The Muslim World
二 穆斯林世界
Even the first of the European sailors to visit China in the early sixteenth century, although impressed by its size, population, and riches, might have observed that this was a country which had turned in on itself. That remark certainly could not then have been made of the Ottoman Empire, which was then in the middle stages of its expansion and, being nearer home, was correspondingly much more threatening to Christendom. Viewed from the larger historical and geographical perspective, in fact, it would be fair to claim that it was the Muslim states which formed the most rapidly expanding forces in world affairs during the sixteenth century. Not only were the Ottoman Turks pushing westward, but the Safavid dynasty in Persia was also enjoying a resurgence of power, prosperity, and high culture, especially in the reigns of Ismail I (1500–1524) and Abbas I (1587–1629); a chain of strong Muslim khanates still controlled the ancient Silk Road via Kashgar and Turfan to China, not unlike the chain of West African Islamic states such as Bornu, Sokoto, and Timbuktu; the Hindu Empire in Java was overthrown by Muslim forces early in the sixteenth century; and the king of Kabul, Babur, entering India by the conqueror’s route from the northwest, established the Mogul Empire in 1526. Although this hold on India was shaky at first, it was successfully consolidated by Babur’s grandson Akbar (1556–1605), who carved out a northern Indian empire stretching from Baluchistan in the west to Bengal in the east. Throughout the seventeenth century, Akbar’s successors pushed farther south against the Hindu Marathas, just at the same time as the Dutch, British, and French were entering the Indian peninsula from the sea, and of course in a much less substantial form. To these secular signs of Muslim growth one must add the vast increase in numbers of the faithful in Africa and the Indies, against which the proselytization by Christian missions paled in comparison.
还在16世纪初第一批欧洲航海家访问中国的时候，虽然对它的面积、人口和财富留下了深刻的印象，但或许已经看出这是一个闭关自守的国家。那时对奥斯曼帝国当然还不能这样说，它当时正处在扩张的中间阶段，由于离基督教世界的后院比较近，因此对后者更具有威胁性。从更大的历史和地理背景来看，大概可以这样说，事实上穆斯林国家在16世纪就形成了世界事务中发展最迅速的力量。不仅奥斯曼的土耳其人在向西推进，而且波斯的萨非王朝也正经历着国力和文化的复兴，特别是在伊斯迈尔一世（1500—1524年在位）和阿拔斯一世（1587—1629年在位）时代；一系列强大的穆斯林汗国仍然控制着经喀什噶尔和吐鲁番到中国的古代丝绸之路，这与诸如博尔努、索科托和廷巴克图等一系列西非伊斯兰国家不同；爪哇的印度教帝国在16世纪早期就被穆斯林势力推翻了；而喀布尔国王巴布尔则从西北部通过征服者的道路侵入印度，于1526年建立莫卧儿帝国。虽然最初对印度的统治并不稳固，但后来巴布尔的孙子阿克巴（1556—1605年在位）顺利地巩固了这个帝国，他开创了西起俾路支东到孟加拉的北印度帝国。在整个17世纪，阿克巴的继任者们继续往南向信印度教的马拉特人推进，这正好是荷兰人、英国人和法国人从海上侵入印度半岛的时候，然而后者的规模要小得多。在穆斯林发展的这些非宗教的成功之外，还需加上非洲和印度穆斯林信徒的大量增加，与之比较起来，基督教传教团的劝教活动就显得黯然失色了。
But the greatest Muslim challenge to early modern Europe lay, of course, with the Ottoman Turks, or, rather, with their formidable army and the finest siege train of the age. Already by the beginning of the sixteenth century their domains stretched from the Crimea (where they had overrun Genoese trading posts) and the Aegean (where they were dismantling the Venetian Empire) to the Levant. By 1516, Ottoman forces had seized Damascus, and in the following year they entered Egypt, shattering the Mamluk forces by the use of Turkish cannon. Having thus closed the spice route from the Indies, they moved up the Nile and pushed through the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, countering