Just to the south of the medieval circuit walls of the Old City of Damascus, in Syria, is the Bab al-Saghir Cemetery, where Damascenes have buried their dead for centuries. I visited the cemetery in 2010, about six months before the beginning of the horror of the Syrian War. I had come to see the tomb of the caliph Mu‘awiya b. Abi Sufyan (r. 661–80 ce). Mu‘awiya was a brother-in-law and distant cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, and is usually considered to be the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. Once an extra-mural burial ground, the cemetery was now surrounded by the modern city. It was full of densely packed gravestones, separated only by narrow paths. There were also larger monuments, visible across the fields of smaller grave markers. When I visited, one mid-week afternoon in blazing July heat, veiled women pilgrims surrounded the large domed tomb of the Prophet Muhammad's great-granddaughter, Fatima bt. al-Husayn.

Mu‘awiya's grave was about 100m further along – a modern, pale, concrete cube, about 2m high, encased in green-painted railings and capped by a concrete dome decorated with religious invocations in the same green paint. An inscribed band of Arabic ran around the top of its four walls. The tomb stood in silence, with no visitors. When I got closer, I noticed a large hole broken in the modern inscription, through which the blue and white tiles of an older building showed. The gap seemed unlikely to be accidental damage, since it coincided exactly with Mu‘awiya's name, all but the last syllable of which had been broken away.

As the damage to his tomb suggests, although Mu‘awiya lived more than 1,300 years ago, he and his family still excite strong feelings – often ambivalent and sometimes fiercely negative. This may seem surprising, and not just because of the remote time in which he lived; Mu‘awiya has the prestigious status of a Companion of the Prophet Muhammad – someone who is said to have met the founder of the Islamic religion, and converted to Islam while Muhammad still lived. Furthermore, in the ninety years between 661 and 750, Mu‘awiya, and then thirteen of his relatives from the Umayyad clan, presided over an era of astonishing empire-building on a hitherto unknown scale.

Epistemology/Ontology

Essential distinctions. One can do without the transcendental if one acknowledges the fundamental differences between ontology and epistemology. They are listed in the table below.

The Slipper Argument

Before proceeding to the articulation of these distinctions, I would like to explain the background of my reasoning.

• 1. People. Take a man looking at a carpet with a slipper on it; if he asks another to pass him the slipper, the other, usually, does so without significant difficulty. This is a trivial phenomenon of interaction, but it shows very well how, if the outside world indeed depended even a little not so much on interpretations and conceptual schemes but on neurons, then the fact that the two people do not have the same neurons should make the sharing of the slipper impossible. It might be objected that the neurons do not have to be exactly identical in number, position or connections. This, however, not only weakens the argument, but contradicts evidence that is difficult to refute: the fact that differences in past experiences, culture, brain structures and capacities may lead to significant divergences at a certain level (does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, or only from the Father? What do we mean by ‘freedom’?) is common knowledge, and it is the reason why there are disputes between different opinions. But the slipper on the carpet is another thing: it is external and separate from us and our opinions, and it is therefore provided with an existence that is qualitatively different from the kind we tackle, say, when discussing issues such as euthanasia. In other words, the sphere of facts is not so inextricably interwoven with that of interpretations. Even in this very simple thought experiment, we are dealing with a world external to our conceptual schemes.

• 2. Dogs. Now let's take a dog that has been trained. He is told, ‘Bring me the slipper.’ And, again, he does so without encountering any difficulties, just like the man above, even though the differences between his brain and the man's are enormous and his understanding of ‘Bring me the slipper’ may not seem comparable to that of a human.

