Gunpowder and Ammunition: Their Origin and Progress

Chapter V The Arabs

Although the Arabs had had relations with the Greeks, Romans, and Persians for centuries, and were acquainted with the details of the siege of Jerusalem, 70 A.D., the earliest allusion to their use of machines is the tradition that Jodhaimah, King of Heerah, constructed manjánik in the third century A.D.182 The scarcity of timber in Arabia may partially explain the lateness of their introduction, and the position of Heerah, in the north-east province of Arabian Irak, raises a suspicion that the Arabs learned the use of machines from the Persians, who got them from the Greeks.

When the Prophet besieged Tayif in 8 A.H. (630 A.D.), the defenders had recourse to heated projectiles.183 We may safely assume that they were the balls of hot clay spoken of in the 11nth Sura of the Qur’an, in describing the destruction of the Cities of the Plain: “we rained upon them stones of baked clay.”184 Half a century afterwards, 683, during the siege of Mecca, the Ka’aba was burned down by incendiary compositions, discharged, not by Arabs, but by Syrians, who doubtless understood the manipulation of naphtha and the other combustibles used.185 In 712 the howdah in which sat Dahir, King of Alor in Scinde, was set on fire by a fire-arrow shot by a Moslem naphtha-thrower186—the same nature of projectile that had been used by the Persian archers at the taking of Athens, 480 B.C. In speaking of the capture of Alor, both Mir Ma’sum Bhakkari, in his “History of Scinde,” and Haidar Razi, in his “General History,” mention the employment of atish bazi, or fire-throwing machines, “which the Moslems had seen in use with the Greeks and Persians.”187 Stones were discharged from machines to so little purpose at the siege of Heraclea, 805, that Harun er-Reshid urged his generals to fasten incendiaries to them. This was done with such effect that the resistance of the besieged at once collapsed, the inhabitants being terror-stricken at the sight of the flaming naphtha.188 There is no trace of an explosive here, yet a French Arabist would have us believe that muskets were in use during this Caliph’s reign.

Al-bunduqani, the man who carries a bunduq, which in this connection is a contraction for qaus al-bunduq, or simply qaus bunduq,189 was an epithet bestowed on Harun by the public, or assumed by himself; and in translating one of the “Arabian Nights” with this title, M. Gauttier remarks: “Bondouk signifie en Arabe harquebuse, albondoukani signifie l’arquebusier.”190 This argument may be illustrated by a more familiar one: “Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad” (1 Sam. xx. 40); but artillery signifies cannon; therefore, &c. &c. It may be remarked that arquebuse is ambiguous. “Avant d’être une arme à feu l’arquebuse était une arme à jet,” says Dr. Dozy,191 who is supported by M. Scheler: “l’arquebuse était à son origine une sorte d’arbalète.”192 Assuming, however, as Gauttier evidently did, that arquebuse meant a firearm, his argument only establishes the use of firearms in the ninth century, if we take signifie as equivalent to means now, in the year 1822, and meant also in the time of Harun. The question, therefore, turns upon the meaning of the words bunduq, or qaus bunduq, in the time of the great Caliph, and an anecdote told by Masudi leaves no doubt about what that meaning was.193 He tells us that in the time of Muhtadi Billah, 868-9, a negligent porter was sentenced by his master to be tied up (apparently in a room or courtyard) and shot at fifty times by a man armed with a qaus bunduq, which carried leaden bunduq. There is not the slightest allusion to charge, cartridge, gunpowder, wad, or match, nor to the operation of loading. The ammunition consisted solely of leaden balls. Although the marksman sent his fifty bunduq home, the porter was so little the worse for his punishment that, when all was over, he made a coarse but cutting remark to his tormentor. There can be no question of firearms here: one, or at most two bullets fired by so good a shot from any firearm ever constructed would have silenced the porter for ever. The marksman was al-bunduqani, the bunduq were leaden balls, and the qaus bunduq was a pellet-bow = stone-bow194 = كلوله كمان (golulé keman) = golail, used to this day by the Karens of Burma, and known to everybody who has been in India. Such is the explanation of qaus bunduq given by the commentator Tabrizi in a note on one of Motanebbi’s poems—a bow which discharges a ball as big as a hazel nut.195 The bow itself is a long-bow with two strings joined at their centre by a bit of cloth or soft leather, which supports a ball generally of baked clay or stone. If Hansard’s plate be correct, the western stone-bow was a cross-bow with two strings.196 The golail, as we learn from one of the oldest of the “Arabian Nights,” was chiefly used for shooting birds, squirrels, &c.: “he shooteth birds with a pellet of clay,”197 ببندقة من طين. Again, when the first Kalandar missed his bird and hit the Wazir in the eye, he was using a qaus al-bunduq,198 قوس النبدق. The insult conveyed by the words of the Sultan Kai-kubad, when speaking of the dead leader of the Mughals, lay in the fact that the golail was not a soldier’s weapon, but merely a sporting implement: “No one would condescend to shoot an arrow at a dead body; it is only a pellet-ball that is fit for such (carrion) as this.”199 We need not pursue the matter further: in the primitive and simple golail is found the musket carried by the Caliph Harun er-Reshid.

