It is said that there is a woman behind
every great man, but behind Harun Al Rashid were two women. The first one was
his mother Al Khaizaran: Graceful lady, who, as many historians believe, was
running the country during the rule of her husband.
The second was his wife, Amatul Aziz Bint
Ja’far Bin Abi Ja’far Al Mansour; the mother of Caliph Mohamed Al Amin.
She
was nicknamed by her grandfather Al Mansour “Zubeida” (762A.D-831A.D) because
of her freshness, softness and white skin. She was related to her husband not
only on his father’s side, but also on his mother’s. Her mother, Salsal, was
the sister of Al Khaizaran.
The Islamic Empire under the Umayyad Dynasty
expanded to Spain in the West and China in the East. The Abbasids came
afterwards to reap the fruits of those great military operations that took the
new religion to areas nobody even dreamt of reaching.
Harun
Al Rashid (Fifth Abbasid Calliph-763-809) was not an ordinary man. Long before,
his daring raids into territories still under the rule of Rome carried him to
the doors of Constantinople even before his father, Al Mahdi, nominated him as
his Crown Prince.
Contemporary historians describe Queen Zubeida as a lady of stunning beauty
and courage. Her speech was both,
charming and eloquent, and apparently her wisdom was very imposing and inspired
immediate respect and admiration.
She also
wrote poetry and entered into competitions with others in various fields of
culture. She was in fact the love of her husband. This earned her a very
influential position as the first lady among his women, and it was no secret
that her husband held counseling sessions with her in many occasions and for
many events.
Zubeida has shown great interest in
literature and science, and allocated a lot of funds to tempt and attract
hundreds of top literary figures as well as poets and scientists to Baghdad.
Caliph
Harun al-Rashid’s two sons Al Mamuon and Al Amin carried on a power struggle
that devastated Baghdad in the ninth century.
Zubeida
got a son named Mohammed Al Amin. He was six month younger to his step brother
Ali Al-Mamoun whose mother was a concubine named Marajel.
Zubeida
pleaded for the nomination of her son Al Amin as the crown prince though Caliph
Haroon preferred Mamoun because of his intelligence and scholarship.
Finally, Haroon decided not to enrage his
wife ,he appointed her son as second
crown prince after Al Mamoun, and his third son Al Kassim as a third
crown prince.
Since she was born of nobility, her son took
preference in succession. But after Harun’s death, the conflict between the
Persian-born son and the Arab-born son resulted in civil war. Al-Mamun was the
victor.
Harun insisted to appoint Al Mamoun who had shown
very early wisdom and who was, even in his youth, a well-known scholar, while Al
Amin was famous for being very reckless.
She argued in favor of her son Ali Al Amin,
stating clearly that Al Mamoun’s mother was just one of the Amahs of the palace
called Marajel.
Slaughter
of the Barmaki dynasty.
One of the direct consequences of this fatal
conflict was the devastation that caused the slaughter of the Barmaki dynasty.
This dynasty provided the Abbasids with ministers since their early days. At
that time their chieftain was Ja’far Bin Yahya Al Barmaki, the foster (milk)
brother of the Caliph himself, as his mother Al Khaizaran breastfed Ja’far who
was only few days older than Harun.
The Barmaki Clan supported the nomination of
Al Mamoun, motivated probably by the fact that his mother was a Persian slave,
as they came from the same origin.
Learning about their stand, Zubeida came up
with a story that the Barmakis were conspiring to gain territories of Persia
under their rule. Her husband didn’t hesitate and ordered his closest commander
to lead a force and kill them all.
However the argument continued, and Zubeida
stood firmly behind her son (despite the fact that she was the one who raised
Al Mamoun because his mother died of puerperal fever three days after he was
born).
Al
Mamoun was declared Crown Prince
Eventually
Harun Al Rashid took a decision that had negative consequences for the Abbasid
dynasty on the long run. He decided not to irritate his wife, and appointed her
son as Crown Prince, but also appointed Al Mamoun as Crown Prince to the new
Crown Prince, and also appointed his third son Al Kassim as a third Crown
Prince.
Al
Amin (Son of Queen Zubeida) was killed
As expected, Al Amin started to mess things
up from his first days in power, after the death of his father. Eventually, his
conflict with his brother escalated and it ended after fierce battle, in which
he was killed.
His mother overcame her sorrow and tragedy,
wrote to Al Mamoun “I congratulate you as the new Caliph. I have lost a son,
but he was replaced by the son that I did not give birth to.”
The new Caliph rushed to her, swore that he
did not order the killing of his brother and for the 32 years she lived after
that, he treated Zubeida with a great respect. He resorted to her in grave
matters for counseling, and it is a well-known fact that he accepted her opinion
in many instances.
On the personal level, Zubeida set the style
for other ladies of the ruling family, as well as for the women of Baghdad. All
of them were so eager to copy the design of her glamorous clothes. She loved
natural silk, and preferred brilliant colors, which by itself was a new trend.
It is
greatly believed that the life of Harun al Rashid and Zubaida was one of the
sources of the famous book “Thousand Nights and a night” which was translated
into all living languages under the title “1001 Arabian nights”.
Ayn Zubeida: An Islamic Heritage and a Masterpiece of Engineering.
Caliph Harun used to go to Mecca for
Pilgrimage almost every year walking all the distance from Baghdad.
In one of those Pilgrimages, the suffering
of the Pilgrims who were struggling to get pure drinking water, as one bottle
was sold for 1 Dinar, touched Zubeida.
She ordered engineers to conduct an urgent
study to bring water to Mecca. They came back to her with a report confirming
that it would be an extremely difficult job.
Since it requires digging tunnels under
massive rocks and building tunnels along slopes for over 10 miles.
The report also concluded that it would be a
very costly project, but she ordered them to start immediately. The engineers
went up to the water springs in the mountains and worked hard until they
brought pure water to Mecca.
History
relates the queen’s reply as: “Construct a qanat at any cost, even if I
have to give a dinar in exchange for every single stroke of spade.”
Ayn Zubeida was such a robust
and reliable water system that it survived and supplied water to the city’s
people and pilgrims for about 1,200 years.
Darb Zubeida: Road from Baghdad to Makkah
One of
Queen Zubaida’s major achievements is the construction of facilities along the
way from Baghdad to Makkah, 1,200-km track known as Darb Zubeida.
The
way started from Baghdad and passed through Kufah, Najf, Qadsia and Asmaara and
then reached Makkah… In those days pilgrims used to travel on foot, camels
and horses to perform Haj.
The
engineers established the direction of Qibla along the way so that the pilgrims
could perform their prayers correctly.
The infrastructure of the way made by Queen
Zubaida lasted for centuries and traces of this route can still be found today.
Despite
her wisdom in such affairs, her unequivocal love for her spoiled son “Al
Amin” led to the eventual downfall of the dynasty.
The End
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