Abbasid Caliphate
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The Abbasid Caliphate (Arabic: العبّاسيّون, al-‘Abbāsīyūn) was the second of the two great Muslim caliphates of the Arab Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus. It was built by the descendant of Muhammad's youngest uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. It was created in Harran in 750 of the Christian era and shifted its capital in AD 762 from Harran to Baghdad. It flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. Within 150 years of gaining power across Persia, they were forced to cede power to local dynastic amirs who only nominally acknowledged their power, and had to cede Al Andalus to an escaped Umayyad royal and the Maghreb and Ifriqiya to independent entities such as the Aghlabids and the Fatimids. Their rule was ended in 1258, when Hulagu Khan, the Mongol conqueror, sacked Baghdad. While they continued to claim authority in religious matters from their base in Egypt, the dynasty's secular authority had ended. Descendants of the Abbasids include the al-Abbasi tribe who live northeast of Tikrit in modern-day Iraq.[citation needed]
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[edit] Rise
The Abbasid caliphs officially based their claim to the caliphate on their descent from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566 – 662), one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, by virtue of which descent they regarded themselves as the rightful heirs of Muhammad as opposed to the Umayyads. The Umayyads were descended from Umayya, and were a clan separate from Muhammad's in the Quraish tribe.
The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character and administration in general. According to Ira Lapidus "The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali".[1] The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of Arab culture and were perceived of as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Muhammad ibn 'Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign for the return of power to the family of Muhammad, the Hashimites, in Persia during the reign of Umar II, Muhammad ibn Ali.
During the reign of Marwan II, this opposition culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam, the fourth in descent from Abbas. Supported by the province of Khorasan, Iran, he achieved considerable successes, but was captured in the year 747 and died in prison; some hold that he was assassinated. The quarrel was taken up by his brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah, who, with victory on the Greater Zab River (750), defeated the Umayyads and was proclaimed Caliph.
[edit] Political Situation
[edit] Consolidation and schisms
The first change the Abbasids made was to move their the empire's capital from Damascus, in Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq. This was to both appease as well to be closer to the Persian mawali support base that existed in this region more influenced by Persian history and culture, and part of the Persian mawali demand for less Arab dominance in the empire. Baghdad was established on the Tigris River in 762. A new position, that of the vizier, was also established to delegate central authority, and even greater authority was delegated to local emirs. Eventually, this meant that many Abbasid caliphs were eventually relegated to a more ceremonial role than under the Umayyads, as the viziers began to exert greater influence, and the role of the old Arab aristocracy was slowly replaced by a Persian bureaucracy.[2]
[edit] Rift with the Arabs
The Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads. Abu al-'Abbas' successor, al-Mansur, moved their capital from Damascus to the new city of Baghdad and welcomed non-Arab Muslims to their court. While this helped integrate Arab and Persian cultures, it alienated many of their Arab supporters, particularly the Khorasanian Arabs who had supported them in their battles against the Umayyads.
These fissures in their support led to immediate problems. The Umayyads, while out of power, were not destroyed. The only surviving member of the Umayyad royal family, which had been all but annihilated, ultimately made his way to Spain where he established himself as an independent Emir (Abd ar-Rahman I, 756). In 929, Abd ar-Rahman III assumed the title of Caliph, establishing Al Andalus from Córdoba as a rival to Baghdad as the legitimate capital of the Islamic Empire.
[edit] Rift with the Shia
The Abbasids also found themselves at odds with the Shias, many of whom had supported their war against the Umayyads, since the Abbasids claimed legitimacy by their familial connection to Muhammed. Once in power, the Abbasids embraced Sunni Islam and disavowed any support for Shi'a beliefs. That led to numerous conflicts, culminating in an uprising in Mecca in 786, followed by widespread bloodshed and the flight of many Shi'a to the Maghreb, where the survivors established the Idrisid kingdom. Shortly thereafter, Berber Kharijites set up an independent state in North Africa in 801.
[edit] Loss of North Africa
Within 50 years the Idrisids in the Maghreb and Aghlabids of Ifriqiya and a little later the Tulunids and Ikshidids of Misr were effectively independent in Africa.
[edit] Communication with Provinces
The Abbasid leadership had to work hard in the last half of the eighth century (750-800), under several competent caliphs and their viziers to overcome the political challenges created by the far flung nature of the empire, and the limited communication across it and usher in the administrative changes to keep order.[3] While the Byzantine Empire was fighting Abbasid rule in Syria and Anatolia, military operations during this period were minimal, as the caliphate focused on internal matters as local governors, who, as a matter of prodecure, operated mostly independently of central authority. The problem that the caliphs faced was that these governors had begun to exert greater autonomy, using their increasing power to make their positions hereditary.[2]
[edit] Fracture of Central Authority
Even by 820, the Samanids had begun the process of exercising independent authority in Transoxiana and Greater Khorasan, the Shia Hamdanids in Northern Syria, and the successive Tahirid, Alid and Saffarid dynasties of Iran. By the early 10th century, the Abbasids almost lost control to the growing Persian faction known as the Buwayhids that replaced the Samanids as the Buwayhids were quietly able to assume real power in the bureaucracy at Baghdad.
