Abbasid Decline The Spread of Islamic Civilization Stearns

Abbasid Decline & The Spread of Islamic Civilization Stearns Chapter 7

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

❖ 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! ❖ ❖ Conflicts with Shi’a ❖ ❖ Heavily taxed peasantry; protests and uprisings follow Frequent revolts and assassination attempts Political advisors (wazir) gain power and influence (Jafar)!

❖ Territorial loss in the hinterlands of the empire ❖ Independent kingdoms arise in some areas ❖ The Buyids of Persia capture Baghdad in 945 (don’t 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

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

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 12 th century to retake Jerusalem and most Christian outposts (Kingdom of Heaven)

❖ 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

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

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

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

❖ Introductions from China: papermaking, silk-weaving, ceramic firing ❖ Cartography

New Religious Trends ❖ Growth of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam ❖ Orthodox (conservative) scholars, ulama, reject the influence of non. Islamic ideas

The End of the Caliphate ❖ By the 13 th 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

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

❖ 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)

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)

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

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