8
T hey possessed the finest homes the architects of the day could
conceive. They had slaves and harems, dancing girls and the most
succulent food. They held the power of life and death over the newly
subjugated citizens of the conquered lands.
The writings of Abû 'Ali al-Muhassin al-Tanûkhî, a judge in tenth
century Baghdad, gave an astonishing sense of the Islamic elite's
opulent lifestyle. Tanûkhî recalled, for example, that the `Abbasid
Caliph "Mutawakkil desired that every article whereon his eye should
fall on the day of a certain drinking bout should be coloured yellow.
Accordingly there was erected a dome of sandalwood covered and
furnished with yellow satin, and there were set in front of him melons
and yellow oranges and yellow wine in golden vessels; and only those
slave-girls were admitted who were yellow with yellow brocade
gowns. The dome was erected over a tesselated pond, and orders were
given that saffron should be put in the channels which filled it in
sufficient quantities to give the water a yellow colour as it flowed
through the pond." When the servants unexpectedly ran out of saffron
mid-way through the afternoon, the Caliph ordered them to fetch
yellow fabrics from the public treasury and soak them in the water
channel so the leaking dyes would keep the pond flowing with liquid
of the correct hue. The afternoon's decorating scheme cost the empire's
citizens 50,000 dinars.14
Allah had promised great rewards to the faithful. And He had
delivered in spades. But no holy force stood behind the presentation of
His gifts. The mechanism responsible was something far more
down-to-earth. Mohammed's ideas--like those of Christ-- had been a
remarkably successful social glue. Had created a superorganismic
bond. And the growth of the superorganism possesses the one power
every prophet from Jesus to Marx has dreamed of--the capacity to
deliver a small slice of utopia.
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