Royal Authority Comes Only from Group Feeling

This is because military strength is obtained only through group feeling which means mutual affection and willingness to fight and die for each other.

Royal authority is a noble and enjoyable position. It comprises:

• the good things of the world,
• the pleasures of the body, and
• the joys of the soul.

Therefore, there is, as a rule, great competition for it.

• It rarely is handed over voluntarily, but it may be taken away.

Thus, discord ensues.

• It leads to war and fighting, and to attempts to gain superiority.

This is caused by group feeling.

This situation is not at all understood by the great mass. They forget it, because they have forgotten the time when the dynasty first became established.

• They have grown up in settled areas for a long time in successive generations.
• They know nothing about what happnened at the beginning of the dynasty.

They merely notice that:

• the coloring of the men of the dynasty is determined
• people have submitted to them
• group feeling is no longer needed to establish their power.

They do not know of the difficulties had to be overcome by the founder of the dynasty.

The Spanish especially have forgotten group feeling and its influence, because:

• so long a time has passed, and
• as a rule they have no need of the power of group feeling, since their country:
  • has been annihilated and is
  • depleted of tribal groups.

2. When a dynasty is firmly established, it can dispense with group feeling

This is because people find it difficult to submit to large dynastic power at the beginning, unless they are forced into submission by strong superiority.

The new government is something strange.

• People are not familiar with it.

The members of the dynastic family are marked as leaders when:

• leadership is firmly vested in the family
• royal authority has been passed on by inheritance over many generations
• the beginnings are forgotten

It has become a firmly established article of faith that one must be subservient and submissive to them.

People will fight with them in their behalf, as they would fight for the articles of faith. By this time, the rulers will not need much group feeling to maintain their power.

It is as if obedience to the government were a divinely revealed book that cannot be changed or opposed. It is for some good reason that the discussion of the imamate is placed at the end of works dealing with the articles of faith, as if it were one of them.

The rulers keep power over their own dynasty with the help either of:

• clients and followers who grew up in the shadow of group feeling, or
• tribal groups of a different descent who have become their clients.

This happened to the Abbasids.

The group feeling of the Arabs had been destroyed by the time of the reign of al-Mu’tasim and his son, al-Wathiq.

• They tried to maintain their hold over the government thereafter with the help of Persian, Turkish, Daylam, Saljuq, and other clients.

Then, the Persians and clients gained power over the provinces of the realm.

• The dynasty’s influence grew smaller and no longer extended beyond Baghdad.

Eventually, the Daylam closed in and took possession of it.

• The caliphs were ruled by them.

Then the Daylam, in turn, lost control.

• The Saljugs seized power after the Daylam.

Then the Saljugs, in turn, lost control to the Mongols who killed the caliph and wiped out the dynasty.

The same happened to the Sinhajah in the Maghrib.

Their group feeling was destroyed in the 11th century.

Decreasing dynastic power was maintained by them in:

• al-Mahdiyah
• Bougie
• al-Qal’ah
• in the other frontier cities of Ifriqiyah.

Frequently, some rival aspirant to royal authority would attack these frontier cities and entrench himself in them.

Yet, they retained government and royal authority until God permitted their dynasty to be wiped out.

Then the Almohads came, fortified by the strong group feeling among the Masmudah, and obliterated all traces of the Sinhajah dynasty.

The same happened to the Umayyad dynasty in Spain.

The Reyes De Taifas

When its Arab group feeling was destroyed, the reyes de taifas (small princes) seized power and divided the territory among themselves.

In competition with each other, they distributed among themselves the realm of the Umayyad dynasty.

• These rulers learned of the relations between the non-Arabs in the East and the Abbasids.
• Imitating them, they adopted royal surnames and used royal trappings.

There was no danger that anyone would take the prerogatives they claimed away from them because Spain was no longer the home of groups and tribes.

They tried to maintain their power with the help of:

• clients and followers
• the Zanatah
• other Berber tribes which infiltrated Spain from the African shore.

The Umayyad dynasty in its last stages had tried to maintain its power with their help, when the Arab group feeling weakened and Ibn Abi ‘Amir obtained control of the dynasty.

• The reyes de taifas imitated this to get support.

The reyes de taifas were newcomers who founded large states.

• Each one of them had control over a section of Spain.
• They also had a large share of royal authority, corresponding to that of the dynasty they had divided up.

The Almoravids

The Almoravids shared in the strong Lamtunah group feeling.

The reyes de taifas remained in power until the Almoravids came from across the sea. The Almoravids:

• dislodged them from their centers
• obliterated those who were unable to defend themselves because they had no longer any group feeling.

Such group feeling makes it possible for a dynasty to become established and protected from the beginning.

At-Turtnshi

At-Turtnshi thought that the military strength of a dynasty as such is identical with the size of its army that receives a fixed pay every month. He mentioned this in his Siraj almuluk.

He did not take into consideration the conditions obtaining at the original foundation of large dynasties.

It applies only to the later stages, after the dynasty has been established and after royal authority has become firmly anchored in a given family and its people have adopted their definite coloring.

At-Turtushi had personal contact only with a senile dynasty:

• whose energy was exhausted
• which had reverted to maintaining power with the help of clients and followers, hiring servants for its defense.

He had contact only with the reyes de taifas, at a time when the Umayyad dynasty was already dissolved, when:

• its Arab group feeling was wiped out, and
• each amir had independent control over his own region.

He lived under the administration of the Saragossans al-Musta’in b. Hud and his son, al-Muzaffar.

They had no longer any group feeling left, because, for 300 years, the Arabs had been dominated by luxury and had perished.

At-Turtushi thus saw only the kind of ruler who had independent royal authority which excluded families:

• to which it belonged
• in whom autocratic rule had been firmly established by group feeling

Therefore, his (royal authority) was not contested, and he could rely for maintenance of his power upon a soldiery with fixed pay.

At-Turtushi did not realize how a dynasty originally comes to power, nor that only those who share in a group feeling are able to accomplish the formation of a dynasty.