Abd al-Malik's reign after his victory in the civil war (692–705) marks a turning point in the political history of the new empire. Kinship had always been a powerful factor in the politics of the Quraysh, but no leader before ‘Abd al-Malik had been succeeded by a son without violent opposition and no leader could be said to have successfully established a dynasty. In contrast, ‘Abd al-Malik was succeeded peacefully by nine members of his family, in three generations – between 705 and 743 two of his sons, a nephew, and then two more of his sons and a grandson held power. Even when violent conflict broke out within the dynasty after 743, another two grandsons and then another nephew ruled, until the fall of the Umayyads in 750. For this reason, the period 684–750 is usually known as the era of the Marwanid Umayyads, or Marwanids, after ‘Abd al-Malik's father and predecessor as caliph in Syria, Marwan b. al-Hakam (r. 684–5), the progenitor of all the subsequent Umayyad caliphs (see Chart II.1).

The ability to pass power relatively smoothly within the Marwanid branch of the Umayyad clan for fifty years reflects the comprehensive nature of the victory of ‘Abd al-Malik and the Syrian tribes in the campaigns of 689–92. Thereafter, the main Qurashi tribal groups who had contended for leadership of the empire in the seventh century abandoned their efforts to take power, some permanently and some only temporarily. None of Abu Bakr's Zubayrid relatives sought power for themselves again, and many of his former supporters went over to the Marwanids or at least tolerated their rule. In contrast, the claims of the Prophet's tribe, the Banu Hashim, retained their political potency; when the Umayyad caliphate collapsed in 750, it was the Abbasid branch of Banu Hashim (that is, the descendants of the Prophet's and ‘Ali's uncle al-‘Abbas b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib) who took power. However, no member of Hashim was the figurehead for a rebellion between 687 and 740; after the debacles of the killing of al-Husayn in 680, the massacre of the Penitents in 685 and the failure of al-Mukhtar's rebellion in the name of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya in 687, it took a particular set of circumstances for the ideological potential of close kinship with the Prophet Muhammad to again be realised in effective militant political action.

Why is there being rather than nothing? What did God do before creation? All such questions find their answer in the possibility of retaining. In the beginning was hysteresis, or rather what makes hysteresis possible: a force that held together a mass (which was both matter and spirit, or at least what we call by these names) that exploded, and which has been expanding ever since. If it did not vanish at once, it was because of hysteresis, which also allows for the principle of identity (A = A).

1.1 Questions

Why does something remain? The big metaphysical question according to Leibniz is ‘why is there something rather than nothing, since nothing is simpler and easier?’ The weakness of this question is that it comes ex post: there is a philosopher, there is a world, and then one wonders why there is something. The temptation to answer ‘just because it is so’ is really very strong. The fundamental metaphysical question, which seems to be authorised by conjectures about the origin of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Big Bounce, seems to be rather: Why is there memory rather than oblivion? Why does a very concentrated memory, at a certain point, explode (interrupt, break down), giving life to space, time and everything else?

The fundamental force behind the universe is the fact that a system keeps track of previous events so that every single event presupposes those that preceded it. In simple terms, the final straw (both literally and metaphorically) presupposes all the other straws. Usually, one interprets this circumstance in terms of causality, but talking about causes is no different from talking about ends: it is an anthropologism, useful and legitimate, sure, but an anthropologism nonetheless. A neutral view of the process supposes instead that we refer to this ‘powerful force’ underlying the universe, which manifests itself to us as a recording and from which causality and finality derive.

So it all began with a recording. But on what does the power of the recording depend? The answer, as mentioned, is anything but a mystery; or, more exactly, it is a letter purloined in front of everyone's eyes. Recording has the metaphysical property of transforming passivity into activity, event into object, case into law.

The year 74 of the Hijri calendar (693–4) is sometimes referred to in the Islamic tradition by the name ‘the year of unity’ (‘ām al-jamā‘a). The years ah 40 or 41 (660–1 or 661–2) also sometimes have the same name. The label probably derives from Umayyad-era chronologies, celebrating the victories of Mu‘awiya and then ‘Abd al-Malik over their rivals in the first and second civil wars. Although ‘Abd al-Malik had been acclaimed by the Umayyad clan and some Syrian tribesmen in 685 and had consolidated that claim by suppressing his cousin al-Ashdaq's bid for power in 689, it was only the victories of 691 and 692 that had extended his rule beyond Syria and Egypt, enabling him to appoint his own allies in other provinces. With Iraq and the Hijaz in the hands of men loyal to him, ‘Abd al-Malik could now claim to rule the whole community of the Faithful.

