AboutDavid Expertise I am an expert in Middle Eastern history, and Israeli history in particular. My main focus is Biblical analysis, the origins of Islam, and medieval and modern historical events in Israel. Everything you see happening in the world today, has a history.
Experience I am a free-lance writer who has previously lived in, and studied the history of, Israel.
Organizations I contribute to the One Israel Fund and will be joining CAMERA shortly.
Question "I want to know about muslims' culture,politics & societies during abbasid era"kindly giv me a detailed info
Answer Hi Saima,
I don't know if it's possible to give you DETAILED information here, but I'll do my best and then I'll give you some websites that you can take a look at.
After the death of Mohammed in Arabia in 632, Arab tribes began infiltrating neighboring non-Arab, non-Muslim territories in order to conquer and convert these territories to Islam. In the process though, they themselves settled in the conquered areas where either they, or Islam in general, became the dominating majority, at the expense of the native inhabitants. One newly-formed Muslim center was the ancient town of Harran which is today in SE Turkey. This is, supposedly where Abu al Abbas Abdullah as Safah, a descendant of one of Mohammed's uncles, formed the Abbasid dynasty. Before long, this dynasty became strong enough to defeat the ruling Ummayyad dynasty in battle at the Great Zab River. The Abbasids also made an alliance with the Persian Muslims. Under the Arab Ummayyads, the Persians, being non-Arabs, were often treated as second class citizens. Under Abbasid rule, an uneasy sense of unity was formed among all the Muslim tribes in the Middle East and beyond.
At its height, the Abbasid Empire stretched from, what is today, the Western Sahara to Iran and the western edges of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This period lasted from 750 to 1258. The first capital of the empire was at Harran and then Damascus. In 754, the caliphs moved the capital to Baghdad. This move was so they could be geographically close to their Persian allies, and also because it was considered centrally located in the Arab world at that time. The capital at Baghdad lasted as long as the empire itself. This was considered the most glorious era in Islamic history, with the pomp and splendor that characterized the Baghdad court. Persian and Arab cultures began to be intertwined resulting in a flourishing civilization best exemplified in the stories of Aladdin, Ali Baba, A Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad, etc. The Arab patriarchal system began to be replaced by the Persian bureacratic system. Science and philosophy, first learned from the resident Assyrians, Jews, Persians, Armenians and Greeks, were taken to new levels. The empire formed part of the Silk Road trade route and Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Basra were major commercial centers. But the mingling with non-Arab cultures caused resentment among many Arab tribes and that, in turn, caused a lot of unrest. Also, the Abbasids were Sunni Muslims and there was a large Shiite population in the empire which didn't exactly help with internal stability. With the cycle of uprising followed by repression, the opponents of the Abbasids fled and established their own breakaway independent kingdoms in North Africa and Spain, thus weakening the empire. Finally, in 1258, the empire was destroyed by the non-Muslim Mongol hordes from the central Asian steppes. However, the Abbasids weren't totally wiped out. In 1261, the survivors escaped to Cairo where they became subservient figureheads of the ruling Mamluk sultans. This state of affairs lasted until 1517 when all of Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
