SPACE: AN EASTWARD SHIFT | 125basids, Arab dynasties that actually originated from the Mountain Arena,
achieved world empire based at Damascus and Baghdad respectively. The
first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiya (661–80), enjoyed paradigmatic success,
manipulating with consummate dexterity his governors in Iraq and Eg ypt in
order to maintain the balance of power within the Caliphate’s Arabian-
Mesopotamian- Syrian heartland,^127 while expanding or consolidating the
Arab position in both Iran and the Eastern Mediterranean. But the Islamic
Commonwealth that succeeded this brief heyday of Arab empire was com-
posed for the most part of states based in Iran and others based in the Moun-
tain Arena. The Buyids straddled the divide, but mainly just in Iraq and Fārs;
the Seljuks embraced both great regions, but only fleetingly (in the late elev-
enth and early twelfth century).
Given this geopolitical reality, namely the Mountain Arena and particu-
larly the Fertile Crescent as a vortex that pulls inward and fuses what lies
around it, we are not in the least surprised to find—as already in our discus-
sion of commonwealths—that cultural dissemination was another of its spe-
cialities. No doubt it performed this service best when it was united, espe-
cially when it formed part of a political- cultural continuum from the Iranian
plateau into the East Mediterranean basin. But even when it was divided, its
frontiers were always porous to commerce in both goods and ideas.
Earlier in this chapter, I already noted the pressures brought to bear on the
Mediterranean paradigm by the spread of first Judaism, then Christianity,
and finally Islam, beyond their places of origin along the western edge of the
Mountain Arena. I made special reference to Syriac Christianity and its ex-
pansion into Iran, Central Asia, and even China. These three monotheisms
are particularly prominent in our enquiry; but one ought also to mention, as
another highly characteristic and dynamic product of the Mountain Arena,
the missionary religion founded by the Mesopotamian prophet Mani. Mani
may have failed to convert the Sasanid Shapur I, and he was done to death in
276/77. But his disciples carried exquisite scrolls and codices full of his writ-
ings across the Mediterranean and into Central Asia and China, anticipating
the Christian missions in that direction.
As conductors of commerce and ideas, the Mountain Arena’s plains, river
valleys, and waterways offered superb lines of communication between the
worlds of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, via the Persian Gulf, the
Tigris and Euphrates, and the Red Sea. For example, India sent spices to An-
tioch and Alexandria, but also ways of thought. The Syriac philosopher Bar-
daisan of Edessa discussed Brahmanism and Buddhism with Indian ambas-
sadors on their way to the court of Elagabalus (218–22).^128 It is highly
127 Abbott, Arabic literary papyri [3:75] 3.52–53.
128 Bardaisan in (1) Jerome, Against Jovinian [ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia latina (Paris 1844–64)
23.221–352] 2.14; (2) Porphyry, On abstinence [ed. and French tr. J. Bouffartigue et al. (Paris 1977–95)] 4.17.