However, the challenge from Ibn al-Zubayr had exposed the Umayyads’ vulnerability to opponents who could make effective claims to leadership and legitimacy beyond Syria and Egypt. It had also exposed the weaknesses of the vast and decentralised empire, where economic, military and political resources were concentrated in the hands of the provincial governors, and where the provincial armies remained volatile and difficult to control. In response, ‘Abd al-Malik and his allies developed a programme of reforms to the tax systems of the provinces, to the military forces of the empire and to the promotion of the legitimacy of the caliph. Some of these policies had begun during the war with Ibn al-Zubayr, and some had first been developed by Ibn al-Zubayr himself. Others had precedents from the time of Mu‘awiya. However, the scale and pace of change in the 690s was unprecedented. Meanwhile, as for all late antique monarchs, the most important pillar of ‘Abd al-Malik's claim on power was that he was made victorious by God and so the war against Rome was pursued with vigour, alongside the ongoing struggle against internal opponents.

Among the new political formations of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the Umayyad Empire is exceptional in the distinctiveness of the new religious tradition that took shape within it. After c. 400 ce, new elites in the Latin West had tended to adopt forms of Christianity as a central component of their political culture, while forms of Christianity and Judaism were also adopted by other new elites elsewhere in North Africa and West Eurasia. As with other late antique military associations, pledged allegiance to a leader was understood in religious terms among the Arabians. While this initially seems to have allowed for some latitude in beliefs and practices among the conquering armies led by the Meccans, boundaries between the new religion and other faith traditions tended to harden over the course of the seventh and eighth centuries. At the same time, conflict within the conquerors, migrants and non-Arabian convert populations generated diverse but distinctively Islamic religious traditions and various Muslim populations who were detached from participation in imperial rule, or active rivals to it.

This chapter examines the impact of these processes on the religious communities of the regions of North Africa and Middle East whom the Arabians encountered when they took power. Because religion had such a central place in political identity in Late Antiquity, it is the primary focus of the chapter, although the category of religion has limits; religious leaders exerted only partial influence over those they claimed to lead, and other markers of difference could have equal or greater significance – among them shared language and culture, economic or class interest, and political and military association. Because Syrian and Egyptian Christianity were the majority religious traditions in the two most important conquered territories for the Umayyads, the chapter begins with the Christian communities in these provinces, before looking at the experiences of the Jews in the same regions, and then smaller groups such as Samaritans. From there, it turns to the rather different context of post-Sasanian Iraq and western Iran where, before the conquests, Christians and Jews had been large minority communities under the rule of Zoroastrians, alongside many other smaller minority religious communities, including Manichaeans and Mandaeans, as well as various Iranian populations who adhered to local forms of Zoroastrianism.

For Mu‘awiya's immediate family and their Syrian allies to sustain their dominant position in the empire, it was critical that they establish the means to retain power after Mu‘awiya's death. Mu‘awiya's son Yazid became the focus of these efforts. Yazid was a son by the sister of a Kalbi leader and so was the only one of Mu‘awiya's three sons with the necessary tribal lineage to secure support in Syria. Yazid's appointment to command the campaign in Asia Minor in 668–9 and his leadership of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in 670 or 671 were directed at enhancing his prestige with the frontier armies and at seeking the support of the Hijazis for the succession. Mu‘awiya had many of the most powerful figures in the empire publicly pledge their allegiance to Yazid, often in return for substantial payments. While these and other efforts were effective in persuading most of the wider Umayyad clan, other groups were less pliable. Mu‘awiya was particularly concerned with the threat posed by support for ‘Ali's family in Kufa and in the Hijaz and sought to intimidate and confront them. Mu‘awiya is said to have instituted the cursing of ‘Ali at Friday prayers in Kufa and to have publicly cursed ‘Ali's name at the ḥajj in c. 670 or 671. Then, in 672, Mu‘awiya had fourteen of the most vocal Kufan partisans of ‘Ali sent to Syria and executed eight of them, including the Companion Hujr b. ‘Adi al-Kindi.

