CHAPTER V

THE ARABS

Although the Arabs had had relations with the Greeks, Romans, and Persians for centuries, and were acquainted with the details of the siege of Jerusalem, 70 A.D., the earliest allusion to their use of machines is the tradition that Jodhaimah, King of Heerah, constructed manjánik in the third century A.D.[182] The scarcity of timber in Arabia may partially explain the lateness of their introduction, and the position of Heerah, in the north-east province of Arabian Irak, raises a suspicion that the Arabs learned the use of machines from the Persians, who got them from the Greeks.

When the Prophet besieged Tayif in 8 A.H. (630 A.D.), the defenders had recourse to heated projectiles.[183] We may safely assume that they were the balls of hot clay spoken of in the 11nth Sura of the Qur’an, in describing the destruction of the Cities of the Plain: “we rained upon them stones of baked clay.”[184] Half a century afterwards, 683, during the siege of Mecca, the Ka’aba was burned down by incendiary compositions, discharged, not by Arabs, but by Syrians, who doubtless understood the manipulation of naphtha and the other combustibles used.[185] In 712 the howdah in which sat Dahir, King of Alor in Scinde, was set on fire by a fire-arrow shot by a Moslem naphtha-thrower[186]—the same nature of projectile that had been used by the Persian archers at the taking of Athens, 480 B.C. In speaking of the capture of Alor, both Mir Ma’sum Bhakkari, in his “History of Scinde,” and Haidar Razi, in his “General History,” mention the employment of _atish bazi_, or fire-throwing machines, “which the Moslems had seen in use with the Greeks and Persians.”[187] Stones were discharged from machines to so little purpose at the siege of Heraclea, 805, that Harun er-Reshid urged his generals to fasten incendiaries to them. This was done with such effect that the resistance of the besieged at once collapsed, the inhabitants being terror-stricken at the sight of the flaming naphtha.[188] There is no trace of an explosive here, yet a French Arabist would have us believe that muskets were in use during this Caliph’s reign.

_Al-bunduqani_, the man who carries a _bunduq_, which in this connection is a contraction for _qaus al-bunduq_, or simply _qaus bunduq_,[189] was an epithet bestowed on Harun by the public, or assumed by himself; and in translating one of the “Arabian Nights” with this title, M. Gauttier remarks: “Bondouk signifie en Arabe harquebuse, albondoukani signifie l’arquebusier.”[190] This argument may be illustrated by a more familiar one: “Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad” (1 Sam. xx. 40); but artillery signifies cannon; therefore, &c. &c. It may be remarked that _arquebuse_ is ambiguous. “Avant d’être une arme à feu l’arquebuse était une arme à jet,” says Dr. Dozy,[191] who is supported by M. Scheler: “l’arquebuse était à son origine une sorte d’arbalète.”[192] Assuming, however, as Gauttier evidently did, that _arquebuse_ meant a firearm, his argument only establishes the use of firearms in the ninth century, if we take _signifie_ as equivalent to _means now, in the year 1822, and meant also in the time of Harun_. The question, therefore, turns upon the meaning of the words _bunduq_, or _qaus bunduq_, in the time of the great Caliph, and an anecdote told by Masudi leaves no doubt about what that meaning was.[193] He tells us that in the time of Muhtadi Billah, 868-9, a negligent porter was sentenced by his master to be tied up (apparently in a room or courtyard) and shot at fifty times by a man armed with a _qaus bunduq_, which carried leaden _bunduq_. There is not the slightest allusion to charge, cartridge, gunpowder, wad, or match, nor to the operation of loading. The ammunition consisted solely of leaden balls. Although the marksman sent his fifty _bunduq_ home, the porter was so little the worse for his punishment that, when all was over, he made a coarse but cutting remark to his tormentor. There can be no question of firearms here: one, or at most two bullets fired by so good a shot from any firearm ever constructed would have silenced the porter for ever. The marksman was _al-bunduqani_, the _bunduq_ were leaden balls, and the _qaus bunduq_ was a pellet-bow = stone-bow[194] = كلوله كمان (golulé keman) = _golail_, used to this day by the Karens of Burma, and known to everybody who has been in India. Such is the explanation of _qaus bunduq_ given by the commentator Tabrizi in a note on one of Motanebbi’s poems—a bow which discharges a ball as big as a hazel nut.[195] The bow itself is a long-bow with two strings joined at their centre by a bit of cloth or soft leather, which supports a ball generally of baked clay or stone. If Hansard’s plate be correct, the western stone-bow was a cross-bow with two strings.[196] The golail, as we learn from one of the oldest of the “Arabian Nights,” was chiefly used for shooting birds, squirrels, &c.: “he shooteth birds with a pellet of clay,”[197] ببندقة من طين. Again, when the first Kalandar missed his bird and hit the Wazir in the eye, he was using a _qaus al-bunduq_,[198] قوس النبدق. The insult conveyed by the words of the Sultan Kai-kubad, when speaking of the dead leader of the Mughals, lay in the fact that the golail was not a soldier’s weapon, but merely a sporting implement: “No one would condescend to shoot an arrow at a dead body; it is only a pellet-ball that is fit for such (carrion) as this.”[199] We need not pursue the matter further: in the primitive and simple golail is found the musket carried by the Caliph Harun er-Reshid.

