Factions

[ScionTheWorm]

ABBASID KHALIPHATE


In 744 the Umayyad dynasty had ruled the vast Muslim empire for almost a century. Lax Umayyad control had led to unrest in several regions, especially Iraq and Persia. The Abbasids was a family who gained wide popularity among the Muslims. There were many reasons. One important reason was that they claimed kinship to the Prophet through one of his younger uncles Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, unlike the Umayyads who claimed kinship through Umayya who was married to one of the Prophets daughters. Other two reasons, was that the Abbasids attacked the Umayyad secularity which garnered more support, and perhaps the main reason being that they appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of Arab culture and were at best second-class citizens within the Umayyad empire.

In the years 744-750 the Abbasids was in open rebellion against the Umayyads, lead by Ibrahim the Imam. They had as aforementioned, much support, especially from the eastern Persian province of Khorasan. The Abbasids made considerable success, although Ibrahim was captured and killed in 747. His brother Abdallah (better known as Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah) took up the mantle of leadership and in 750 he crushed the Umayyads at the battle of Zab River, and became Caliph. In the next six years, the remaining Umayyads were hunted down and executed. In 756 all but one, were massacred at a dinner party, and the sole survivor Abd ar-Rahman fled to Iberia where he established the emirate of al-Andalus.

The Abbasids had received much support from the Persians, and now they had to reward them.
Abu al-'Abbas' successor, al-Mansur, moved the 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.
The orientation of Islam also changed. Under the Muslim expansion in the 7th century and the Umayyads Islam had been oriented towards the Mediterranean, but under the Abbasids, Islam got a more eastwards orientation.

Another issue, was the Sunni-Shia schism. Many Shia muslims had supported the Abbasids, due to their familial connection to Muhammad. However, 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.

The overthrow of the Umayyads and the establishment of al-Andalus as a seperate Muslim state outside the Muslim empire was the beginning of the end of Muslim unity. 50 years after the Umayyad overthrow, the Abbasids had lost control of the provinces west for Libya, and the Abbasids also faced challenges closer to home. The Byzantine Empire was fighting Abbasid rule in Syria and Anatolia, while former supporters had formed a seperate kingdom in Khorasan in Persia.

During this time, Abbasid armies were raised by provincial commanders, whose soldiers owed their loyalty to them, and not the Caliph. This caused the Abbasids some concern during the tumoultous times, as some commanders revolted and founded their own kingdoms. The caliph al-Ma'mun and his brother and successor al-Mu'tasim decided to create an army of their own, loyal to the Caliph and no one else. This army was mainly made up of Turks of slave origin, called Mamluks, as well as some Slavs and Berbers. This helped them more in quelling rebellions, but in the end the Mamluks ended up gaining more power which lead to much unrest in 10th century when Shi'te dynasties occupied parts of Iraq.

But Abbasid rule was not only unrest and wars. Under Harun al-Rashid and his succesors, a greate age og intellectual achievemant was fostered. Ancient Greek, Hindu and other pre-Islamic knowledge was translated into Arabic and stored in libraries, and this contributed to making, for example 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 Euclides and Claudius Ptolemy, and these recovered mathematical methods were later enhanced and developed by other Islamic scholars.

The Abbasid power declined in the 10th century and 11th centuries, especially with the arrival of the Seljuq Turks. The Abbasids remained as figureheads in Baghdad until Hulegu Khan and the Mongols sacked the city in 1258 and killed the caliph. The Abbasids still maintained a feeble show of authority, confined to religious matters, in Egypt under the Mamluks, but the dynasty finally disappeared with Motawakkil III, who was carried away as a prisoner to Constantinople by Selim I.