the Portuguese incursions there. If this perturbed Iberian sailors, it was nothing to the fright which the Turkish armies were giving the princes and peoples of eastern and southern Europe. Already the Turks held Bulgaria and Serbia, and were the predominant influence in Wallachia and all around the Black Sea; but, following the southern drive against Egypt and Arabia, the pressure against Europe was resumed under Suleiman (1520–1566). Hungary, the great eastern bastion of Christendom in these years, could no longer hold off the superior Turkish armies and was overrun following the battle of Mohacs in 1526— the same year, coincidentally, as Babur gained the victory at Panipat by which the Mughal Empire was established. Would all of Europe soon go the way of northern India? By 1529, with the Turks besieging Vienna, this must have appeared a distinct possibility to some. In actual fact, the line then stabilized in northern Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire was preserved; but thereafter the Turks presented a constant danger and exerted a military pressure which could never be fully ignored. Even as late as 1683, they were again besieging Vienna. 7
但对近代早期欧洲来说，最重大的穆斯林挑战，当然是奥斯曼土耳其人，或者更确切地说，是他们难以对付的军队和那个时代最好的围城训练。还在16世纪初以前，他们的领地已从克里米亚（在那里他们窜犯了热那亚人的商业据点）和爱琴海（在那里他们夷平了威尼斯帝国）延伸到利凡特。至1516年，奥斯曼军队夺取了大马士革，次年入侵埃及，他们用土耳其火枪摧毁了马穆鲁克军队。这样，他们在封锁了印度通往西方的香料之路以后，溯尼罗河而上并通过红海推进到印度洋，在那里遇上了葡萄牙人的入侵。如果这也烦扰了伊比利亚船员的话，那么同土耳其军队给东欧和南欧的王公和人民造成的恐怖比较起来，简直算不了什么。土耳其人已经占有了保加利亚和塞尔维亚，并在瓦拉几亚和整个黑海沿岸有决定性影响；但在向南攻击埃及和阿拉伯以后，在苏里曼时期（1520—1566年）对欧洲的压力重新开始。这些年基督教世界最强大的东方堡垒匈牙利再也不能阻止土耳其的优势军队了，它在1526年莫哈奇战役之后受到蹂躏，而1526年恰好是巴布尔在巴尼伯德获得胜利的一年，通过这一胜利他建立了莫卧儿帝国。是否整个欧洲不久都要走北印度的道路呢？因为在1529年土耳其人已包围了维也纳，在有些人看来这似乎是完全可能的。事实上，那时阵线已在匈牙利北部稳定下来，神圣罗马帝国从而得以保存；但以后土耳其人仍构成经常的危险并施加从来不能完全忽视的军事压力。甚至到了1683年，他们再度包围了维也纳。
Almost as alarming, in many ways, was the expansion of Ottoman naval power. Like Kublai Khan in China, the Turks had developed a navy only in order to reduce a seagirt enemy fortress—in this case, Constantinople, which Sultan Mehmet blockaded with large galleys and hundreds of smaller craft to assist the assault of 1453. Thereafter, formidable galley fleets were used in operations across the Black Sea, in the southward push toward Syria and Egypt, and in a whole series of clashes with Venice for control of the Aegean islands, Rhodes, Crete, and Cyprus. For some decades of the early sixteenth century Ottoman sea power was kept at arm’s length by Venetian, Genoese, and Habsburg fleets; but by midcentury, Muslim naval forces were active all the way along the North African coast, were raiding ports in Italy, Spain, and the Balearics, and finally managed to take Cyprus in 1570–1571, before being checked at the battle of Lepanto. 8
奥斯曼海军的扩张在很多方面几乎同样令人惊恐。土耳其人像中国的忽必烈汗一样，发展海军只是为了攻下四面环海的敌人要塞，君士坦丁堡就是这种情况，穆罕默德苏丹曾用大战船和几百艘小船对其进行封锁，协助1453年的攻城。此后强大的战船队曾被用于横穿黑海的战役，用于往南向叙利亚和埃及推进，以及为控制爱琴群岛、罗得岛、克里特岛和塞浦路斯岛而同威尼斯发生的一系列冲突。在16世纪的最初几十年中，威尼斯、热那亚和哈布斯堡的战船队都避免与奥斯曼的海上势力接近；但到该世纪中叶，穆斯林的海军在整个北非沿海都很活跃，他们常常袭击意大利、西班牙和巴利阿里群岛，并且最后于1570—1571年攻占塞浦路斯，直到勒班陀战斗发生才受阻止步。