When Mu‘awiya died in the spring of 680, the scene was set for the sons of the main participants in the civil war of 656–61 to revive their respective claims to power. At Kufa, where many had backed Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law ‘Ali b. Abi Talib during the civil war, aspirations now focused on al-Husayn b. ‘Ali. Al-Husayn was both ‘Ali's son and the Prophet Muhammad's sole surviving grandson, via Fatima, a daughter of the Prophet. (Al-Husayn's full brother, al-Hasan, who had surrendered to Mu‘awiya in 661, had died in c. 670; some sources imply that Mu‘awiya had him poisoned.) During Mu‘awiya's reign, al-Husayn had remained at Medina and is said to have avoided confrontation with the Umayyads, despite various efforts by Kufans to persuade him to revolt.

The life and writings of the celebrated scribe Ibn al-Muqaffa’ (d. c. 756) encapsulate some important changes in religious and political culture that had been wrought during the century of Umayyad rule. Ibn al-Muqaffa’ was born Rozbih, to one of the scribal families of Fars, in south-west Iran. His father is said to have served as a scribe for the Umayyad administration in the early-to-mid eighth century and Ibn al-Muqaffa’ himself worked for the Umayyad governor of Kirman, before entering the service of the Abbasids. Thus, he was a Persian-speaking native of Iran, who had converted to Islam at some point in his service of the Muslim imperial elite, and who wrote mostly in Arabic for his patrons. Like his Iraqi contemporary, ‘Abd al-Hamid (d. 750), who also served as a scribe under the last Umayyads, Ibn al-Muqaffa’ is remembered as one of the first exponents of long-form, literary, Arabic prose.

Among the many works attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa’ is his ‘Treatise about the Caliph's Entourage’ (Al-Risala fi l-Sahaba), which is a work of political advice for the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (r. 754–75). The Risala was composed in about 755, at the outset of al-Mansur's reign. One of its main concerns is the diversity of legal practice among the Muslims of the empire's cities. The Abbasids had made Kufa their capital and so Ibn al-Muqaffa’ begins the relevant part of the treatise there, with Kufa and neighbouring al-Hira.

Naturalisation of Physics

Analytic and ontology. In the Critique of Pure Reason, the relationship between Analytic and Dialectic corresponds to that between general metaphysics and special metaphysics in Suarez's partition. This can be verified with the following table.

Therefore, in the Analytic, Kant is proposing his ontology. He doesn't draw it directly from Suarez, but rather from Baumgarten's Metaphysics, which he adopted in class as a textbook. Again, a table comes in handy here.

Again, the Analytic/Dialectic relationship in the Critique of Pure Reason reflects exactly the traditional partition, as shown by a third table.

From logic to physics. So far, we have been dealing with simple structural correspondences which, however, reveal a crucial point, namely that the Analytic is Kant's ontology. But there is one important difference. Suarez, and even more Baumgarten (going though Leibniz and Wolff), assume that the object of ontology consists of everything that is not logically contradictory: a mountain made of gold falls within ontology, but a square circle doesn’t. This situation – which depends on the primacy of the principle of reason – is not one Kant was happy with: in line with an idea that was relatively popular in his day, he excluded the possible from the sphere of ontology, thereby also expelling from it mountains made of gold, hippogriffs and telepathy (which are not motivated by the characteristics of this world). Essentially, he restricts the field of ontology to the real, which means ultimately to the sensible – 100 real talers are ready at hand – as opposed to the possible. For this very reason the principle of non-contradiction is only a norm for analytical judgments, which have nothing to do with reality, but only with formal properties of the intellect. The supreme principle of all synthetic judgments becomes the agreement between intuition and the internal sense, that is, a version of the intellect's adaequatio to the thing, which is also the distinction between formal and transcendental logic. But what does Kant mean by ‘real’? When circumscribing ontology, he is also forced to exhibit the criteria by which it is determined that something is real, and his answer is that the real is the object of physics.

