Abbasids Caliphate

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Abbasids Caliphate

• Chapter Summery
• 9th c. Abbasids losing control Empire to vast
  to move armies
• Shia dissenters troublesome, slaves uprising
• Mongol invasions in the 13th century
• Islamic civilization reach new cultural heights
  and Islam expanded widely in the Afro- Asian
  world through conquest and peaceful conversion

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• Middle and Late Abbasid Era
• Abbasid disintegrated between 9th and 13 century
• Al-Mahdi third Abbasid caliph failed to
  reconcile Shia moderates to his dynasty and to
  resolve the succession problem
• Harun al-Rashid Most famous of the Abbasid
  caliphs renowned for sumptuous and costly
  living recounted in The Thousand and One Nights

• Rulers became dependent on Persians advisors,
  continual civil violence drained the imperial
  treasury.
• Costly new imperial centers, heavy tax burdens,
  bandits

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• Declining Position of Women
• The harem and the veil became the twin emblems of
  womens subjugation to men
• Seclusion of elite women, wives, and concubines
• The practice of veiling spread to all

Abbasids Army

• Women intrigued for advancement of their sons
• Abbasid wealth generated demand for concubines
  and male slaves in non-Muslim neighboring lands.

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Buyids Persian invaders of the 10th c.captured
Baghdad and acted as sultans through Abbasid
figureheads. Sultan Word meaning victorious
came to designate Muslim rulers.

• Seljuk Turks Nomadic invaders from central Asia
  staunch Sunni ruled from the 11th c. in the name
  of the Abbasids.
• Crusades invasions of western Christians into
  Muslim lands, especially Palestine captured
  Jerusalem and established Christian kingdoms
  enduring until 1291.
• Saladin 12th c. Muslim ruler reconquered most
  of the crusader kingdoms

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• Impact of Crusades
• Christian knights invaded Muslim territory 1096
• Established small, rival kingdoms
• The last fell 1291 and reunited under Saladin
• European borrowed sophisticated technology,
  architecture, medicine, mathematics, science and
  general culture from Muslim
• European recovered much lost Greek/Roman
  knowledge
• Italian merchants remained

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• Age of Learning
• Great ages of human creativity
• Rapid urban growth
• Merchants - huge fortunes
• Artists and artisans created mosques, palaces,
  tapestries, rugs, bronzes and ceramics

• Persian replaced Arabic as primary written
  language of the Abbasid court
• Persia became language of high culture
• Rubaiyat Epic poem of Omar Khayyam seeks to
  find meaning in life and a path to union with the
  diving
• Sadi Great poet of the Abbasid era

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• Al-Razi classified all matter as animal,
  vegetable, and mineral
• Ulama Islamic religious scholars pressed for a
  more conservative and restrictive theology
  opposed to non-Islamic thinking
• Sufis Islamic mystics spread Islam to many
  Afro-Asian regions.
• Mongols Central Asian nomadic peoples captured
  Baghdad in 1258 and killed the last Abbasid caliph

• Chinggis Khan Born in 1170, elected khagnan of
  all Mongol tribes in 1206 responsible for the
  conquest of northern kingdoms of China
  territories as far west as the Abbasid regions
  died in 1227, prior to the conquest of most of
  the Islamic world

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Chinggis Khan

• Early 13th c. Chinggis Khan destroyed the Turkic
  Persian kingdoms east of Baghdad. His grandson,
  Hulegu continued the assault. The last Abbasid
  ruler was killed when Baghdad fell in 1258. the
  once-great Abbasid capital became an unimportant
  backwater n the Muslin World.

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Islam Comes to South Asia (India)

• Hindu religion dominated by castes
• Islam monotheistic, evangelical and egalitarian
• Muslims rulers governed Hindu subjects
• Muhammad ibn Qasim Arab general who conquered
  Sind and made it part of the Umayyad Empire

Muhammad of Ghur Persian ruler, invaded and
conquered Northern India
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• Rajas term used for Hindu Kings
• Sultans of Delhi Title of the Islamic imperial
  houses of India, which literally means princes of
  the heartland.
• Sati Hindu ritual for burning windows with
  their deceased husbands
• Malacca Flourishing trading city in Malaya
  established a trading empire after the fall of
  Shrivijaya

Sultans of Delhi military states ruled
north-central India for the next 300 years
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Latten sails Large triangular sails that are
attached to the masts by long booms or yard arms
which extend diagonally high across both the fore
and aft portions of the ship

• Eunuchs A castrated man in charge of a harem or
  high officer of a court of emperor.

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Mamluks Turkic slave-warriors who ruled Egypt
and defeated the Mongols to prevents their entry
into northern Africa
Mamluke Empire
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• Muslim Presence in India The greatest majority
  of he population remained Hindu
• By the close of he sultanate period there were
  two distinct religious communities.
• South Asia remained the least converted and
  integrated of all areas receiving the message of
  Islam.
• Southeast Asia had been a middle ground where the
  Chinese part of the Eurasian trading complex met
  the Indian Ocean zone.
• By the 8th c. Muslims gained control of Indian
  commerce, Islamic culture reached southeast Asia
• Peaceful contacts and voluntary conversion were
  more important to the spread of Islam than were
  conquest and force.
• Trading prepared the way for conversion, with the
  process carried forward by Sufis.

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• Islam spread From Malacca to Malaya, Sumatra and
  Java.
• Coastal cities were the most receptive to Islam.
• Buddhist dynasties were present in many regions,
  but since Buddhist conversions were limited to
  the elite, the mass of population was open to the
  message of the Sufis.

• The Island of Bali and mainland southeast Asia,
  where Buddhism had gained popular support,
  remained impervious to Islam

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• Great civilizations and world religions have been
  closely associate throughout world history.
• Religions have a core belief that allow adherents
  to maintain a sense of common identity and
  flexible enough to allow retention of important
  aspects of local culture.

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• Sufi Mystics were tolerant of the indigenous
  peoples Buddhist and Hindu Beliefs.
• Many pre-Muslim beliefs were incorporated into
  Islamic ceremonies
• Women held a stronger familial and societal
  position than They had in the Middle East or India

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• Global Connections Islam A Bridge Between
  Worlds
• Islams central position in global history was
  solidifies.
• Expanding Muslim world linked ancient
  civilizations through conquest and commercial
  networks.
• Islam was the civilizer of nomadic peoples in
  Asian and Africa.
• Its cultural contributions diffused widely from
  great cities and universities.
• Political divisions caused exploitable weaknesses
  in many regions.
• The increasing intellectual rigidity of the Ulama
  caused Muslims to become less receptive to
  outside influences at a time when the European
  world was transforming.