All these autonomous provinces slowly took on the characteristic of de facto states with hereditary rulers, armies, and revenues and operated under only nominal caliphal suzeranity, which may not necessarily be reflected by any contribution to the treasury.[3] The eventual rise of the Ghaznavid Empire and the Seljuks to displace all these factions marked the end of Abbasid political dominion over the area.
[edit] Loss of Power
Mahmud of Ghazni took the title of sultan, as opposed to the "amir" that had been in more common usage, signifying the Ghaznavid Empire's independence from Caliphial authority even as a matter of form. By the 11th century, the loss of respect for the caliphs had gone even further, as the Seljuks, Khwarezmshahs, Almoravids and other Islamic rulers no longer mentioned the caliph's name in the Friday Khutba, or struck it off their coinage[3]. The Fatimids contested the Abbasids for even the titular authority. The Buwayhids were defeated in the mid-11th century with the aid of the Seljuks under Toghril Beg; however, the Seljuks then themselves took over de facto lordship of the Empire, and the Caliph bestowed on Toghril Beg the title of Sultan of the East and the West. The Seljuks publicly pledged allegiance to the Caliph, but left him in control of little actual terrritory beyond Baghdad.[3] Caliph Al-Muqtafi was the 1st Abbasid Caliph to regain the independence of the Caliphate,after nearly 250 years of foreign rule,he successfully defended Baghdad against the Seljuqs,thus securing Iraq for the Abbasids. see Seljuk siege of Baghdad 1157
[edit] The end of the dynasty
Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad on (February 10, 1258), causing great loss of life. Muslims feared that supernatural disaster would strike if the blood of Al-Musta'sim, the last reigning Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, a direct descendent of Muhammad's uncle, was spilled. Despite the advice of the Learned Shiites of Persia that no such calamity had happened after the deaths of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, or the Shiite saint Hosein, as a precaution, Hulagu, in accordance with a Mongol taboo which forbade spilling royal blood, had Al-Musta'sim wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death by horses on February 20, 1258. The Al-Musta'sim family was also executed, with the lone exceptions of his youngest son and a daughter who were sent to Mongolia to be slaves in the harem of Hulagu.[4]
The Abbasids still maintained a feeble show of authority, confined to religious matters, in Egypt under the Mamluks, but the dynasty finally disappeared with Al-Mutawakkil III, who was carried away as a prisoner of the palace to Constantinople by Selim I where he only had a ceremonial role, until his death when the Caliphate title was transferred to Selim I.
[edit] Golden Age
- Further information: Early Islamic philosophy and Inventions in the Muslim world
The Islamic Golden Age was inaugurated by the middle of the 8th century by the ascension of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad.[5] The Abbassids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "the ink of scientists is more holy then the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge.[5] During this period the Muslim world became the unrivaled intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established a "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad; where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic.[5] Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and later in turn translated into Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Latin.[5] During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which collected, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Greek and Byzantine civilizations.[5]
At the same time, the Abbasids faced challenges closer to home. Former supporters of the Abbasids had broken away to create a separate kingdom around Khorosan in northern Persia. Harun al-Rashid (786 – 809) turned on the Barmakids, a Persian family that had grown significantly in power within the administration of the state.
[edit] Science under the Abbasids
- Further information: Alchemy (Islam), Islamic astronomy, Islamic mathematics, Islamic medicine, and Timeline of science and technology in the Islamic world
The reigns of Harun al-Rashid (786 – 809) and his successors fostered an age of great intellectual achievement. In large part, this was the result of the schismatic forces that had undermined the Umayyad regime, which relied on the assertion of the superiority of Arab culture as part of its claim to legitimacy, and the Abbasids' welcoming of support from non-Arab Muslims. It is well established that the Abbasid caliphs modeled their administration on that of the Sassanids.[6] One Abbasid caliph is even quoted as saying:
- "The Persians ruled for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs even for a day. We have been ruling them for one or two centuries and cannot do without them for an hour."[7]
A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule played a role in transmitting Islamic science to the Christian West. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. In addition, the period saw the recovery of much of the Alexandrian mathematical, geometric and astronomical knowledge, such as that of Euclid and Claudius Ptolemy. These recovered mathematical methods were later enhanced and developed much further by other Islamic scholars, notably by Al-Biruni, and Abu Nasr Mansur.
Algebra was also pioneered by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī during this time in his landmark text, Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala, from which the term algebra is derived. The terms algorism and algorithm are also derived from the name of al-Khwarizmi, who was responsible for introducing the Arabic numerals and Hindu-Arabic numeral system beyond the Indian subcontinent.
Medicine was an area of science that advanced particularly during the Abbasids' reign. During the ninth century, Baghdad contained over 800 doctors, and great discoveries in the understanding of anatomy and diseases were made. The clinical distinction between measles and smallpox was discovered during this time. Famous scientist Ibn Sina (known to the West as Avicenna) produced treatises and works that summarized the vast amount of knowledge that scientists had accumulated, and is often known as the father of modern medicine for his encyclopedias, The Canon of Medicine and The Book of Healing. The work of him and many others directly influenced the research of European scientists during the Renaissance and even later.