As their respective commanders secured Syria, Iraq and Egypt in the 640s, forays were made into the wealthy Iranian centres of Sistan and Khurasan and into the Roman Mediterranean, Asia Minor and North Africa (see Map 4.1). In part because of the marine and mountain barriers that protected it, Roman Constantinople escaped the fate of Sasanian Ctesiphon. Whereas the Sasanian king was killed in 651, and the surviving royal family were driven across the Oxus river to seek refuge with the Hephthalites in Central Asia, geography favoured the Romans. Both the distance to Constantinople and the shelter of the Mediterranean Sea and Anatolian highlands gave the Romans, led by the young Constans II (r. 641–c. 668/9), time to organise an effective defence of what remained of Roman territory and fiscal resources.

The Romans were also saved by the deep divisions within the Arabian armies. Like most conquerors, the Arabian Faithful saw themselves as right-fully separate from the defeated, tax-paying peoples. This distinction was expressed in the Arabian Faithful's sense of themselves as especially favoured by God and their sense of their cultural difference, in customs and language, as well as in their specific economic rights to the wealth of the conquered lands. However, this sense of difference, whether expressed in religious, cultural or fiscal terms, did not in itself confer political unity. The Arabian conquerors, the migrants who followed behind them, and the pastoralists of the Syrian Desert who had joined them, often found themselves competing with one another for resources and power. In this competition, both existing kinship connections and new associations brought about by the conquests and migrations produced shifting factional interests.

Furthermore, the Arabians’ Hijazi leaders were not themselves united, and so divisions in the armies aligned with conflicts among their leaders over control of the empire and its resources. Among the Hijazis, contention focused on whom among the Meccan grouping of Quraysh should lead the empire. Between 644 and 692 there were two particularly violent episodes. The first, in 656–61, was fought between men who were younger contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad himself; the second, in 680–92 (also often given as 683–92) was fought between their sons and other close relatives.

Twenty-one years have passed between the two main parts of this book, ‘Observation’ and ‘Speculation’: the gaze on what there is and the attempt to reflect on the conditions of possibility of what there is. So what unites them, you might ask, if not the rather loose thread of the author's identity? Rest assured, there is more; or at least I hope you will think so after reading. But before I leave you to it, I would like to say a couple of words that may make things easier to follow.

At the end of the twentieth century, when I wrote ‘Observation’ (which came out in Italian in 2001 under the title Il mondo esterno (The External World), my concern was to relaunch realism – or more precisely the critical force of the real – in a context where both analytic and continental philosophers seemed persuaded that reality was not a matter for philosophy, which was supposed to deal either with reasoning (for the analytics) or ideology (for the continentals). Both kinds of philosophers were living under the weight of the Kantian saying ‘intuitions without concepts are blind’; therefore, to be a philosopher means to deal with concepts, whether to analyse them (as analytics did) or deconstruct them (as continentals did). Thus, both sides forgot about the other side of Kant's saying: namely that concepts without intuitions are empty. Above all, they both overlooked the fact that intuitions often tend to disprove concepts, expectations and rules.

The notion of ‘Unamendability’, which lies at the heart of ‘Observation’, underlines precisely this point. Intuitions may be blind, but most of the time they are more than sufficient for our being in the world, with or without concepts. I do not need to know Newton's laws to ride a bike, and I do not need to have read Keynes to use money. This is demonstrated not only by the most banal observation of human life, but also by the fact that if concepts played any constitutive role in the construction of reality, then they would be able to change reality, too: not just in the epistemological sense of what we know or believe we know, but in the ontological sense of what there is.