Page 74 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

harun al-rashid 893

It is apparent from the urban centers as well as from clear that the special, and important, role of cattle in
regional surveys that in Sind and Baluchistan there was ancient Indian society has its roots there too.The Indus
widespread abandonment of Indus settlements at the civilization also brought with it the beginnings of large
opening of the second millennium. A summary table of scale inter-regional trade, be both land and sea. The
the substantive data comparing Indus civilization and Indus peoples in that sense anticipated the later Silk
the period following the transformation, generally called Road with the Third Millennium Middle Asian Interac-
the Indus post-urban civilization, is given by regions in tion Sphere.
table 1.
Gregory L. Possehl
The figures in table 1 would seem to indicate that it
may hold to speak of the“eclipse of the Indus civilization”
in Sind and Baluchistan, but in other regions, notably in Further Reading
the East and to a lesser degree in Saurashtra (present-day Allchin, F. R. (1985).The interpretation of a seal from Chanhu-daro and
Gujarat), the history of the culture change was different. its significance for the religion of the Indus Valley. In J. Schotsmans &
M. Taddei (Eds.), South Asian Archaeology (pp. 369–384) (Series
Intheseareastherewerestronglinesofcontinuitythrough
Minor 23). Naples, Italy: Instituto Universitario Orientale, Diparti-
the early centuries of the second millennium with little,if mento di Studi Asiatici.
any,ofthetrauma that affected Sind and Baluchistan.The Possehl, G. L. (1996). Indus age:The writing system. Philadelphia: Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press.
stark image one has for Baluchistan in the second mil- Possehl, G. L. (1999). Indus age: The beginnings. Philadelphia: Univer-
lennium represents a clear challenge for field archaeol- sity of Pennsylvania Press.
Possehl, G. L. (2002). The Indus civilization:A contemporary perspective.
ogy, because it would not seem reasonable to presume
Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira.
that the entire area was deserted at that time.
It has been proposed that the process responsible
for transforming this once grand civilization involved
changes in the Indus ideology, possibly its abandonment.
For example, one of the clearer loci of culture change was Harun al-Rashid
in the cities, those settlements and institutions most (766?–809 ce)
closely associated with sociocultural complexity. There, Fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty
craftsmen’s technological virtuosity was severely com-
promised, and the obvious traces of the symbolic uses of arun al-Rashid ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ibn al-
water disappear. But, as mentioned above, in some places HMansur al-‘Abbasi reigned as “al-Rashid,” the fifth
the transformation of Indus civilization was not a trau- caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, from 786 to 809 CE. His
matic event. Scholars speculate on the reasons for this reign was pivotal in the administrative and institutional
possible abandonment of Indus ideology, but no con- development of the caliphate, marking in many senses
sensus has yet been reached. the zenith which presaged its decline. His contacts with
Urban life in the Subcontinent begins with the Indus the Latin West and his relationship to the One Thousand
civilization, and this is its most obvious contribution to and One Nights have made him a famous, if overly
world history. There is a strong sense of some continu- romanticized, figure.
ities between the Indus civilization and later historical Harun was likely born in al-Rayy (modern Shahr-e-
times there, but these are not yet well defined. The Rey in Iran) in February 766 CE, the third son of the
famous “Proto-Shiva” seal from Mohenjo Daro shows us caliph al-Mahdi (reigned 775–785 CE) by a slave from
that the beginnings of yoga, or ritual discipline, has its Yemen named al-Khayzurun.Although he grew up in the
roots in the Indus.There is also strong continuity in farm- luxury of the increasingly decadent caliphal court, young
ing and herding, and the seasonal pattern of life. It is Harun gained military and administrative experience, at