EAST OR WEST, UTOPIA IS BEST: QARMATIAN SOCIETY IN COMPARISON TO EUROPEAN UTOPIAS

ВОСТОК И ЗАПАД УТОПИИ: ОБЩЕСТВО КАРМАТОВ В СРАВНЕНИИ С УТОПИЯМИ ЕВРОПЫ

Кузнецов Алексей Денисович

студент, Санкт-Петербургский Государственный Университет, РФ, г. Санкт-Петербург

Abstract. The article examines the society of the ‘Abu Sa’idis (Arabian Qarmatians), comparing it to the societies of Western utopian projects. It is demonstrated that the Qarmatians had many common elements with European Utopias: manipulating religious tenets for the state’s needs (as in Plato’s Republic), promotion of the crafts (T. More’s Utopia), certain forms of communal property and social welfare (Dukhobors’ and socialists’ projects), etc. The elements pertaining only to the Qarmatian republic are also elaborated on, and it is noted that the state’s reliance on tariffs, slavery and piracy, while decidedly dystopian in the modern times, is more explicable in the historical context, that this ensured the society lasting longer than the other Utopias. Finally, further research into the subject is encouraged.

Аннотация. В статье анализируется общество Абу Саидов (арабских карматов), проводится его сравнение с западными утопическими проектами. Приводятся примеры многочисленных сходств республики карматов с европейскими утопиями: манипулирование религиозными догматами в интересах государство (как в «Государстве» Платона), покровительство ремесленникам («Утопия» Т. Мора), некоторые формы общинной собственности и социальных пособий (проекты Духоборов и социалистов) и т. д. Также описываются особенности, характерные только для самой республики карматов – и отмечается, что, хотя зависимость этого государства от пиратства, пошлин и рабского труда в наше время являлась бы антиутопичной, она более объяснима в историческом контексте, и что эти факторы обеспечили долгий срок существования общества карматов по сравнению с другими утопиями. Наконец, подчёркивается необходимость дальнейших исследований в этой области.

Keywords: Qarmatians, ‘Abu Sa’idi, utopia, Thomas More, Dukhobors, Medieval Arabia.

Ключевые слова: карматы, Абу Саиды, утопия, Томас Мор, Духоборы, средневековая Аравия.

The ‘Abu Sa’idis, also known as the Qarmatians (or, depending on the translation, Carmatians), were a powerful Muslim sect of  the late VIII-IX centuries AD, at its peak controlling the entire east coast of Arabia, as well as Mecca itself. Despite now being relatively obscure, they played an important part in Arabian history – the scriptures of other Muslim countries accuse them of large-scale pirate raids, capturing the Black Stone of Kaaba, and various other atrocities. Nevertheless, the Qarmatian society is sometimes described as a “utopian republic” and, indeed, its denizens enjoyed high prosperity, anti-poverty measures for free citizens, as well as a lack of taxes or tithes [2].

It should be noted, however, that the utopian component of the Qarmatian republic has been far less explored than the other aspects of this state. In particular, I have found no evidence that there have been any notable attempts to compare the Qarmatian Utopia – a Utopia of the Muslim East – to the Western Utopian societies, both imaginary and attempted in reality.

Therefore, this essay will be dedicated to correcting this lacuna.

In order to achieve this goal, I will, first of all, present all the information currently known about the ‘Abu Sa’id society, which is regrettably far from vast, yet surprisingly well-organized and easy to assess – all the articles and the encyclopedias display very similar information about the subject. Then, I will compare the Qarmatians to the most famous and well-studied Utopias, that will be mentioned in chronological order, from the earliest conceived or attempted to the most recent ones.

Therefore, I will begin with finding the similarities between the ‘Abu Sa’id state and societies of Plato’s Republic [5] and T. More’s Utopia [4], for these are the oldest imaginary projects that are now deemed Utopian. In particular, I will concentrate on these Utopias’ shared neglect of gold and silver currency, Plato’s and Qarmatians’ reliance on slave labor and a very specific religious education in order for their societies to function, as well as the attention that More and the ‘Abu Sa’id government paid to the class to the artisans. The choice of these features is by no means random, as these are the most striking similarities that are noticeable even with the scarce information about the Qarmatians available.

