Weddings in the Abbasid Age

... They talk, and wax long in talking, of the pageantry of the Abbasid age and all it comprised. Miss Afaf Abd al-Baqi has undertaken a scholarly study exploring the aesthetic sides of the various manifestations of social life in Baghdad — and she will present them in succession to the readers of "The Woman's Voice," beginning with an account of weddings. How, one wonders, did they express their joys?!!

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The Abbasid age was the Arab golden age and the very peak of flowering in all of Islamic history. The era of al-Rashid and his son al-Ma'mun was the centerpiece of the necklace of Abbasid epochs; in it the caliphate reached its highest degree of might and dominion, of wealth, learning, and letters, and the scientific, literary, and material civilization of the state rose to its loftiest and most brilliant heights.

What history and legend hand down of Baghdad's pomp and grandeur in those epochs is scarcely to be believed. People went to extremes in their wants and grew fastidious in their manner of living, until the City of Peace dazzled the eyes of its visitors. The prodigality of luxury showed itself at court, in particular, in the official celebrations — the installation of the caliph, the royal weddings, the pilgrimage processions, the reception of the ambassadors of foreign states — and in their private wants. When Harun al-Rashid walked to Mecca and Zubayda walked with him, carpets were spread out before them and folded up behind them. And on the day of Zubayda's wedding, her father gave a banquet the like of which no one in Islam had given before him; on that day he presented the people with vessels of gold filled with silver and vessels of silver filled with gold, and with musk and ambergris; and the bride was adorned with so many ornaments and jewels that she could not walk for the weight of the ornaments and jewels upon her. As for the expenses of this marriage, they ranged between thirty-five and thirty-seven million dirhams!!

When al-Ma'mun consummated his marriage, in the year 825 A.D., with Buran, daughter of his vizier al-Hasan ibn Sahl, at "Fam al-Silh," her father made a great occasion of it and gave banquets and festivities for nineteen days such as had never been known in any age. Here is a description of the wedding as it appears in the "Thimar al-Qulub" of al-Tha'alibi and the "Muruj al-Dhahab" of al-Mas'udi: On the wedding night, when Buran was displayed before al-Ma'mun, a mat of gold was spread for her, and a basket studded with jewels was brought in, filled with great pearls, which were scattered over the women present — among them Zubayda and Hamdun, the daughter of al-Rashid, and the elder ladies of the caliphal house — but not one of those present touched any of the pearls. So al-Ma'mun said: "Honor Abu Muhammad (al-Hasan ibn Sahl), and show favor to Buran." Then each of them stretched out her hand and took a single pearl, and the rest of the pearls lay gleaming on the mat of gold. Ibn Khaldun says in his Muqaddima that when al-Ma'mun saw the mat woven of gold and finished with pearls and rubies, he said: "God confound Abu Nuwas — it is as if he had seen this very thing when he said, describing wine:

As though its bubbles, small and great,
were pebbles of pearl upon a ground of gold."

In that assembly there was a candle of ambergris weighing two hundred ratls; al-Ma'mun was troubled by its smoke, so pans of wax lights were made for him, and the night, for as long as he stayed there, was like the day. And when the banquet for the commanders was held, al-Hasan ibn Sahl scattered over the Hashimites, the commanders, and the secretaries little balls of musk, each containing a slip bearing the names of estates, the names of slave girls, the descriptions of mounts, and other things; when a ball fell into a man's hand he opened it, read what was inside, and al-Hasan attested his title to what it contained. After that he scattered over the rest of the people dinars and dirhams, cases of musk, and eggs of ambergris. And he spent freely upon al-Ma'mun and his commanders and all his companions and the troops that were with him, throughout the days of his stay with him, and upon the muleteers and the donkey-drivers and the boatmen and everyone the army embraced, follower and followed alike. It is said that al-Hasan ibn Sahl spent on this feast four thousand thousand dinars. And when al-Ma'mun wished to sail upriver, he ordered a thousand thousand dinars for him and granted him "al-Silh" as a fief.

When the Caliph al-Muqtadi married, in the year 474 A.H., the daughter of Malikshah, Sultan of Isfahan, the whole city of Baghdad was decked out in celebration of the joy. Several days before the wedding, the trousseau of the betrothed was conveyed to the palace of the caliphate in a great procession, in which marched the chief emirs of the Seljuks while the trumpets and drums sounded. The trousseau was carried on a hundred and thirty camels caparisoned in Byzantine brocade, bearing great quantities of vessels of silver and gold, and on seventy-four mules caparisoned in royal brocade, their bells and collars of gold and silver. On six of these mules were twelve chests of silver whose contents of jewels and ornaments were beyond all reckoning. And there were

in the trousseau, besides thirty-three magnificent horses bearing saddles of gold studded with every kind of gem, three thousand horsemen and three camel-litters, the attendants of the Sultan's daughter. As for the people, they scattered dinars and garments over those marching in the procession, in proclamation of their joy and delight.

Five days after the arrival of the trousseau, the caliph sent his vizier one evening to fetch the bride. Before the vizier went three hundred processional candles and as many naphtha torches, which lit up Baghdad that night, so that not a shop or stall remained in the markets but had a candle or more burning in it. On the return, the procession was accompanied by the emirs and grandees of the Seljuk state, and by the wives of the emirs and others, each with her own retinue, and before them all were candles, processional tapers, and torches borne by horsemen on their mounts; and at the end of this magnificent, luminous procession came the daughter of the Sultan in a litter adorned with gold and studded with jewels, surrounded by two hundred Turkish slave girls on splendidly appointed horses.

That night the Sultan went out to hunt, beyond Baghdad, according to the custom of kings in that age on the day of their daughters' marriage. As for the caliph, on the morning of that night he made for the Sultan's emirs and his army a great banquet in which he used, of sugar alone, forty thousand manns, worth eight thousand dinars. He bestowed robes of honor upon the emirs, and sent to the bride's mother many robes, and to all the noble ladies gifts according to their rank.

And when the Sultan returned from the hunt, he visited the decorated shops and establishments, and great quantities of dinars and dirhams were scattered over him there. The wealth of the Abbasid caliphs was immense, and they spent and lavished with the spending of one who fears no poverty. And as for these weddings I have recounted — one hesitates over the truth of their description and their authenticity, for the luxury and extravagance in them bring them close to the stuff of legend.