Iraq after the Muslim Conquest - Michael G. Morony

(Ann) #1
THE QUESTION OF CONTINUITY

ognized framework which makes it intelligible and renders its ac-
ceptance reasonable,u

But this is still in the context of diffusion, and Parker's suggestion that
the impact of Arian German Christianity on the existing Roman tra-
dition of the union of church and state in the Germanic states of the
fifth and sixth centuries was to strengthen that tradition by "inocu-
lation from a parallel tradition of the same kind"12 comes closer to
the way reinforcement will be used here. The same is true of the way
Chaney explains the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity
in terms. of an interpenetration of Germanic and Roman Christian
religious traditions.^13
However, in dealing with such issues at this level of abstraction,
there is a tendency to hypostatize culture. Cultures do not make choices;
people do. It is important to conduct this discussion in terms of the
choices and behavior of individuals. At least in Iraq many competing
alternatives existed at the same time within each of the ethnic and
religious populations. Nor should it be assumed that cultural choices
assisted by reinforcement are necessarily conscious, rational, or pur-
posive. In fact, appealing to reinforcement to explain successful cul-
tural transmission may raise more questions than it answers. It is much
easier to say what was transmitted and how it was transmitted than
it is to explain why reinforcement existed in the first place. The ques-
tion of why the Muslim Arabs who arrived in Iraq in the seventh
century had cultural and religious similarities to the people they found
there is an important side issue that will not be treated here. That is
the proper subject for a different book, and for the purpose of dis-
cussion it will be assumed here that the Qur'an is what Muslims have
always said it is.


WHY IRAQ?


The Islamic conquests are often interpreted in terms of their impact
on the Mediterranean world and on western Europe. In its classic
form, the debate surrounding the Pirenne thesis is Eurocentric because
it puts the significance of Islam in terms of what it meant or did not


11 Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, p. 273.
12 T. M. Parker, Christianity and the State in the Light of History (London, 1955),
p.89.
13 W. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, 1970), p.
172.

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