Having analyzed that, I will move on to comparing Qarmathians to later utopian projects, often connected to communism and socialism. It will be shown that, despite not being “Medieval Arab Communist Republic”, as some authors claim, ‘Abu Sa’id society had traits – such as experiments with communal property and government actions to improve general welfare and combat poverty – that make the existence of aforementioned claims quite explicable and understandable, despite their inappropriate boldness. I will also draw comparisons the society of Dukhobors – a movement that, while having strong communal tendencies, were first and foremost a religious group [3, pp. 95-100], just like the Qarmatians, and also established a moderately prosperous community, unlike More’s and Plato’s ideas, which remained existing only on paper. In particular, I will focus on the combination of communalism and respect for individual pursuits that were common for both Qarmatians and Dukhobors.

Finally, I will summarize the unique features of the Qarmatians that differ them from other utopian projects – their reliance on taxes, tributes, customs duties, and slave labor in order to achieve and maintain prosperity and their welfare policies. I will also attempt to explain and justify these differences in order to prove that, when accounting for the reality of VIII-X century Arabia, the ‘Abu Said state can be called a Utopia despite some of its features being inacceptable (or, when concerning taxes, simply not utopian) in modern society.

In my work, besides the aforementioned tracts The Republic by Plato and Utopia by More, I will rely on multiple scientific works. For information about Qarmathian history and society, I will use such works as the Essay on development of religious and philosophical thought in Islam by S. Umanets, a famous XIX century Russian expert on the Oriental Studies [6], The 'Abu Saʿidis or so-called “Carmatians” of Bahrain, a report done by F. de Blois during the Oxford Seminar for Arabian Studies [2], the Prinston academic Y. Nakash book Reaching for Power: The Shi'a in the Modern Arab World [7] and the article on Carmathians in Encyclopaedia Iranica [1]. When writing about the Dukhobors, I will present the related information from The Palgrave Companion to North American Utopias by J. Friesen and V. Friesen [3].  Together, these works provide comprehensive information on the subject.

As I have stated in the introduction, a clear picture of everything that is known about the Qarmatian society is highly useful for the investigation. Providing this picture is relatively easy, as multiple encyclopedia articles and research papers possess very similar information about Qarmatian society. They are almost entirely based on the personal accounts of two famous Muslim travelers: Ebn (Ibn) Ḥawqal, who visited Bahrain in the latter part of the 10th century, and Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow (Nasir Khusraw), who spent nine months in Laḥsā (i.e., Aḥsāʾ) in 1051. Thus, in the time of Ibn Ḥawqal, income from grain and fruit estates was assigned to the Qarmathian community (moʾmenūn), while the revenues from the customs duties levied on all ships passing through the Persian Gulf and the island of Owāl were distributed among the descendants of Abū Saʿīd. All other revenues from taxes, tributes, protection fees paid by the pilgrim caravans, and war booties were allotted to different groups by the ruling council on the basis of certain fixed ratios after setting aside one-fifth for the Mahdi (Ṣāḥeb al-Zamān; Ebn Ḥawqal, p. 25).

By the time of Khusraw, the state owned some 30,000 purchased black slaves, whose services were utilized for the cultivation of agricultural lands in Bahrain. No taxes or tithes were paid by the inhabitants of Aḥsāʾ, where any impoverished person could readily obtain a state loan for as long as he needed.

Similarly, any new craftsman arriving in Aḥsāʾ was given a loan for establishing himself there. All such state loans were free of interest [1], and token lead money was used for all local transactions [7, p. 24]. Repairs of private properties and mills were undertaken by the state, while grain was ground free of charge in the state mills [1].

The aforementioned excerpt is crucial to my investigation, therefore, I have decided to include it in its entirety in order to be able to understand and demonstrate the whole picture of the Qarmatian society as the modern world knows it. In further paragraphs, when drawing comparisons to specific utopias, I will have to refer to it more than once.

As it was mentioned earlier, the Utopias suited for comparison would be presented in chronological order. To begin with, certain similarities can be pointed out when comparing the Qarmatian republic to the imaginary state of Plato. Yet this is not limited to the utopian features - both republics contained elements that would seem more dystopian than utopian in modern society. For example, neither society prohibited or at least looked down on slave ownership. Plato mentioned slaves in his work not infrequently, but always in passing, never considering the subject seriously, and one might suspect that he viewed the need for institution of slavery as something so obvious that it goes without saying [5].

In ‘Abu Sa’id government, the state owned (again, note the state ownership instead of personal property), 30 thousand slaves, which were the basis of the state’s prosperity, and, according to de Blois, the only thing that enabled and explained the welfare programs that the government could provide for craftsmen and the poor [2, p. 19].

