Daniel Zakrzewski

Richard W. Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, 184 pp, ISBN-978-0231148368.
Richard Bulliet has long been a renowned scholar of numerous subjects related to Iranian history in the early Islamic period, including local politics, patterns of conversion to Islam and the domestication of camels. In his latest study, Bulliet demonstrates that the Iranian plateau region underwent a radical transformation in economic, social, cultural and ecological terms from the ninth century to the early twelfth century and asserts that the economic and ecological factors contributing to historical change are not taken into consideration sufciently by historians of the Middle East. These factors are fundamental to Bulliets approach, yet he also takes into account the part human agency played in those transformative changes. The rst four chapters of this concise, but rich study develop two main theses. First, the Iranian plateau region experienced a cotton boom during the ninth and tenth centuries; this turned it into one of the most dynamic areas of the Islamic caliphate, but came to an end as the agricultural economy generally declined as a result of climatic cooling in the eleventh century. Second, the colder weather was the initial trigger for the large scale inux into Iran of Turkic nomads who were to occupy a prominent position in the countrys politics for many centuries to come (p. 1). The nal chapter of the book summarises the general argument and presents in conclusion ve ways in which these transformative changes and their consequences can be considered to be of world historical signicance. Particularly noteworthy is the authors thorough documentation of the fact that from the early ninth century onward, the piedmont areas around the garrison towns established by the Arab-Muslim conquerors became major centres for both cotton plant cultivation and the production of and trade in cotton cloth. Among his sources are biographical dictionaries, tax registers and scientic treatises, while the analysis of place and personal names constitutes his principal methodological tool. He argues that the new Islamic landownership regime encouraged investment in specic irrigation systems which enabled the growing of cotton and led to the foundation of villages to house workers recruited for this purpose (p. 24). Arab Muslims and early Persian converts were highly involved in the cotton industry, Islamic scholars had ties to it and the cloth gained cultural signicance as a marker of Muslim aesthetics, as opposed to silk, which signalled a sentimental attachment to the Sassanid Empire (p. 51). Considering the method of forming work teams to found cotton-farming villages, Bulliet suggests a link between cotton and conversion to Islam in parts of the country and asserts that the protability of the cotton business and an ensuing process of urbanisation may by the tenth century have led to a reduction in the rural workforce engaged in food production (pp. 6567). At the same time, however, cotton had already lost much of its cultural signicance among the elite strata of society and the boom petered out as general economic and social conditions constantly worsened (p. 84).
NOMADIC 148 NOMADIC PEOPLES PEOPLES (2011) doi: 10.3167/np.2011.150108 (2011) VOLUME 15,VOLUME ISSUE 1, 2011: 15 ISSUE 148150 1 ISSN 0822-7942 (Print), ISSN 1752-2366 (Online)

Review

According to the author, the major cause of this deterioration was the severe chilling of the Iranian climate that set in early in the eleventh century (p. 69). This postulation forms the basis of his second main thesis which he underpins by drawing on analyses of tree rings in Mongolia and anecdotal evidence from historical and travel accounts and, then, relates to one particular political context. Bulliet claims that the colder weather also endangered essential parts of the livestock of camel-breeding Oghuz Turkmen nomads, so that a rst group of them sought and obtained from a regional ruler permission to migrate from the northern fringes of the Karakum desert to its southern edge in north-eastern Iran, around the turn of the tenth century (p. 104). With respect to the environmental features of these regions, he asserts that these Oghuz specialised in crossing male two-humped camels with female one-humped camels; the hybrids were particularly well suited for long-distance caravan trade and military mounts and were marketed as such by the Oghuz (pp. 1123). Their migration must have involved intense political negotiations within the nomadic community as well as with the regional ruler whose expectations of benetting from this move were not, however, to be fullled. Bulliet argues that when the cold became more severe in Iran, too, they were no longer able to keep the one-humped camels and turned to marauding in the countryside, further destabilising the already suffering rural economy. Mindful of this development, that rulers successor refused a similar migration by a second group of Oghuz Turkmen led by the Seljq family a generation later, but they defeated his forces militarily at Dandanqn in 1040 and, during the following decades, established an empire encompassing great parts of Iran and Central Asia and reaching far into Anatolia and Iraq (p.116). As regards the world historical signicance of changes occurring over the entire period, the author picks out effects on the economic, linguistic, religious and political geography of Iran and the Middle East that did indeed affect the course of world history (pp. 13743). However, given that he asserts that climate change was the major cause of the rst Oghuz migrations, he should have included factors other than temperature, especially rainfall and humidity, and could have gathered more reliable data to back this, probably correct, assertion. Moreover, some of his conclusions seem rather too simplistic and he dismisses the political arguments raised in historical accounts a little too carelessly. (For an analysis of these matters and additional references on climate change, see: Peacock, A.C.S. 2010, Early Seljq History, Routledge, pp. 3746.) Nonetheless, by emphasising the economic and ecological factors affecting the political history of this period and region and, more specically, by highlighting the danger posed to cold-sensitive camels, a major economic asset of the nomadic Oghuz, Bulliets approach provides an explanatory rationale for their rst migrations into Iran that, it may be hoped, will promote discussion, including beyond the circle of specialists in early Islamic Iranian history. The books appealing written style, its thorough explanations of specic problems and its regular summaries of the

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various threads of the argument make it a study well suited to serve as starting point for debate. Daniel Zakrzewski Seminar fr Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft Orientalisches Institut der Martin-Luther Universitt Halle-Wittenberg, Germany daniel.zakrzewski@orientphil.uni-halle.de

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