From a passage in the “Chachnama,” given in Barnes’ “Travels into Bokhara,” it is clear that the Moslems in their invasion of India relied upon incendiaries to meet the attacks made upon them with elephants, which are very much afraid of fire. At the battle of Alor, 712, already mentioned, the Moslems “filled their pipes” (hukkaha-e atish bazi = grenades or siphons) “and returned with them to dart fire at the elephants” (i. 67). This fact goes far to explain a difficulty raised by the words toofung (musket) and tope (cannon) found in some MSS., in place of the khudung (arrow) and nuft (naphtha) given in other copies of Ferishta’s account of the battle fought near Peshawur in 1008. He says: “On a sudden the elephant upon which the prince who commanded the Hindus rode, becoming unruly from the effects of the naphtha balls and the flights of arrows, turned and fled. This circumstance produced a panic among the Hindus, who, seeing themselves deserted by their general, gave way and fled also.”200 The best critics reject the readings musket and cannon in this passage. These words were unknown to other Indian historians, and the circumstances of the case make the use of an incendiary exceedingly probable.

“I am slow in believing this premature use of artillery,” says Gibbon; “I must desire to scrutinise first the text and then the authority of Ferishta.” “These readings must be due to interpolators,” adds Professor Bury.201 “It appears likely,” says General Briggs, the translator of Ferishta, “that Babar was the first invader who introduced great guns into Upper India, in 1526, so that the words tope and toofung have been probably introduced by ignorant transcribers of the modern copies of this work, which are in general very faulty throughout.”202

Sir H. M. Elliot says: “The Tarikh-i Yamini, the Jami’u-t Tawarikh of Rashidu-d Din, the Tarikh-i Guzida, Abu’l Fida, the Tabakat-i Nasiri, the Rauzatu’-s Safa, the Tarikh-i Alfi and the Tabakat-i Akbari, though almost all of them notice this important engagement... and mention the capture of thirty elephants, yet none of them speak of either naft or tope.”203

Finally, we must remember that there is an abundant supply of naphtha in the neighbourhood of Peshawur,204 and that the practice of throwing incendiary missiles was universal in Asia long before the battle in question. The Ka’aba, as we have seen, was burnt down by incendiaries in 683, and this tremendous event of course became instantly known all over Islam. At the battle of Alor, 712, the Moslems specially prepared incendiaries to repulse the attacks of the elephants. Igneous projectiles were employed by Harun er-Reshid in 805 at the siege of Heraclea. The last day of the siege of Baghdad, 813, is described by the poet Ali as “a day of fire”: “the machines played from the hostile camps... and fire and ruin filled Baghdad.”205 So well known were incendiary shell in Persia at the close of the tenth century that Firdusi mentions them in the episode of Nushirvan and Porphyry: “The Romans began the fight from the gates and discharged arrows and pots (of fire).”206 In 1067 Shems al-Mulk Nasr, when besieging Bokhara, ordered incendiaries to be discharged against some archers posted in the minaret of the Grand Mosque. The wooden roof of the minaret took fire, the sparks fell upon the main building, and in the end the whole mosque was burned down.207

We may rest assured, then, that the words Ferishta wrote in his account of the battle near Peshawur, 1008, were naphtha and arrow, not musket and cannon.