Three speculative thinkers, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam, and Avicennism was later established as a result.
[edit] Role of the Mamluks
In the 9th century, the Abbasids created an army loyal only to their caliphate, drawn mostly from Turkish slaves, known as Mamluks, with some Slavs and Berbers participating as well. This force, created in the reign of al-Ma'mun (813 – 833), and his brother and successor al-Mu'tasim (833 – (842), prevented the further distintegration of the empire.
The Mamluk army, though often viewed negatively, both helped and hurt the caliphate. Early on, it provided the government with a stable force to address domestic and foreign problems. However, creation of this foreign army and al-Mu'tasim's transfer of the capital from Baghdad to Samarra created a division between the caliphate and the peoples they claimed to rule. In addition, the power of the Mamluks steadily grew until al-Radi (934 – 941) was constrained to hand over most of the royal functions to Mahommed bin Raik. In the following years, the Buwayhids, who were Shi'ites, seized power over Baghdad, ruling central Iraq for more than a century.
[edit] List of Abbasid Caliphs
[edit] Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad
- Abu'l Abbas As-Saffah 750 - 754
- Al-Mansur 754 - 775
- Al-Mahdi 775 - 785
- Al-Hadi 785 - 786
- Harun al-Rashid 786 - 809
- Al-Amin 809 - 813
- Al-Ma'mun 813 - 833
- Al-Mu'tasim 833 - 842
- Al-Wathiq 842 - 847
- Al-Mutawakkil 847 - 861
- Al-Muntasir 861 - 862
- Al-Musta'in 862 - 866
- Al-Mu'tazz 866 - 869
- Al-Muhtadi 869 - 870
- Al-Mu'tamid 870 - 892
- Al-Mu'tadid 892 - 902
- Al-Muktafi 902 - 908
- Al-Muqtadir 908 - 932
- Al-Qahir 932 - 934
- Ar-Radi 934 - 940
- Al-Muttaqi 940 - 944
- Al-Mustakfi 944 - 946
- Al-Muti 946 - 974
- At-Ta'i 974 - 991
- Al-Qadir 991 - 1031
- Al-Qa'im 1031 - 1075
- Al-Muqtadi 1075 - 1094
- Al-Mustazhir 1094 - 1118
- Al-Mustarshid 1118 - 1135
- Ar-Rashid 1135 - 1136
- Al-Muqtafi 1136 - 1160
- Al-Mustanjid 1160 - 1170
- Al-Mustadi 1170 - 1180
- An-Nasir 1180 - 1225
- Az-Zahir 1225 - 1226
- Al-Mustansir 1226 - 1242
- Al-Musta'sim 1242 - 1258
[edit] Abbasid Caliphs in Cairo
- Al-Mustansir 1261-1262
- Al-Hakim I (Cairo) 1262-1302
- Al-Mustakfi I of Cairo 1303-1340
- Al-Wathiq I 1340-1341
- Al-Hakim II 1341-1352
- Al-Mu'tadid I 1352-1362
- Al-Mutawakkil I 1362-1383
- Al-Wathiq II 1383-1386
- Al-Mu'tasim 1386-1389
- Al-Mutawakkil I (restored) 1389-1406
- Al-Musta'in 1406-1414
- Al-Mu'tadid II 1414-1441
- Al-Mustakfi II 1441-1451
- Al-Qa'im 1451-1455
- Al-Mustanjid 1455-1479
- Al-Mutawakkil II 1479-1497
- Al-Mustamsik 1497-1508
- Al-Mutawakkil III 1508-1517
[edit] Notes
- ^ Ira Lapidus. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. 2002 ISBN 0-521-77056-4 p.54
- ^ a b Applied History Research Group , University of Calgary, "[http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/fractured/ The Islamic World to 1600", Last accessed August 26, 2006
- ^ a b c d Brauer, Ralph W, Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography, Diane Publishing Co., Dec 1, 1995, ISBN 0-87169-856-0, pg 7-10.
- ^ Annals of history: Invaders: Destroying Baghdad by Ian Frazier, in The New Yorker 25 April, 2005
- ^ a b c d e Vartan Gregorian, "Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith", Brookings Institution Press, 2003, pg 26-38 ISBN 081573283X
- ^ Hamilton Gibb. Studies on the civilization of Islam. Princeton University Press. 1982. ISBN 0-691-05354-5 p.66
- ^ Bertold Spuler. The Muslim World. Vol.I The Age of the Caliphs. Leiden. E.J. Brill. 1960 ISBN 0-685-23328-6 p.29
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] External links
- Abbasids (750-1517)
- Abbasids the 2nd dynasty of caliphs
- Abbasid Caliphs (In Our Time, Radio 4), in Streaming RealAudio
- An On-Going Detailed Account of the History of the Abbasids from an Islamic perspective. Most of the narrations have been sifted through to avoid "biased" theories regardless if the historians as mentioned are Shiite or Sunni.
- Abbasid Caliphate entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica
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