Abbasid
Abbasid (
Arabic: العبّاسيّون,
Abbāsīyūn) is the dynastic name generally given to the
caliph of
Baghdad, the second of the two great
Sunni dynasties of the
Islamic empire, that overthrew the
Umayyad caliphs from all but
Spain. It seized power in
750, when it finally defeated the Umayyads in battle, and 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 Iran they were forced to cede power to local dynasties who only nominally acknowledged their power and cede the Maghreb to independent Aghlabids. Their rule was finally 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.
The Abbasid caliphs officially based their claim to the caliphate on their descent from
Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (AD
566-
652), one of the youngest uncles of the Islamic prophet
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 secularism, moral character, and administration in general. 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 the prophet 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, he achieved considerable successes, but was captured (AD
747) and died in prison (as some hold, assassinated). The quarrel was taken up by his brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-'Abbas
as-Saffah, who, after a decisive victory on the
Greater Zab River (
750), finally crushed the Umayyads and was proclaimed Caliph.
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
Córdoba as a rival to Baghdad as the legitimate capital of the Islamic Empire.
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.
At the same time the Abbasids faced challenges closer to home. The
Byzantine Empire was fighting Abbasid rule in
Syria and
Anatolia. 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. In the ensuing centuries the Iranian territories would only nominally remain under the Caliphs rule and power would be held by various local political factions who usurped the caliphs authority; the first of whom were the
Saffarids and the chief of whom were the
Buyids who for time even ruled from
Baghdad; or those politically supported factions who only nominally supported the caliphs authority such as the
Tahirid and the
Samanids.The eventual rise of the
Ghaznavid Empire and the
Seljuks to displace all these factions marked the end of
Abbassid political dominion over the area.
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 deal with 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 before being overthrown by the
Seljuq Turks. In the same period, the
Hamdanids, another Shi'ite dynasty, came to power in northern Iraq, leading to a tremendous expansion of Shi'a influence. In the process, the Abbasid caliphs became no more than figureheads.
|
Julius Köckert's painting of Harun al-Rashid receiving the delegation of Charlemagne demonstrates diplomatic contacts between their respective domains. |
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.
[Hamilton Gibb. Studies on the civilization of Islam. Princeton University Press. 1982. ISBN 0691053545 p.66] 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."[Bertold Spuler. The Muslim World. Vol.I The Age of the Caliphs. Leiden. E.J. Brill. 1960 ISBN 0685233286 p.29]A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule played a role in transmitting
Greek,
Hindu, and other pre-Islamic knowledge 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
Euclides and Claudius
Ptolemy. These recovered mathematical methods were later enhanced and developed by other Islamic scholars, notably by
Al-Biruni, and
Abu Nasr Mansur.
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. 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.
Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad on (
February 10,
1258), causing great loss of life. Hulagu and many others feared an earthquake or other shock to nature occurring if the blood of
Al-Musta'sim, the last reigning Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, a direct descendent of Mohammed's uncle, was spilled. Despite having taken advice from Learned Shiites that no such calamity had happened after the deaths of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, or the Shiite saint Hosein, as a precaution Hulagu had Al-Musta'sim wrapped in a carpet and then trodden to death by horses on
February 20, 1258. Al-Musta'sim family was also executed, with the lone exceptions of his youngest son and a daughter who was sent to Mongolia to be a slave in the harem of Hulagu.
[Annals of history: Invaders: Destroying Baghdad by Ian Frazier, in The New Yorker 25 April 2005]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 to
Constantinople by
Selim I.
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An overview of the geneological history of the Abbasids. The names in bold are those of caliphs. |
*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*
Al-Mustansir 1261*
Al-Hakim I (Cairo) 1262-
1302*
Al-Mustakfi I of Cairo 1303532-
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*
History of Islam* http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/itl/denise/abbasids.htm
* http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/sources/baghdad.htm
*
Abbasids the 2nd dynasty of caliphs*
BBC Podcast on the subject of the Abbasid Caliphs (In Our Time, Radio 4)
