedan point of view to have re-established the power of orthodox Islam and delivered the Moslem world from the subversive influence of the ultra-Sheite tenets, which constitued a serious danger to the duration of Islam itself. Neither had civilization anything to fear from them, since they represented a strong neutral power which made the intimate union of Persian and Arabian elements possible, almost at the expense of the national-Turkish-literary monuments in that language being during the whole period of the Seljuk rule exceedingly rare.” 1 The Seljuks comprised innumerable tribes or families, one of which was known as the Guzz. Among these constantly contending parties, the Guzz family, not in good graces of the rest, rose to power and became a menace to the neighbouring Mohomedan provinces. 1 Enc. Brit. 11th Ed. Art - “Seljuks”.

37COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES Under the leadership of Pigu Arstan Israil, they crossed the Oxus and spread over the Eastern provinces of Persia and having defeated Mahamud, the Gaznavite king in the battle of Mero in 1040, they proclaimed their independence. Within a very short time, the Seljuks secured pre-eminance in the whole of central Asia as far as the Hellespont. “After the great victory of Alp Arsla in which the Greek emperor was taken prisoner (1071), Asia minor lay open to the inroads of the Turks. Hence it was easy for Suleiman, the son of Kutulmish, the son of Arstan Pigu (Israil), to penetrate as far as the Hellespont, the more so after the captivity of Romanas’ two rivals, Nicephorus Bryennius in Asia and Nicephorus Botanciates in Europe, disputed the throne with one another. The former appealed to Suleiman for assistance, and was by his aid brought to Constantinople and seated on the imperial throne.”1 Within a short time they captured Anttioch to give permanance to their Syrian monarchy and brilliantly carried their arms to such an extent by 1234 that the Seljukian empire included almost the whole of Asia minor. But the Seljukian empire was bound to be short-lived, both because of internal dissensions and external aggressions. The external aggression of the Seljukian empire was headed by the Mongols. The early history of the Mongols is enveloped by obscurity and legend. Chengizkhan, the hero of the Mongols, at his death in the valley of Kilien in 1227 “left to his sons an empire which stretched from the China sea to the banks of the Dnieper.”2 Chengizkhan appointed Ogdai as the Khakan or his successor and gave parts of his extensive dominion to other claimants. Ogdai tried to extend his dominion. “At the head of a large army, he marched southwards into China to complete the ruin of the Kiu dynasty, which had already been so rudely shaken, while at the same time Tuli advanced into the province of Honan from the side of Shensi. Against this combined attack, the Kiu troops made a vigourous stand, but the skill and courage of the Mongols bore down every opposition and over a hecatomb of slaughtered foes, they captured Kai-Feng-Fu, the capital of their enemies. From the Kai-Feng-Fu the emperor fled to Juning Fu, whither the 1 Enc. Brita. II Ed, Art - “Seljuks”. 2 Enc. Brita. 11th Ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 712 “Mongols”.

38 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Mongols quickly followed. After sustaining a seige for some weeks, enduring all the horrors of starvation, the garrison submitted to the Mongols and at the same time the Emperor committed suicide by hanging.”1 Not being satisfied with this, Ogadi in 1235 A. D. sent an army against the Sung Dynasty of China, south of the Yang-se-kiang and in Korea. Having thus consumated his conquest in eastern Asia, Ogadi turned his attention to western Asia. In 1236 A. D. he invaded Georgia and Great Armenia capturing Tiflis and Kars and sent a large army under Batu his nephew in eastern Europe. Batu captured Bolgari, the capital city of the Bulgar, crossd the Volga and invaded Ryazan which fell on the 21st of December 1237 and perpetrated such atrocities that “no eye remained open to weep for the dead.” He carried Moscow which were followed by Vladimir and Kozelsk. Poland and Hungary were overtaken by the same fate. Contemporaneous with the rise of the Mongols the Turks known as Ottomans were rising in power. They were one of those nomad tribes dwelling between the plains of Sungaria and the desert of Gobi. “Legend assigns to Oghuz, son of Kara Khan, the honour of being the father of the Ottoman Turks. Their first appearance in history dates from A. D. 1227. In that year a horde, variously estimated at from two to four thousand souls, with their flocks and their Slaves driven originally from their central Asian homes by the pressure of Mongol invasion, and who had sought in vain a refuge with the Seljukian. Sultan Ala-ud-din Kaikobad of Konia, were returning under their chief Suleiman Sha to their native land. They were crossing the Euphrates, not far from the castle of Jaber, when the drowning of their leader by accident threw confusion into their ranks. Those who had not yet crossed the river refused, in face of this omen, to follow their brethren. The little band numbering 400 warriors .... decided to remain under Ertoghrul, son of the drowned leader. Ertoghrul first camped at Jessin, East of Erzerum. A second appeal to Ala-ud-din was more successful and the numbers of the immigrants had become too insignificant for their presence to be a source of 1 Enc. Brita. 11th Ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 712 “Mongols”.

39COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES danger. The lands of Karajabagh, near Angora, were assigned to the new settlers, who found there good pasturage and winter quarters. The help afforded by Ertoghrul to the Seljukian monarch on a critical occasion led to the addition of Sugut to his fief, with which he was now formally invested. Here Ertoghrul died in 1288 at the age of ninety, being succeded in the leadership of the tribe by his son Osman. When exhausted by the onslaughts of Ghazan Mahmud Khan, ruler of Tabriz, and one of Chengiz Khan’s lieutenants, the Seljukian empire was at the point of dissolution, most of its feudatory vassals helped rather than hindered its downfall in the hope of retaining their fiefs as independent sovereigns. But Osman remained firm in his allegience, and by repeated victories over the Greeks revived the drooping glories of his suzerain. His earliest conquest was Karoja Hissar (1295), where first the name of Osman was substituted for that of the sultan in the weekly prayer. In that year Ala-ud-din Kaikobad II conferred on him the proprietorship of the lands he had thus conquered by the sword and presented him at the same time with the horse-tail, drum and banner which constituted the insignia of independent command. Osman continued his victorious career against the Greeks, and by his valour and also through allying himself with Kensee Mikhal, lord of Harman Kaya, became master of Aineqeul, Bilejik and Yar Hissar ... In 1300 the Seljuk empire crumbled away, and many small states arose on its ruins. It was only after the death of his protector and benefactor Sultaa Ala-ud-din II that Osman declared his independence, and accordingly the Turkish historian dates the foundation of the Ottoman empire from this event.”1 The empire of the Turks was very extensive. “ Turks ruled in Asia minor, Turks governed Egypt, Turks held minor authority under the Mongols in Syria and Mesopotamia, while the descendents of Chengizkhan had succeeded to the dominion of the Kalifs; in Persia, had assumed all the dignity of sovereignty in the wild region of the Volga and the Ural mountains, in the lands of the Oxus, and the deserts of Tartary, had spread across central Asia and had founded an empire in China, and were preparing to establish the long line of Mongol emperors in Hindustan whom we know by the name of the Great Moguls.” 2 1 Enc. Brit 11th Ed., Vol. XXVII, p. 441-3. 2 Stanley Lane-Poole—“Turkey” (New York, 1899), p. 7.