From a passage in the “Chachnama,” given in Barnes’ “Travels into Bokhara,” it is clear that the Moslems in their invasion of India relied upon incendiaries to meet the attacks made upon them with elephants, which are very much afraid of fire. At the battle of Alor, 712, already mentioned, the Moslems “filled their pipes” (_hukkaha-e atish bazi_ = grenades or siphons) “and returned with them to dart fire at the elephants” (i. 67). This fact goes far to explain a difficulty raised by the words _toofung_ (musket) and _tope_ (cannon) found in some MSS., in place of the _khudung_ (arrow) and _nuft_ (naphtha) given in other copies of Ferishta’s account of the battle fought near Peshawur in 1008. He says: “On a sudden the elephant upon which the prince who commanded the Hindus rode, becoming unruly from the effects of the _naphtha balls_ and the flights of _arrows_, turned and fled. This circumstance produced a panic among the Hindus, who, seeing themselves deserted by their general, gave way and fled also.”[200] The best critics reject the readings _musket_ and _cannon_ in this passage. These words were unknown to other Indian historians, and the circumstances of the case make the use of an incendiary exceedingly probable.

“I am slow in believing this premature use of artillery,” says Gibbon; “I must desire to scrutinise first the text and then the authority of Ferishta.” “These readings must be due to interpolators,” adds Professor Bury.[201] “It appears likely,” says General Briggs, the translator of Ferishta, “that Babar was the first invader who introduced great guns into Upper India, in 1526, so that the words _tope_ and _toofung_ have been probably introduced by ignorant transcribers of the modern copies of this work, which are in general very faulty throughout.”[202]

Sir H. M. Elliot says: “The _Tarikh-i Yamini_, the _Jami’u-t Tawarikh_ of Rashidu-d Din, the _Tarikh-i Guzida_, Abu’l Fida, the _Tabakat-i Nasiri_, the _Rauzatu’-s Safa_, the _Tarikh-i Alfi_ and the _Tabakat-i Akbari_, though almost all of them notice this important engagement ... and mention the capture of thirty elephants, yet none of them speak of either _naft_ or _tope_.”[203]

Finally, we must remember that there is an abundant supply of naphtha in the neighbourhood of Peshawur,[204] and that the practice of throwing incendiary missiles was universal in Asia long before the battle in question. The Ka’aba, as we have seen, was burnt down by incendiaries in 683, and this tremendous event of course became instantly known all over Islam. At the battle of Alor, 712, the Moslems specially prepared incendiaries to repulse the attacks of the elephants. Igneous projectiles were employed by Harun er-Reshid in 805 at the siege of Heraclea. The last day of the siege of Baghdad, 813, is described by the poet Ali as “a day of fire”: “the machines played from the hostile camps ... and fire and ruin filled Baghdad.”[205] So well known were incendiary shell in Persia at the close of the tenth century that Firdusi mentions them in the episode of Nushirvan and Porphyry: “The Romans began the fight from the gates and discharged arrows and pots (of fire).”[206] In 1067 Shems al-Mulk Nasr, when besieging Bokhara, ordered incendiaries to be discharged against some archers posted in the minaret of the Grand Mosque. The wooden roof of the minaret took fire, the sparks fell upon the main building, and in the end the whole mosque was burned down.[207]

We may rest assured, then, that the words Ferishta wrote in his account of the battle near Peshawur, 1008, were _naphtha_ and _arrow_, not _musket_ and _cannon_.

