24 chapter one
do not end with scale alone. a comparison of the two episodes of expan-
sion reveals fundamental problems and solutions, including in the reign
of long-distance trade.
the warriors around the prophet Muḥammad, like those around ching-
gis Khan, came from peripheral areas of the world economy, and their
most striking common feature is the shared form of motivation. Living
conditions in the arabian peninsula, like those in the Mongol steppe,
were precarious at best, and when the call to arms came, those who lived
in the areas responded en masse to the prospect of material wealth. there
is no doubt that the principal enticement for Bedouins called to jihad
was the chance of prizes taken in war (ǧanā’im in arabic),73 just as it
was for the Mongol warriors, who were not impelled by any particular
religious motives.74
the wealth available in settled lands has surely represented a tempta-
tion from time immemorial, but it was not in itself enough to draw the
nomads out from their native lands. they were members of kinship soci-
eties governed by the lex talionis, and their energies were largely used
up in unending internal feuds and squabbles in pre-Islamic arabia75 as
in Mongolia up until the time of chinggis Khan’s youth.76 a new indi-
vidual and group identity had to be forged, superseding tribal sentiment,
in order to put an end to such chronic instability and open the way for
political unification. Just as the Muslim faith overcame tribal divisions
and permitted the formation of a larger Islamic community (the umma)
whose members were at least in theory all equal and bound together by
submission to allah,77 similarly chinggis Khan’s reforms, decreed at the
73 planhol, “Setting,” p. 444: “an expressive couple of lines from abū tammām (a.D.
806–847) says: ‘no, not for paradise didst thou the nomad life forsake; rather, I believe,
it was thy yearning after bread and datesʼ and the persian general, rustam, said the same
thing to a Muslim envoy in 637: ‘I have observed that it is simply poverty and the miserable
life you have led which have induced you to undertake so muchʼ.”
74 For a long time the Muslims, like the Mongols, preferred to be warriors rather than
traders (cf. nazmi, Relations, p. 69, Histoire secrète, passim).
75 planhol, Setting, p. 444: “these bedouin were a basically aggressive people, their life
founded on raiding and consequently on tribal solidarity combined with protective struc-
tures. their political structure was highly unstable and subject to continual regroupings
with the rise and fall of those outstanding personalities who are at the root of all tribal
organization. Such a situation was not unusual. It was repeated to some extent throughout
the arid zone and on its edges, in all the areas of contact between nomadic and sedentary
peoples.”
76 Histoire secrète, pp. 39 ff.
77 cf. Denny, “Umma.”