The Ottoman Empire was, of course, much more than a military machine. A conquering elite (like the Manchus in China), the Ottomans had established a unity of official faith, culture, and language over an area greater than the Roman Empire, and over vast numbers of subject peoples. For centuries before 1500 the world of Islam had been culturally and technologically ahead of Europe. Its cities were large, well-lit, and drained, and some of them possessed universities and libraries and stunningly beautiful mosques. In mathematics, cartography, medicine, and many other aspects of science and industry—in mills, gun-casting, lighthouses, horsebreeding—the Muslims had enjoyed a lead. The Ottoman system of recruiting future janissaries from Christian youth in the Balkans had produced a dedicated, uniform corps of troops. Tolerance of other races had brought many a talented Greek, Jew, and Gentile into the sultan’s service—a Hungarian was Mehmet’s chief gun-caster in the Siege of Constantinople. Under a successful leader like Suleiman I, a strong bureaucracy supervised fourteen million subjects—this at a time when Spain had five million and England a mere two and a half million inhabitants. Constantinople in its heyday was bigger than any European city, possessing over 500,000 inhabitants in 1600.
当然奥斯曼帝国不仅仅是一部军事机器、一个从事征讨的上层人物集团（像中国的满人）。奥斯曼人在比罗马帝国还大的一块地区和许多臣属民族中，确立了法定宗教信仰、文化和语言的统一。1500年以前的几个世纪中，伊斯兰世界在文化和技术上都领先于欧洲，其城市很大，照明设备好，并有排水系统，而且其中很多城市还有大学、图书馆和极其壮丽的清真寺。在数学、制图学、医学以及科学和工业的许多其他方面（磨坊、铸炮、灯塔、马匹繁殖），穆斯林都享有领先地位。奥斯曼从巴尔干基督教青年中招募未来土耳其兵的制度，造就了一支虔诚的、统一的军队。对其他种族的宽容使许多天才的希腊人、犹太人和非犹太人为苏丹效命，一名匈牙利人就是穆罕默德围攻君士坦丁堡的主要铸炮人。在像苏里曼一世这样的成功领袖的领导下，一个强大的官僚阶层管理着1 400万居民，而这时西班牙人只有500万人，英格兰仅仅250万居民。君士坦丁堡在其全盛时期拥有50万以上人口（1600年），比任何欧洲城市都大。
Yet the Ottoman Turks, too, were to falter, to turn inward, and to lose the chance of world domination, although this became clear only a century after the strikingly similar Ming decline. To a certain extent it could be argued that this process was the natural consequence of earlier Turkish successes: the Ottoman army, however well administered, might be able to maintain the lengthy frontiers but could hardly expand farther without enormous cost in men and money; and Ottoman imperialism, unlike that of the Spanish, Dutch, and English later, did not bring much in the way of economic benefit. By the second half of the sixteenth century the empire was showing signs of strategical overextension, with a large army stationed in central Europe, an expensive navy operating in the Mediterranean, troops engaged in North Africa, the Aegean, Cyprus, and the Red Sea, and reinforcements needed to hold the Crimea against a rising Russian power. Even in the Near East there was no quiet flank, thanks to a disastrous religious split in the Muslim world which occurred when the Shi’ite branch, based in Iraq and then in Persia, challenged the prevailing Sunni practices and teachings. At times, the situation was not unlike that of the contemporary religious struggles in Germany, and the sultan could maintain his dominance only by crushing Shi’ite dissidents with force. However, across the border the Shi’ite kingdom of Persia under Abbas the Great was quite prepared to ally with European states against the Ottomans, just as France had worked with the “infidel” Turk against the Holy Roman Empire. With this array of adversaries, the Ottoman Empire would have needed remarkable leadership to have maintained its growth; but after 1566 there reigned thirteen incompetent sultans in succession.
