How did the Abbasid dynasty originate?
Within the early years of Abbasid rule, the first two caliphs consolidated power against rivals, some of whom had been their collaborators against the Umayyads. Then there was the problem of the Umayyads themselves, which the first Abbasid caliph tried to solve by exterminating the dynasty’s surviving elites. One of them, the story goes, managed to escape to Iberia, and there laid the foundation for an Andalusian extension of Umayyad rule in Spain. Meanwhile, back in Iraq, by 756 the Abbasid family had been firmly established as the ruling dynasty. The family traced its ancestral legitimacy to Muhammad’s uncle Abbas, hence the name Abbasids, descendants of Abbas. It was Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) who decided he needed a distinctive seat of power by distancing the Abbasids from the first dynastic capitol of Damascus. Emulating the royal dynasties of Sasanian (and Zoroastrian) Persia, he selected a site not far from Ctesiphon, a Persian royal palace in central Iraq—a statement not only that they would act like kings (though they had denounced the Umayyads for that very affectation), but that Islamic rule was now to be centered squarely in conquered territory in very new surroundings. There they founded the new city of Baghdad, proclaiming with its innovative round plan that it would be a symbol of openness to the wider world. It soon outgrew not only its Per-sian archetype, Ctesiphon, but Constantinople as well.
What were some of the greatest achievements of the Umayyads?
Muawiyah (r. 661–680) appointed strong governors over newly conquered territories, developed a highly refined system of diplomacy to keep the peace, and slowly increased the expanse of military expeditions. The caliph exchanged his power base in the tribal coalitions for a centralized monarchy and further expanded the military and administrative power of the state. Numerous factions continued to undermine his rule, however, and upon his death in 682, the Second Civil War (682–692) broke out with several groups fighting for power against Muawiya’s son, Yazid (r. 680–683) and later by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (r. 685–705). Again the Shia reasserted themselves and promoted the cause of Ali’s younger son, Husayn, but he became the first Shi’i martyr in 680 against the Umayyad general Yazid at Karbala (in southern Iraq). Again the Kharijis also rebelled, engaging in guerilla warfare with small armed bands, arguing that they were the only true Muslims. In time, Abd al-Malik brought the empire under Umayyad control through force, in turn weakening the dynasty further by stimulating still more factional discontent. Abd al-Malik remains, however, best known for creating the stunningly beautiful Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, completed in 692. His successors also expanded the empire westward all the way to Gibraltar and southern Iberia by 711 and inland to France by 732; and eastward as far as the Indus River in what is now Pakistan. During a Third Civil War in 743, anti-Umayyad forces gathered steam, undermining the regime and ending it definitively in 750.
What are some of the signature features of the Abbasid dynasty?
The Abbasids looked back to the example of the legendary Umayyad Caliph Umar II in promoting the equality of all Muslims. Recruiting capable bureaucrats from across the empire, they organized new armies and new groups of administrators with the specific intent of weakening a prior pattern of privileging the Arab elite. Since the Umayyad armies had already expanded Muslim administrative control across an enormous expanse of territory, the Abbasids could replace a huge expeditionary capability with a smaller force at the center and a structure of frontier forces sufficient to maintain farflung holdings. The Abbasid shift to a new expression of global diversity manifested itself in administrative appointments: Nestorian Christians, Shi’ites, Jews, and non-Arab Muslims, were given considerable authority in an increasingly complex centralized governmental structure. For example, the Abbasids created a chancery to deal with records and correspondence, bureaus for tax collection, and a kind of “exchequer” to manage expenses of the caliphs, including the army, court, and pensioners.
How long did the Abbasid dynasty last, and how did the Abbasids manage such a vast empire?
With conquered territories stretching from North Africa through the Middle East, across Persian and Central Asia and into South Asia, the administrative task facing the Abbasids was mind-boggling in scope. The logistical challenges soon manifested themselves in the slow undermining of Baghdad’s control at the periphery. Governors in the outlying provinces took advantage of the caliph’s increasing inability to extract taxes to pay mounting bills in the capital and immediately surrounding lands. This included challenges maintaining the loyalty of mercenary Turkic slave-soldier troops the Abbasids preferred as palace guards (since using Arab troops would have made them vulnerable to age-old inter-tribal feuding and mutiny). Within a scant seventy-five years of its founding, the Abbasid dynasty began to lose frontier provinces as governors refused to pay taxes and declared de facto independence. By the mid-tenth century, effective Abbasid control had shrunk to the Central Middle East—and not the whole of that—as governors proclaimed themselves emirs, and emirs claimed the “universal” authority as caliphs and thus direct rivals to Baghdad’s rule. Though some regions continued to mention the name of the “reigning” Abbasid at Friday prayers, the nod was largely an empty formality. More ominously still, in 945 a powerful Shia family called the Buyids managed to assume effective control, becoming the power behind the throne in Baghdad.
This map shows the widest extent of the Umayyad Empire around the year 750 C.E. (The country boundaries indicated are modern).
What are some of the key turning points in Abbasid history?
In 1055, invading Saljuqid Turks took Baghdad and created a two-track administrative structure in which a (Saljuqid Turkish) Sultan wielded actual temporal power, reducing the (Abbasid Arab) caliph to the role of a largely symbolic spiritual authority. The Saljuqids had converted to Sunni Islam in Central Asia and had as one of their goals the eradication of Shi’i power, and to that end they began a system of higher educational institutions called madrasas, a development that spread rapidly in other political regimes as well. A succession of smaller dynasties continued to rule a much diminished Baghdad, all nominally acknowledging the Abbasid caliph’s authority, until an invasion by Mongol descendants of Genghis Khan in 1258 sealed the fate of the Abbasids. Various other dynasties continued to claim the title of caliph until the early twentieth century, but the office remained largely ceremonial.
What are the origins and early history of the Crusades?
Muslims had occupied Jerusalem since 638, but it was not until 1095 that Pope Urban II called for a crusade at the Council of Clermont. One proximate cause was the defeat of a Byzantine force by a Turkish army at Manzikert in eastern Anatolia in 1071. That Saljuqid Turkish expeditionary force represented the first significant incursion of a Muslim power into the home land of the Byzantine Empire. Under Muslim rule, Christians were allowed to practice their faith. Stories that the invaders had desecrated Christian spaces and mistreated Christians gradually fueled conviction that Christians needed to