That said, such attitude to slavery and reliance on it was common for both Ancient Greece and Medieval Arabia. Therefore, it is understandable that Plato and the Qarmatians did not view it as something unnatural.

Another notable similarity of the two Utopias is their methods of instilling loyalty in the hearts of their members by carefully twisting the tenets of the existing religion. Plato dedicates several chapters to the myths, songs and stories that should or should not be told to guardians.

For example, he suggests erasing everything about fearing death or lamenting the dead (as warriors should not be afraid of dying in battle) or about gods and heroes’ crimes, internal wars, and other faults (for the gods are an example to people, and telling about their misdeeds means making people prone to similar acts).  Specifically, Plato stated: “if possible, they [such stories] had better be buried in silence.

But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed” [5, Book II]. Qarmatians also had a very intricate system of educating neonates. First, the neonate had their belief in the previous Qu’ran interpretations shattered and the new (Qarmatian) teachers installed as spiritual authorities. This was followed by the slow erosion of most Muslim tenets (such as Mohammed being the last prophet, the need for fasting, hajj, etc.), and finally the rejection of Islam as a whole, it being wholly supplanted by loyalty to the leader of the movement and desire for the society to gain power [6, pp. 51-59].

As one may notice, in both societies it is deemed necessary to alter the citizens’ religious beliefs in order to make them more aligned with the needs of the state. While one may be surprised that I have decided to include these features in this essay, I would like to note that the way people accepted the lifestyle of a particular Utopia matters a lot. Indeed, due to Utopia being by translation “a place both good and nonexistent”, the matter of creating such an unlikely society needs to be taken in consideration, even if it means one has to study rather unpleasant aspects of that process.

However, there is a certain difference in the philosophy at the core of the two discussed states. Plato in “the Republic” looks down upon the tradesmen, artisans and other free people that do not belong to the classes of warriors and philosophers. The common folk is paid little attention, is called “copper” when warriors are compared to silver and philosophers to gold, and there is little information on what will be done to ensure their prosperity [5, Book III].

Meanwhile, the measurements taken to improve the condition of the poorer stratas in ‘Abu Sa’Id society might be the primary reasons for that society to be classified as Utopian.

This difference draws attention to another comparison - in its particular treatment of the craftsmen, the Qarmatian society is similar to the Utopia of Thomas More. In More’s Utopia, not only the crafts are respected and lauded no less than the scholarly work, but mastering a specific craft or two is mandatory for every citizen.

In addition, the government makes sure to provide the artisans with enough work and encourages innovation, yet does not overburden them [4, p. 49].

While one may note that these measures are not exactly the same as the financial support programs and government-assisted repairs of the Qarmatians, it nevertheless shows a very similar level of respect to the professions related to crafts. The difference is created by the two societies’ financial policies: money is still a part of the ‘Abu Sa’id society, while More’s Utopia is a money-free society, and thus, the projects of professional encouragement are adjusted accordingly.

Another notable line in a regrettably short description of the ‘Abu Sa’id society is the mention that “token lead money was used for all local transactions” [7, p. 24].

While, unfortunately, no further information is given, one can immediately find a similarity to both “The Republic” of Plato and More’s “Utopia”. Plato, for example, denies state’s guardians the right to possess gold or silver in any way: “they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture” [5, Book III].

More shows a similar contempt to these metals – in his Utopia, they are worth only for slaves’ chains and chamber pots [4, p. 60].

The decision to shun gold and silver, which are deemed precious by many other societies, seems to be a common legal act in many Utopias – and the extract at the beginning of this paragraph might show that Qarmatian Bahrain was no exception.

Having analyzed the greatest similarities between Qarmatians and the two oldest Utopian ideas of the West, one has to move on to the more recent projects of this kind, which also bear some semblance to the society in question. Indeed, ‘Abu Sa’Idi way of life has been compared to communism more than once: such opinion, for example, is expressed in “Essay on development of religious and philosophical thought in Islam” by Umanets [6, p. 60], and is also mentioned by de Blois in his Oxford report. De Blois himself, however, strongly opposed this idea, stating that ‘Abu Sa’id society is “firmly based on private ownership <…>  Furthermore, those reports concerned specifically with communal property refer not to “Qarmatians” of Bahrain, but to the “Qarmatians” of the Iraq and the Yemen, who, I have argued, were entirely different sects. <…> Obviously, a state that has at its disposal such a large number of slaves can afford interest-free loans and the like. This has nothing to do with communism [2, p. 19]”.