然而奥斯曼土耳其人也开始踉踉跄跄，转向内战，最后失去支配世界的机会，虽然这种明显的衰落比明王朝极其类似的衰落晚了100年。在一定程度上可以证明这一过程是早期土耳其胜利的必然结果：奥斯曼军队虽然管理良好，或许可以维持一条很长的边界，但如果不付出大量人力和金钱的代价，很难继续扩张；而且奥斯曼帝国主义与后来的西班牙、荷兰和英国帝国主义不同，没有顺便带来许多经济利益。到16世纪下半叶，奥斯曼帝国已有迹象表明，它在战略上战线拉得过长：一支庞大的陆军驻扎在中欧，在地中海有一支耗资巨大的海军在作战，一些部队在北非、爱琴群岛、塞浦路斯和红海作战，而坚守克里米亚以防正在兴起的俄国势力则需要援军。由于先以伊拉克而后以波斯为基地的什叶派，向当时占主导地位的逊尼派在行为与教义两方面发起挑战而使穆斯林世界发生分裂，即使在近东也没有一个平静的侧翼。有时局势像当时德意志的宗教斗争一样严重，苏丹只有靠用武力压服什叶派异端，才能维持其统治。然而在边界那边阿拨斯大王统治下的波斯什叶派王国，已完全准备好与欧洲国家联合反对奥斯曼人，就像法国曾与“异教”的土耳其人联合反对神圣罗马帝国一样。奥斯曼帝国与这一系列敌人作战，需要杰出的领袖来维持其发展，遗憾的是1566年以后，相继有13个无能的苏丹进行统治。
External enemies and personal failings do not, however, provide the full explanation. The system as a whole, like that of Ming China, increasingly suffered from some of the defects of being centralized, despotic, and severely orthodox in its attitude toward initiative, dissent, and commerce. An idiot sultan could paralyze the Ottoman Empire in the way that a pope or Holy Roman emperor could never do for all Europe. Without clear directives from above, the arteries of the bureaucracy hardened, preferring conservatism to change, and stifling innovation. The lack of territorial expansion and accompanying booty after 1550, together with the vast rise in prices, caused discontented janissaries to turn to internal plunder. Merchants and entrepreneurs (nearly all of whom were foreigners), who earlier had been encouraged, now found themselves subject to unpredictable taxes and outright seizures of property. Ever higher dues ruined trade and depopulated towns. Perhaps worst affected of all were the peasants, whose lands and stock were preyed upon by the soldiers. As the situation deteriorated, civilian officials also turned to plunder, demanding bribes and confiscating stocks of goods. The costs of war and the loss of Asiatic trade during the struggle with Persia intensified the government’s desperate search for new revenues, which in turn gave greater powers to unscrupulous tax farmers. 9
但外部敌人和个人的弱点并不能完全说明问题。整个制度像中国明朝的制度一样，越来越多地受到专制集权和对创见、异端和商业的极端保守态度的影响。一个愚蠢的苏丹可以使奥斯曼帝国陷于瘫痪，而一个教皇或神圣罗马帝国的皇帝对全欧洲却永远做不到这一点。由于缺乏来自上面的明确指令，官僚体系的各个分支变得麻木僵化，它们对一切变故持保守态度，从而窒息了新鲜事物。由于1550年以后没有扩张领土和随之而来的战利品，不满的军队转而进行内部劫掠。商人和企业家（差不多都是外国人）早先曾受到鼓励，现在发现自己遭到不曾预料到的征税和对财产的非法没收。越来越高的苛捐杂税使商业凋敝，城镇人口减少。也许农民受害最大，他们的土地和牲畜被士兵劫掠。随着局势的恶化，文职官员也开始掠夺，他们索取贿赂和没收货物储备。由于战争花费巨大，而且在同波斯的战争期间丧失了亚洲的贸易，政府更加拼命地搜罗新的财源，这必然会给那些营私舞弊的收税人更大的权力。
To a distinct degree, the fierce response to the Shi’ite religious challenge reflected and anticipated a hardening of official attitudes toward all forms of free thought. The printing press was forbidden because it might disseminate dangerous opinions. Economic notions remained primitive: imports of western wares were desired, but exports were forbidden; the guilds were supported in their efforts to check innovation and the rise of “capitalist” producers; religious criticism of traders intensified. Contemptuous of European ideas and practices, the Turks declined to adopt newer methods for containing plagues; consequently, their populations suffered more from severe epidemics. In one truly amazing fit of obscurantism, a force of janissaries destroyed a state observatory in 1580, alleging that it had caused a plague. 