Sei sulla pagina 1di 4

ABBASID CALIPHATE

INTRODUCTION
The Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled the Islamic world, oversaw the golden age of Islamic culture. The dynasty ruled the Islamic Caliphate from 750 to 1258 AD, making it one of the longest and most influential Islamic dynasties. The Abbasid Dynasty overthrew the preceding Umayyad Dynasty, which was based in Damascus, Syria. It claimed descent from Islamic founder Muhammads uncle Al-Abbas, ruled the Islamic world. Around 718 AD, the Abbasids began quietly opposing the ruling Umayyad with a propaganda war. The opposition grew to open revolt around 749 AD when Abu al-Abbas (750-754 AD) named himself the new caliph. At the Battle of Zab in 750 AD, the Abbasids defeated the Umayyad forces, capturing and killing the Caliph Marwan II (744-750 AD) and later marching into the capital of Damascus. The Abbasid Dynasty marked the high point of Islamic power and civilization. The fall of the Umayyad Dynasty marked the end of Arab domination within Islam. However, the Abbasid dynasty was Arab; the Abbasid armies were composed of Arabs, and the judicial and legal life of Baghdad and other important cities was in Arab hands. The Abbasid caliph made great effort to establish equalitarian treatment of all Muslims. The Abbasids had led a revolution against the unpopular policies of the Umayyads. The sudden shift from Umayyad to Abbasid leadership within the Islamic Empire reflected a series of even more fundamental transformations within evolving Islamic civilization. They maintained the hereditary control of the caliphate, forming a new dynasty. Its sovereigns, all members of Muhammad's family, proclaimed that they alone had been designated to lead the community; all of them endeavoured to show, by means of the throne-names which they adopted, that they had the blessing of divine support. Throughout its period of domination, it suffered the consequences of the circumstances which had raised it to power; it was obliged to face the social disturbances, both economic and religious in origin, which the Umayyad caliphs had exhausted themselves in trying to suppress with their Syrian forces and it was confronted by the same difficulties as the last representatives of the fallen dynasty without having acquired any new means of resolving them. The Abbasids dismissed provincial governors, killing any who were popular enough to represent to threat, and installed their own administrators. Abbasid power was based on the military support of their Khurasani soldiers. They asserted their authority by restoring stability and worked out various compromises with the groups who had opposed the Umayyads. The early Abbasid caliphs ruled a vast area which was marked by great contrasts of climate, physical geography and population. There were areas of dense population and teeming urban life. There are also fertile river valleys, grain growing prairies, upland meadows, and the mountains. This geographical pattern had a profound effect on the workings of government and political life. Iraq was the centre of the caliphate, and even before Baghdad was founded, it was the Sawad (Black Land) which provided much of the wealth on which Abbasid power

was based. Here the wealth came from the harvest of wheat, barley, dates, and other fruits which could be produced in abundance by the warm climate and careful husbandry where the key to this prosperity lay on the irrigation system. When al-Abbas died in 754 AD, his brother al-Mansur (754-775 AD) began a successful reign in the new capital city of Baghdad. Under Al-Mansur, their first caliph, they moved the capital of the Islamic empire from the old Umayyad power base of Damascus to a new city Baghdad in 762, and adopted many Greek and Persian traditions. The creation of Baghdad was part of the Abbasid strategy to cope with the problems that had destroyed the Umayyad dynasty, by building effective governing institutions, and mobilising adequate political support from Arab Muslims, converts and from the non-Muslim communities that paid the empires taxes. The Abbasid dynasty had to secure the loyalty and obedience of its subjects for a rebel regime and justify itself in Muslim terms. From the time al-Mansur onwards the civil administration was unified and placed under a powerful official who was designated vazir. The vizarat developed into one of the most characteristic institutions of the Islamic state. The vazir was a powerful official, usually well educated and having knowledge of various branches of administration including military affairs. Their most famous ruler was Harun al-Rashid (786-809), the 5th caliph. From 791 806, he fought a long war with the Byzantine Empire, which he eventually won. In spite of these wars, he found time to encourage learning and the arts bringing together Persian, Greek, Arab, and Indian influences. Important works of astronomy, medicine, and mathematics were translated from Greek to Sanskrit. Baghdad attracted philosophers, poets, scholars, and artists and became the center for the study of natural science and metaphysics. The opulence of the court and lifestyle of the rich in Baghdad became the subject of many legends. The Abbasid imperial organization was a complex bureaucracy highly elaborate at the center and in touch with provincial and local forces throughout the empire. The Abbasids inherited the traditions and the personnel of Umayyad administration. The openness of the Abbasid regime was particularly evident in administration. Under the Abbasids, there was a skilled bureaucracy and professional army, manned to a large extent by those who had helped the Abbasids to power. Patronage and clienteles were crucial to this system. Many of the scribes in the expanding Abbasid bureaucracy were Persians from Khurasan. Central administrators appointed their provincial representatives, and patronage fortified by ethnic, religious, regional, and family affiliations helped to smooth the operations of the Abbasid state. The Abbasid Empire was formed by a coalition of provincial and capital city elites, who agreed son a concept of the dynasty and the purposes of political power, and who were organized through bureaucratic and other political institutions to impose their rule on the Middle Eastern people. The luxurious life-style of the Abbasid rulers and their courtiers both reflected the new wealth of the political and commercial elites of the Islamic Empire and intensified sectarian and social divisions within the Islamic community. The Abbasid Empire as a political system has to be understood in terms of its organization, its social dynamics, its political concepts, and also in terms of its opponents. As an empire it was a regime governing a vast territory composed of small communities. Each community was headed by its notables: headmen, landowners, and other men of wealth and standing, who characteristically were allied to superiors and patrons with positions in the provincial or central governments. Government organization, communication and tax collection was bureaucratic in form, hut the social mechanism that made the organization work was the contacts between central officials and provincial elites. The bureaucracy mobilized the skills