Nevertheless, while the Qarmatians of Iraq and Bahrain are not the same, ‘Abu Sa’id, the founder of the latter, was, according to Umanets [6, p. 60], originally a member of the former. Therefore, it is not out of question that the practice of pooling property was one of the practices carried over to the new society.

Moreover, this does not contradict with the encouraged development of the individual artisans. Indeed, such a combination would closely resemble the lifestyle of Dukhobors, who, while owning the land communally, could be independent artisans – for example, one of their leaders, Ivan Pobirokhin, was a wool merchant [3, pp. 95-100].

To add credibility to the aforementioned idea, I would also like to note that excerpts from Encyclopedia Iranica do mention “early experiments with communal ownership of property”, and while it is mentioned that these experiments “evidently (note the wording – “evidently” might be understood as “apparently”, not “definitely” – A. K.) proved short-lived”, but “communal and egalitarian principles did play an important part in the organization of the Carmatian state in Bahrain.

The state concern for the welfare of the community and the resulting social order in Bahrain, indeed, evoked the admiration of the non-Carmatian observers who visited eastern Arabia before the downfall of the Carmatian state”.

Moreover, the encyclopedia mentions that “income from grain and fruit estates was assigned to the Carmatian community. <…> All other revenues from taxes, tributes, protection fees paid by the pilgrim caravans, and war booties were allotted to different groups by the ruling council on the basis of certain fixed ratios. <…> No taxes or tithes were paid by the inhabitants of Aḥsāʾ, where any impoverished person could readily obtain a state loan for as long as he needed. <…> All such state loans were free of interest [1]”.

All these multiple quotes are provided in order to show that the Qarmatian (Carmatian) society, despite by no means being communist, bears more than enough similarities with the left-wing projects of the XIX-XX centuries, thus, again, showing that, despite its Arabic Muslim origin, it does not seem out of place among Western Utopias.

Nevertheless, for the sake of painting the whole picture, I have to mention what makes this Utopia unique – its way of sustaining itself.

As one may remember, Plato and More believed that a state would become entirely self-sufficient if it limits its citizens to practicing a few select professions of utmost importance and combating excessive and idle lifestyles [4, p. 49-51][5, Book III]. The Dukhobors had a similar disposition, banning alcohol and gambling and uniting themselves in hard, efficient work [3, 93-104].

While the Qarmatians certainly did invest in local crafts, as noted above, their main sources of income were the heavy taxes on foreign merchant ships and pilgrims to Mecca, piracy, and profits from an agriculture developed by slaves [1].

While one may state that this makes the state less Utopian, I would like to note that Qarmatians were not only real, unlike the states of Plato and More, but also much more successful than other attempted Utopian projects.

The Dukhobors were limited to a few settlements in Russia and Canada [3, 93-104], phalanxes suggested by Foucalt were also few in number and generally disconnected. The ‘Abu Sa’idi, meanwhile, occupied vast territories on the eastern cost of Arabia, operating as a real, independent country, acknowledged and feared by its neighbors. Moreover, one has to remember that, throughout human history, many societies could boast such lucrative sources of income or use the labor of thousands of slaves, yet few, if any, implemented such measures for improving the welfare of their free citizens. Thus, taking into consideration the conditions of the epoch (VIII-X centuries AD), one does have the right to call the Qarmatian society a utopian one.

In conclusion, I would like to restate that the country of the ‘Abu Sa’idi, or, as they are more famously known, the Qarmatians, was a state that would not look out of place in the list of various Western Utopias.

As this essay shows, one might find in this society Plato’s practical alterations of the religious tenets, More’s support and encouragement of the crafts, experiments with communal property and social welfare measurements that resemble the ideas of socialists, communists and Dukhobors, and lack of gold and silver currency that is present in more than a few utopias.

This society, however, existed relying on the contemporary sources of prosperity: slave labor – an institution also featured in Plato’s and More’s utopias – and severely taxing, and even robbing passing ships, caravans and pilgrims; a source of income rather unusual for a utopian society.

Yet, the ‘Abu Sa’id measures to improve the condition of the poor and the new craftsmen remain commendable even nowadays, and I believe that this utopia is well worth researching.

While nowadays, unfortunately, it is relatively obscure and the documents about the Qarmatian society are not sufficient for presenting a clear picture, I hope that this work might aspire other researchers to improve the situation and give the Qarmatian republic the attention and publicity it undoubtedly deserves.