Far from possessing muskets in the ninth century, there is no evidence to show that the Arabs had firearms, that is, arms charged with an explosive, during the whole of the Crusade period, 1097-1291. So strange and deadly an agent of destruction as gunpowder could not possibly have been employed in the field without the full knowledge of both parties; yet no historian, Christian or Moslem, alludes to an explosive of any kind, while all of them carefully record the use of incendiaries. The Arab accounts of these campaigns will be found collected together in M. Reinaud’s _Extraits des Historiens Arabes relatifs aux guerres des Croisades_, Paris, 1829; the Christian accounts are scattered in various volumes; but they teach us no more than we have learnt already in the two preceding chapters about incendiaries and Greek fire: “les projectiles incendiaires ont pu rester à peu près les mêmes pendant toutes ces Croisades.”[208]

At the siege of Nice, first Crusade, we read of the Saracens throwing balls of pitch, oil and fat against the machines of the Christians.[209] Fire-arrows bearing pitch, wax, sulphur, and tow were discharged from the walls of Jerusalem during the siege in the same Crusade.[210]

During the second Crusade we find the Arabs making use of similar incendiaries,[211] mixtures practically identical with that of Æneas Tacticus, _cir._ 350 B.C., given in Table II. Shell full of burning naphtha were used at the siege of Acre, 1189-91, in the third Crusade;[212] and Richard of England, on his voyage thither, sank a ship which an eye-witness had seen laded at Beyrut with ballista, bows, arrows, and lances, and a large supply of Greek fire secured in bottles (_ignem Græcum abundanter in phialis_),[213] a phrase which reminds us of the 18th recipe of the _Liber Ignium_ of Marcus Græcus: “put the mixture in a glass bottle” (_hoc in vase vitreo ponatur_). For the sixth Crusade, we have the invaluable _Histoire du Roy Saint Loys_ of Joinville, who describes the terror excited by the incendiaries of the Moslems, believed by all to be the work of the Powers of Darkness. “Quant le bon chevalier Messire Gaultier mon compagnon vit ce feu, il s’escrie et nous dist: Seigneurs, nous sommes perduz á jamais sans nul remède. Car s’ilz bruslent nos chaz chateilz, nous sommes ars et bruslez; et si nous laissons nos gardes, nous sommes ahontez.... Et toutes les fois que nostre bon Roy saint Loys oyoit qu’ils nous gettoient ainsi ce feu, il se jettoit à terre, et tendoit ses mains la face levée au ciel, et crioit à haulte voix à nostre Seigneur, et disoit en pleurant à grans larmes: Beausire Dieu Jesuchrist, garde moy et tout magent,” &c.[214] Yet the incendiaries which created all this panic appear to have wounded but few and to have killed nobody!

Although no evidence is forthcoming to show that explosives were used in Palestine during the Crusade period, there is good evidence, it has been said, to prove that gunpowder was used by the Arabs in Spain during the thirteenth century.

The first, I believe, to start the theory that the Spanish Arabs possessed gunpowder at this early period was Michael Casiri, a Maronite, who was librarian of the Escorial and published his _Bibliotheca Arabico Hispana Escurialensis_ in 1760-70; and his method of supporting his theory when translating the MS. of Shehab ben Fadhl, which he dates at 1249, was the simple one of translating barud by _pulvis nitratus_, the recognised Latin phrase for gunpowder.[215] Had he translated _barud_ by _saltpetre_ no difficulty could have arisen, since an Arab alchemist, Abd Allah, states that saltpetre was so called in the West during the second quarter of the thirteenth century.[216] There would be nothing surprising, therefore, in finding saltpetre mixtures employed in Spain at this period; but saltpetre mixtures, such as the last three given in Table II., are not necessarily explosive. Not only is Casiri’s translation of _barud_ unwarrantable, but he probably dates his MS. a century too early. M. Reinaud, a safe guide, believes that the MS. is Al-Omari’s, and dates 1349,[217] eighteen years after the siege of Cividale where the Germans used cannon,[218] and three years after _Cressy_ where we certainly had guns.[219]