and social influence of prominent persons throughout the empire and put these assets at the disposal of Baghdad. This system of alliances was justified as an expression of God's will. By God's will, expressed both in Muslim and in pre-Islamic Middle Eastern terms, the exalted person of the Caliph reigned in expectation of passive obedience from all his subjects.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM


During the 500 years of rule by the Abbasid dynasty, the Islamic culture was unified, its culture flourished, and Baghdad became one of the worlds greatest cities. The prosperity of the early Abbasid period was reflected in the scientific and cultural achievements of the age. The intermingling of diverse cultural traditions gave rise to new ideas and enriched thought. The Abbasid rulers, especially al-Mammun, encouraged this process by commissioning translations of ancient Greek philosophical and scientific treatises. In Baghdad and major cities throughout the Abbasid Empire and in neighbouring kingdoms, Persian was the chief language of "high culture," the language of polite exchanges between courtiers as well as of history, poetic musings, and mystical revelations. Persian writers in the Abbasid era wrote on all manner of subjects, from doomed love affairs and the elements of statecraft to incidents from everyday life and mystical striving for communion with the divine. At the Abbasid court were Persian refinement and urbanity, Persian titles, Persian wives, mistresses, wines and Persian garments, while Arabic remained as the language of Islam. The Abbasid dynasty adopted the court ceremony, protocol and decorations depicting the majesty of the ruler, and the architectural monuments that expressed the semi-divine, cosmic, and universal importance of his person. Palaces and palace-cities also manifested the majesty of the Caliphate. Baghdad incorporated materials taken from the ruins of Sassanian palaces. Its design had symbolic implications, the Madinat al-Salam was a round city divided into quadrants by axial streets running from east to west and north to south, with the palace in the very center. The structure of the city reproduced the symmetry and hierarchy of society and the central position of the Caliph within it. It also symbolized the cosmic and heavenly world; the central placement of the Caliph signified his sovereignty over the four quarters of the world. The Abbasids also reaffirmed the Muslim basis of their legitimacy. They claimed to be appointed by God to follow in the ways of the Prophet and to lead the Muslim community along the path of Islam. They had come to power on a current of messianic hopes, and their very titles stressed their role as saviours. Al-Mansur, al-Mandi, al-Hadi, and al-Rashid claimed to be guided by God in righteous ways, to bring enlightenment, and to return the Muslims to the true path. They promoted the pilgrimage to Mecca by organizing the way stations, by providing military security in the desert, and by making gifts to the holy places. The Abbasid Caliphs also tried to draw Muslim religious leaders into public service as judges and administrators. They created a judicial hierarchy and tried to use the judges as intermediaries to organize cadres of scholars, teachers, and legists under the jurisdiction as well as the patronage of the state. Thus, the Abbasids fostered ideological or religious loyalty to the Caliphate on both Muslim and traditional Middle Eastern grounds.

The early Abbasids were keen to promote the agrarian economy of Southern Iraq. Land was the principal source of wealth. They endeavoured to maximise production by extending cultivation and improving irrigation. They expanded the complex network of canals in Southern Iraq. Existing irrigation techniques were modified & more efficient devices for lifting water to irrigation fields were adopted. There was use of device called noria or water wheel. For several centuries, which spanned much of the period of Abbasid rule, Islamic civilization outstripped all others in scientific discoveries, devising new techniques of investigation, and in the innovation and dissemination of technology. Their many accomplishments in these areas include major corrections to the algebraic and geometric theories of the ancient Greeks and great advances in the use of the concepts of the sine, cosine, and tangent that are basic to trigonometry.

DECLINE
The very processes that gave rise to the early Islamic empire, its elites, and its cultural forms led to its collapse and transformation. The decline of the Abbasid Empire began even in the midst of consolidation. While the regime was strengthening its military and administrative institutions, and encouraging a flourishing economy and culture, other forces were set in motion that would eventually unravel the Abbasid Empire. The Abbasid state became weaker because the control from Baghdad to the distant places of the empire declined. Moreover, a conflict between pro-Arab and pro-Iranian factions of the army and bureaucracy also led to the decline of the Abbasid state. Under later caliphs, various provinces became independent, but still followed Islam, its law, and culture. The Abbasids caliphs increasingly lost power and became spiritual figureheads. The Muslim empire separated into emirates, whose fortunes rose and fell at different times. Abbasid power began to decline by the end of the 9th century and formally came to an end with the capture of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 A.D.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Early Social Formations Amar Farooqi A History of Islamic Societies Ira M. Lapidus

Potrebbero piacerti anche