Abbasid Dynasty
Overview
The Abbasids were the descendants of Prophet Muhammad's uncle Abbas and they used this fact to legitimize their claim to the caliphate. After the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750 CE, Abu Abbas As-Saffah – “the bloodthirsty” (r. 750-754 CE) was declared caliph. Umayyad graves in Syria were dug out and their remains were burnt, and the living male members were all massacred, all save one – Abd al-Rahman I, who escaped the Abbasids, making a perilous journey to Al Andalus, where he established the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba (in 756 CE), which would rival the Abbasids in elegance and grandeur.
Al Mansur (r. 754-775 CE), the successor of As-Saffah, created a new capital near the Tigris river – Baghdad (in modern-day Iraq) – a city that surpassed all European cities of the time in every standard. Artists, architects, scholars, poets, historians, scientists, astrologists, mathematicians, and other people of many fields contributed to the elevation of the city, transforming it into a hub of learning and culture in the Islamic empire.
Under Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-789 CE), the most famous of the Abbasids (who has also been featured prominently in folktales and legends), the Grand Library of Baghdad – the Bayt al Hikma (House of Wisdom) was established which became the center of learning of the world. Here, the classic works of the Greeks were translated into Arabic and, in time, it would largely be because of the Bayt al-Hikma that the European Renaissance would take place as all of the Greek manuscripts would have been otherwise lost. His reign is remembered as the golden age of the Abbasids; not only did his government make great advances in administration but he also showed great competence in battle by leading armies into Asia Minor on successful military campaigns against the Byzantines in 806 CE.
His decision to divide the empire between his two sons: Al-Amin and Al-Ma'mun led to an expensive civil war after his death, out of which Al-Ma'mun (r. 813-833 CE) emerged victorious. This civil war was one of the major causes for the collapse of the empire. Al-Ma'mun was a patron of arts and learning but not as politically active as his predecessors and did not even have the same respect for his faith. With the death of Al-Ma'mun, the zenith of the empire was also lost, in fact even during his reign, different regions of the empire had started to break away in the form of separate emirates.
The contestants for caliphate started relying heavily upon Turkish bodyguards for gaining the throne, since the empire was almost always in a state of civil war. The sheer cost of these private armies and incompetent rulers who could not maintain a tight grip over the vast empire rendered them virtually bankrupt. Moreover, in 909 CE a rival Shia (anti-) Caliphate appeared in western parts of North Africa and then spread all the way to Egypt and Hejaz, who referred to themselves as the Fatimids – the descendants of Fatima, the Prophet's daughter (these Shias were from a radical sect called the Seveners – as they believed in seven imams, instead of the mainstream Shia Muslims we are familiar with today, who believe in a different lineage of twelve imams). The Fatimids would continue to operate until 1171 CE when they were abolished by Saladin (l. 1137-1193 CE), who brought Egypt under the suzerainty of the Abbasids.
Adding to these fragmentations, the Abbasids, themselves Sunnis, had now come to be dominated by a Shia Iranian empire called the Buyids – named after their founder Ali ibn Buya (l. c. 891-949 CE). In 945 CE, the Buyids captured Baghdad and reduced the caliphs to mere figurehead. The Buyids were then overthrown in 1055 CE by the Seljuks, a Turkic tribe from central Asia who had accepted the Sunni version of Islam in the 11th century CE and began expanding their empire all the way to Asia Minor. The Seljuks captured Baghdad but nothing changed for the caliphs; they retained only their titles. The Seljuks fell just as swiftly as they rose and, by the 12th century CE they were no longer the strong and formidable force they had been. They were mere spectators in the Crusades (1095-1291 CE), a conflict that had been initiated by their rise and the threat they had posed to the Byzantine Empire after the Battle of Manzikert (1071 CE). The Abbasids used this opportunity to gain complete, although short-lived, autonomy.
A new threat, however, now emerged from the steppes of Central Asia: the Mongols. Caliph Al-Must'asim (r. 1242-1258 CE), the last of the formal Abbasid rulers, was besieged in his own capital in 1258 CE by Hulegu Khan's forces. The entire city was leveled, its population was massacred, and Al-Must'asim was rolled in a carpet and trampled under the hooves of horses. With the destruction of Baghdad, the Abbasid rule came to an end, though shadow-caliphs continued to live in Cairo but apart from the title, they had nothing, not even any symbolic significance.
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