Casiri’s methods are well illustrated by his translation of an Arabic passage relating to the siege of Baza, 1325, by Ismael ben Nasr, King of Granada. The literal translation of the passage is as follows: “He (the King) marched through the enemy’s country to the town of Baza, which he invested and attacked. By means of a great machine provided with naphtha (made up in) hot (burning) balls, he struck the arch of an inaccessible tower.”[220] According to Casiri the passage reads: “Shifting his camp, he besieged with a large army the town of Baza, where, by applying fire, he discharged (_explosit_) with much noise a great machine, provided with naphtha and a ball, into a fortified tower.”[221] He introduces, it will be observed, an explosion (_explosit_) into a passage which neither mentions nor suggests one. The application of fire has no place in the original, and suggests the ignition of an explosive charge. He changes the meaning of the original by gratuitously inserting an _and_ between naphtha and ball, which were one and the same thing. He leaves us to infer that the charge was naphtha, though it was not explosive and could not project a ball. He speaks of the explosion being accompanied by a loud noise, of which there is nothing in the original. The incendiary balls are mentioned in another Arabic account of this siege, translated by Conde in his _Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espagna_, p. 593: “The Arabs attacked the city night and day with machines and engines which threw balls of fire with a loud noise” (_combatio la ciudad de dia y noche con maquinas é ingenios que lanzaban globos de fuego con grandes truenos_).

In this passage the discharge of the incendiary balls is said to have been accompanied by “thunderings,” and at the siege of Niébla, 1257, we are again told that the Moors “launched stones and darts from machines, and missiles of thunder with fire” (_lanzaban piedras y dardos con maguinas, y tiros de trueno con fuego_).[222] From this innocent metaphor, _trueno con fuego_, the Emperor Leo’s “thunder with smoke,” has been wrenched the meaning that the Arabs possessed a train of artillery. “Il n’y a rien à cela que de vraisemblable,” says the Emperor Napoleon III.[223] Nothing, I venture to think, can be more unlikely. The Arab writer is dealing with machines which, he says in his own way, discharged stones and darts, and also igneous missiles which burned with much noise. Another Arab, already quoted (p. 4), gives a freer rein to his fancy: the projectiles “roar like thunder; they flame like a furnace; they reduce everything to ashes.” In plain words, they are incendiaries. The writer makes no allusion to the effect of their momentum or shock; he impresses on us the effect of their essential quality—their incendiary power, exaggerating the noise made by their combustion. Joinville writes in a similar style of Greek fire: “La manière du feu grégeois estoit telle ... Il faisoit tel bruit à venir qu’il sembloit que ce fust fouldre qui cheust du ciel ... et gettoit si grant clarté qu’il faisoit aussi cler dedans nostre ost comme le jour, tant y avoit grant flamme de feu.”[224] Unless we make due allowance for the luxuriant Oriental imagination, we may despair of ever being able to reach the meaning of the Eastern writers. One of them wants to explain that the ditch of a fort was deep and wide, and he tells us it was “broad as the ocean and fathomless.”[225] Wishing to state that on the arrival of the army on its banks, the Nerbudda, which happened to be in flood, subsided quickly, another writer says: “You might say that it (the river) was a remnant of the universal deluge. As the miraculous power of the saintly Sultan accompanied the Army, all the whirlpools and depths became of themselves immediately dry on the arrival of the Army, and the Musulmans passed over with ease.”[226] A similar indulgence in metaphor, although not so unbridled, is found in European writers. For instance, Vegetius likens the projectile hurled by an onager to a thunderbolt;[227] and the Princess Anna Comnena compares the fiery particles blown by the breath through a popgun, or spitfire, to lightning.[228]

It is hardly necessary to examine the accounts given by Conde of the siege of Tarifa, 1340, and by Casiri of the siege of Algesiras, 1342, since both sieges took place some years after that of Cividale, 1331. The reader will find the two accounts ably analysed in Reinaud and Favé, pp. 70-74.

If the Arabs had possessed an explosive in the thirteenth century, the fact must have been known to their alchemists, and they show no such knowledge. There is not an allusion to saltpetre in the Leyden Arabic MS. of 1225.[229] Hassan er-Rammah, who died in 1295, knew nothing of explosives. In speaking of saltpetre in the year 1311, Yusuf ibn Ismaël al-Juni says: “The people of Irak use it to make a fire which tends to rise and move. Saltpetre increases the ease and rapidity of ignition.”[230] This sentence contains the sum total of Yusuf’s knowledge of saltpetre mixtures. He was aware of the effects of their progressive combustion, but he knew nothing about their explosive combustion.

By whomsoever gunpowder was invented, it was not by the Arabs.