Far from possessing muskets in the ninth century, there is no evidence to show that the Arabs had firearms, that is, arms charged with an explosive, during the whole of the Crusade period, 1097-1291. So strange and deadly an agent of destruction as gunpowder could not possibly have been employed in the field without the full knowledge of both parties; yet no historian, Christian or Moslem, alludes to an explosive of any kind, while all of them carefully record the use of incendiaries. The Arab accounts of these campaigns will be found collected together in M. Reinaud’s Extraits des Historiens Arabes relatifs aux guerres des Croisades, Paris, 1829; the Christian accounts are scattered in various volumes; but they teach us no more than we have learnt already in the two preceding chapters about incendiaries and Greek fire: “les projectiles incendiaires ont pu rester à peu près les mêmes pendant toutes ces Croisades.”208

At the siege of Nice, first Crusade, we read of the Saracens throwing balls of pitch, oil and fat against the machines of the Christians.209 Fire-arrows bearing pitch, wax, sulphur, and tow were discharged from the walls of Jerusalem during the siege in the same Crusade.210

During the second Crusade we find the Arabs making use of similar incendiaries,211 mixtures practically identical with that of Æneas Tacticus, cir. 350 B.C., given in Table II. Shell full of burning naphtha were used at the siege of Acre, 1189-91, in the third Crusade;212 and Richard of England, on his voyage thither, sank a ship which an eye-witness had seen laded at Beyrut with ballista, bows, arrows, and lances, and a large supply of Greek fire secured in bottles (ignem Græcum abundanter in phialis),213 a phrase which reminds us of the 18th recipe of the Liber Ignium of Marcus Græcus: “put the mixture in a glass bottle” (hoc in vase vitreo ponatur). For the sixth Crusade, we have the invaluable Histoire du Roy Saint Loys of Joinville, who describes the terror excited by the incendiaries of the Moslems, believed by all to be the work of the Powers of Darkness. “Quant le bon chevalier Messire Gaultier mon compagnon vit ce feu, il s’escrie et nous dist: Seigneurs, nous sommes perduz á jamais sans nul remède. Car s’ilz bruslent nos chaz chateilz, nous sommes ars et bruslez; et si nous laissons nos gardes, nous sommes ahontez.... Et toutes les fois que nostre bon Roy saint Loys oyoit qu’ils nous gettoient ainsi ce feu, il se jettoit à terre, et tendoit ses mains la face levée au ciel, et crioit à haulte voix à nostre Seigneur, et disoit en pleurant à grans larmes: Beausire Dieu Jesuchrist, garde moy et tout magent,” &c.214 Yet the incendiaries which created all this panic appear to have wounded but few and to have killed nobody!

Although no evidence is forthcoming to show that explosives were used in Palestine during the Crusade period, there is good evidence, it has been said, to prove that gunpowder was used by the Arabs in Spain during the thirteenth century.

The first, I believe, to start the theory that the Spanish Arabs possessed gunpowder at this early period was Michael Casiri, a Maronite, who was librarian of the Escorial and published his Bibliotheca Arabico Hispana Escurialensis in 1760-70; and his method of supporting his theory when translating the MS. of Shehab ben Fadhl, which he dates at 1249, was the simple one of translating barud by pulvis nitratus, the recognised Latin phrase for gunpowder.215 Had he translated barud by saltpetre no difficulty could have arisen, since an Arab alchemist, Abd Allah, states that saltpetre was so called in the West during the second quarter of the thirteenth century.216 There would be nothing surprising, therefore, in finding saltpetre mixtures employed in Spain at this period; but saltpetre mixtures, such as the last three given in Table II., are not necessarily explosive. Not only is Casiri’s translation of barud unwarrantable, but he probably dates his MS. a century too early. M. Reinaud, a safe guide, believes that the MS. is Al-Omari’s, and dates 1349,217 eighteen years after the siege of Cividale where the Germans used cannon,218 and three years after Cressy where we certainly had guns.219