10 The armed services had become, indeed, a bastion of conservatism. Despite noting, and occasionally suffering from, the newer weaponry of European forces, the janissaries were slow to modernize themselves. Their bulky cannons were not replaced by the lighter cast-iron guns. After the defeat at Lepanto, they did not build the larger European type of vessels. In the south, the Muslim fleets were simply ordered to remain in the calmer waters of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, thus obviating the need to construct oceangoing vessels on the Portuguese model. Perhaps technical reasons help to explain these decisions, but cultural and technological conservatism also played a role (by contrast, the irregular Barbary corsairs swiftly adopted the frigate type of warship).
对什叶派宗教挑战的强烈反响，明显地反映和预示着官方将对各种形式的自由思想采取强硬态度。印刷业遭到禁止，因为它或许会传播危险的见解。经济观念仍很原始：进口西方商品是允许的，但出口被禁止；行会竭力阻止创新，阻止“资本主义”生产者兴起的行为受到支持；宗教对商人的抨击加强了。由于轻视欧洲人的思想和实践，土耳其人拒绝采用抑制瘟疫的新方法，因此他们的人口遭受恶性传染病的影响较大。在一次令人震惊的蒙昧主义的行动中，一支土耳其军队于1580年捣毁了一个国家天文台，他们声称是这个天文台引起了一场瘟疫。军队实际上成了保守主义的堡垒。尽管土耳其士兵注意到欧洲军队的新式武器，而且有时深受其苦，但他们自己现代化的步伐很慢。他们没有用较轻的铸铁炮去取代笨重的大炮。勒班陀失败以后，他们没有建造更大的欧洲型舰船。在南部的穆斯林舰队仅仅奉命停泊在红海和波斯湾比较平静的水域，这就排除了建造葡萄牙型远洋船的必要性。也许技术上的原因是一个因素，但文化和技术上的保守性也起了一定的作用（对比起来，北非伊斯兰教各国非正规的海盗船却很快采用了装配大炮的快速帆船型战船）。
The above remarks about conservatism could be made with equal or even greater force about the Mogul Empire. Despite the sheer size of the kingdom at its height and the military genius of some of its emperors, despite the brilliance of its courts and the craftsmanship of its luxury products, despite even a sophisticated banking and credit network, the system was weak at the core. A conquering Muslim elite lay on top of a vast mass of poverty-stricken peasants chiefly adhering to Hinduism. In the towns themselves there were very considerable numbers of merchants, bustling markets, and an attitude toward manufacture, trade, and credit among Hindu business families which would make them excellent examples of Weber’s Protestant ethic. As against this picture of an entrepreneurial society just ready for economic “takeoff” before it became a victim of British imperialism, there are the gloomier portrayals of the many indigenous retarding factors in Indian life. The sheer rigidity of Hindu religious taboos militated against modernization: rodents and insects could not be killed, so vast amounts of foodstuffs were lost; social mores about handling refuse and excreta led to permanently insanitary conditions, a