Abbasid Decline

1
Abbasid Decline The Spread of Islamic
Civilization

• Stearns Chapter 7

2
Trouble in the Abbasid Empire

• After only one hundred years, during the Abbasid
  Caliphate begin to lose control over the Muslim
  Empire
• Imperial excesses
• Unimaginable wealth in Baghdad
• Excessive and extravagant mosque and palace
  construction
• Thousands of imperial followers wives,
  concubines, aides, eunuchs

3

• Political Problems
• Still succession questions no choice with regard
  to which son would follow, wives compete for
  their child. Sometimes resulting in civil war.
• Caliphs begin amassing personal armies costing
  great wealth
• Some caliphs build extravagant palaces outside
  Baghdad to escape the violence of the city-More
  money!
• Heavily taxed peasantry protests and uprisings
  follow
• Conflicts with Shia
• Frequent revolts and assassination attempts
• Political advisors (wazir) gain power and
  influence (Jafar)!

4

• Territorial loss in the hinterlands of the empire
• Independent kingdoms arise in some areas
• The Buyids of Persia capture Baghdad in 945
  (dont need to know)
• Caliphs now puppets for these newcomers
• Buyid eventually supplanted by Seljuk Turks from
  Central Asia (Need to know)
• More expansion through Byzantine lands Asia Minor

5
The Declining Role of Women

• Creation of the harem in the Abbasid court
• Wives and concubines restricted to forbidden
  quarters of the palace
• Sometimes slaves (male and female) had it better
  than the wives and concubines of the caliph
• Wealthy women allowed no careers beyond the home

6
The Crusades

• Begun in 1096 by Pope Urban II Christian knights
  and armies fighting to take the Christian holy
  lands out of Muslim control
• Initially successful
• Wars raged for almost two hundred years
• Saladin unites Muslim forces in the late 12th
  century to retake Jerusalem and most Christian
  outposts (Kingdom of Heaven)

7

• Probably more influential on Europe than on the
  Islamic World
• Remember, wars bring a lot of Cultural Diffusion
  (in this case, more of a one-way thing)
• Recovery of Greek learning
• Arabic Numerals and decimals (From India)
• Chess (from India too)
• Desire for rugs and tapestries
• Sciences and mathematics

8
The Abbasid Paradox

• As the empire suffered political turmoil, Islamic
  civilization reached its heights of creativity
  (Flowering of Islamic Learning / Golden Age)
• Trade
• Great sea trading routes connecting Mediterranean
  Europe to India and Southeast Asia
• Overland Routes to China

9

• Tremendous Mosque and palace construction
• Exquisite rugs and tapestries
• Classical Literature
• The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
• The Shah-Nama of Firdawsi

10

• Sciences
• Preservation of earlier civilizations
• Advances in algebra, geometry and trigonometry
• Chemistry
• Objective experimentation
• Classification systems
• Astronomy
• Medicine Hospitals

11

• Introductions from China papermaking,
  silk-weaving, ceramic firing
• Cartography

12
New Religious Trends

• Growth of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam
• Orthodox (conservative) scholars, ulama, reject
  the influence of non-Islamic ideas

13
The End of the Caliphate

• By the 13th Century, threats from Mongol invaders
  topple the Abbasids
• Chinggis Khan raids the eastern Persian kingdoms
• His grandson Hulegu takes Baghdad
• The Mongols continued to push west only to be
  defeated by the Mamluks Turkic slaves ruling
  Egypt

14
Moving East

• As the Islamic world grew-it moved not only to
  the West, but also to the East.
• Under Muhammad ibn Qasim, the empire would take
  Sind, northwest of India. For the most part,
  they were welcomed by the people.
• Initially, Islam would gain more from India than
  India would from Islam
• Indian achievements passed on to the Muslim world
• Trading posts and Islamic settlements established
  along the coast
• Conflict and choice between Hinduism Islam

15

• The second wave of Islamic incursion proved more
  successful
• Islamic world would take the Northern swath of
  India for centuries
• Called the Sultans of Delhi, these would be ruled
  as military states for centuries (Delhi Sultanate)

16
Conversion Accommodation

• Lower caste Hindus most likely to convert
• Great numbers of Buddhist conversions
• Muslim refugees from northern Mongol conflicts
  increased Islamic numbers
• Hindu leadership thought the newcomers would
  simply adopt Hindu culture, to some extent they
  did, but never the religion.
• New Hindu cults, open to all, formed to stem the
  rate of conversion (religions adapt when
  threatened)

17
Southeast Asia

• Once again, Islamic trading led to influence and
  spread of the faith
• Peaceful contacts and conversion, rather than
  force
• Where Buddhism was weak or elitist, Islam entered

18
In Closing...

• Islam linked classical societies by conquest and
  commerce
• Overall, the Islamic (and Christian) capacity for
  accommodation to local customs allowed their
  dramatic growth and spread
• Problems in the future
• Political instability and weakness caused
  divisions in some regions
• Orthodox ulama resisted outside knowledge and
  influence