Casiri’s methods are well illustrated by his translation of an Arabic passage relating to the siege of Baza, 1325, by Ismael ben Nasr, King of Granada. The literal translation of the passage is as follows: “He (the King) marched through the enemy’s country to the town of Baza, which he invested and attacked. By means of a great machine provided with naphtha (made up in) hot (burning) balls, he struck the arch of an inaccessible tower.”220 According to Casiri the passage reads: “Shifting his camp, he besieged with a large army the town of Baza, where, by applying fire, he discharged (explosit) with much noise a great machine, provided with naphtha and a ball, into a fortified tower.”221 He introduces, it will be observed, an explosion (explosit) into a passage which neither mentions nor suggests one. The application of fire has no place in the original, and suggests the ignition of an explosive charge. He changes the meaning of the original by gratuitously inserting an and between naphtha and ball, which were one and the same thing. He leaves us to infer that the charge was naphtha, though it was not explosive and could not project a ball. He speaks of the explosion being accompanied by a loud noise, of which there is nothing in the original. The incendiary balls are mentioned in another Arabic account of this siege, translated by Conde in his Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espagna, p. 593: “The Arabs attacked the city night and day with machines and engines which threw balls of fire with a loud noise” (combatio la ciudad de dia y noche con maquinas é ingenios que lanzaban globos de fuego con grandes truenos).

In this passage the discharge of the incendiary balls is said to have been accompanied by “thunderings,” and at the siege of Niébla, 1257, we are again told that the Moors “launched stones and darts from machines, and missiles of thunder with fire” (lanzaban piedras y dardos con maguinas, y tiros de trueno con fuego).222 From this innocent metaphor, trueno con fuego, the Emperor Leo’s “thunder with smoke,” has been wrenched the meaning that the Arabs possessed a train of artillery. “Il n’y a rien à cela que de vraisemblable,” says the Emperor Napoleon III.223 Nothing, I venture to think, can be more unlikely. The Arab writer is dealing with machines which, he says in his own way, discharged stones and darts, and also igneous missiles which burned with much noise. Another Arab, already quoted (p. 4), gives a freer rein to his fancy: the projectiles “roar like thunder; they flame like a furnace; they reduce everything to ashes.” In plain words, they are incendiaries. The writer makes no allusion to the effect of their momentum or shock; he impresses on us the effect of their essential quality—their incendiary power, exaggerating the noise made by their combustion. Joinville writes in a similar style of Greek fire: “La manière du feu grégeois estoit telle... Il faisoit tel bruit à venir qu’il sembloit que ce fust fouldre qui cheust du ciel... et gettoit si grant clarté qu’il faisoit aussi cler dedans nostre ost comme le jour, tant y avoit grant flamme de feu.”224 Unless we make due allowance for the luxuriant Oriental imagination, we may despair of ever being able to reach the meaning of the Eastern writers. One of them wants to explain that the ditch of a fort was deep and wide, and he tells us it was “broad as the ocean and fathomless.”225 Wishing to state that on the arrival of the army on its banks, the Nerbudda, which happened to be in flood, subsided quickly, another writer says: “You might say that it (the river) was a remnant of the universal deluge. As the miraculous power of the saintly Sultan accompanied the Army, all the whirlpools and depths became of themselves immediately dry on the arrival of the Army, and the Musulmans passed over with ease.”226 A similar indulgence in metaphor, although not so unbridled, is found in European writers. For instance, Vegetius likens the projectile hurled by an onager to a thunderbolt;227 and the Princess Anna Comnena compares the fiery particles blown by the breath through a popgun, or spitfire, to lightning.228

It is hardly necessary to examine the accounts given by Conde of the siege of Tarifa, 1340, and by Casiri of the siege of Algesiras, 1342, since both sieges took place some years after that of Cividale, 1331. The reader will find the two accounts ably analysed in Reinaud and Favé, pp. 70-74.

If the Arabs had possessed an explosive in the thirteenth century, the fact must have been known to their alchemists, and they show no such knowledge. There is not an allusion to saltpetre in the Leyden Arabic MS. of 1225.229 Hassan er-Rammah, who died in 1295, knew nothing of explosives. In speaking of saltpetre in the year 1311, Yusuf ibn Ismaël al-Juni says: “The people of Irak use it to make a fire which tends to rise and move. Saltpetre increases the ease and rapidity of ignition.”230 This sentence contains the sum total of Yusuf’s knowledge of saltpetre mixtures. He was aware of the effects of their progressive combustion, but he knew nothing about their explosive combustion.

By whomsoever gunpowder was invented, it was not by the Arabs.