breeding ground for bubonic plagues; the caste system throttled initiative, instilled ritual, and restricted the market; and the influence wielded over Indian local rulers by the Brahman priests meant that this obscurantism was effective at the highest level. Here were social checks of the deepest sort to any attempts at radical change. Small wonder that later many Britons, having first plundered and then tried to govern India in accordance with Utilitarian principles, finally left with the feeling that the country was still a mystery to them. 11
上述对保守主义的评论同样、甚至在更大程度上适用于莫卧儿帝国。尽管这个帝国的绝对版图正处于顶峰，并且有几位皇帝具有军事天才；尽管其宫殿富丽堂皇，其奢侈品的生产技术很高；尽管它甚至有一个复杂的银行和信贷网，但这个帝国在骨子里还是羸弱的。一个东征西讨的穆斯林上层处在主要信奉印度教的广大赤贫农民群众的顶端。在城镇内部有非常多的商人和活跃的市场，印度教实业家对制造业、商业和信贷业的态度，本可以使他们成为韦伯清教伦理的优秀典范。在变成英帝国主义的牺牲品以前，在企业家社会正准备经济“起飞”的图景下，在印度生活中还有一幅较为阴暗的图画，它显现出许多固有的阻滞因素。绝对严格的印度教戒律妨碍了现代化：啮齿动物和昆虫不许杀害，因此大量粮食受到损失；处理垃圾和粪便的社会习俗造成总是不卫生的环境，成为淋巴腺鼠疫的滋生地；种姓制度扼杀了创新精神，逐渐灌输了教义，并限制了市场；而婆罗门祭司对印度地方统治者的影响说明这种蒙昧主义还起着极大作用。这里存在着对任何激进变革的最根深蒂固的社会障碍。后来许多英国人最初（在印度）进行抢劫，而后试图根据功利主义原则统治印度，最后却怀着这样一种心情离开：这个国家对他们仍然神秘莫测。这是不足为怪的。
But the Mogul rule could scarcely be compared with administration by the Indian Civil Service. The brilliant courts were centers of conspicuous consumption on a scale which the Sun King at Versailles might have thought excessive. Thousands of servants and hangers-on, extravagant clothes and jewels and harems and menageries, vast arrays of bodyguards, could be paid for only by the creation of a systematic plunder machine. Tax collectors, required to provide fixed sums for their masters, preyed mercilessly upon peasant and merchant alike; whatever the state of the harvest or trade, the money had to come in. There being no constitutional or other checks—apart from rebellion—upon such depredations, it was not surprising that taxation was known as “eating. ” For this colossal annual tribute, the population received next to nothing. There was little improvement in communications, and no machinery for assistance in the event of famine, flood, and plague—which were, of course, fairly regular occurrences. All this makes the Ming dynasty appear benign, almost progressive, by comparison. Technically, the Mogul Empire was to decline because it became increasingly difficult to maintain itself against the Marathas in the south, the Afghanis in the north, and, finally, the East India Company. In reality, the causes of its decay were much more internal than external.
但莫卧儿王朝的统治不能同印度文官行政管理相比。富丽堂皇的王宫是穷奢极欲、挥霍浪费的中心，其挥霍的规模连凡尔赛宫的太阳王或许也认为有些过分。数以千计的仆从和食客，奢华的衣服、珠宝、嫔妃和奇珍异兽，大批的卫士，这一切只有建立一整套的掠夺机器才能支付。收税官吏要向他们的主子缴纳固定数目的款项，就得无情地掠夺农民和商人；无论收成和商业状况如何，钱款都必须收进。除了起义以外，没有宪法或其他东西可以阻止这种劫掠，所以当时税收以“吃人”著称就不奇怪了。因为每年的贡赋如此庞大，人民几乎一无所获。交通很少改善，没有对付饥荒、洪水和瘟疫的救援机构，而这些灾害当然是经常发生的。所有这些，相对说来，明王朝显得宽厚多了，几乎就算是进步了。看来莫卧儿帝国必定要衰落，因为它在南部要抗击马拉特人，北部要抗击阿富汗人，最后还要对付东印度公司，它越来越难以支撑下去。实际上它衰落的内因大大多于外因。