Lecture 7:

The Abbasids and the High Caliphate

Review

• Understood the empire as Islamic

• Did not have a firm idea of what this meant

• Borrowed from previous imperial traditions

• Culturally: Literature, architecture and poetry

• Politically: Administration and legal codes

• Reinterpreted structures with Islamic sensibility

• Empire understand itself in Arab/tribal terms.

• Most obviously seen by status of muwalis

Conclusions

• Umayyad’s stuck between two worlds

• Committed to retaining the economic, political and cultural vibrancy of previous imperial system

• Meant setting themselves apart from those they ruled and those involved in day-to-day of ruling

• Increasingly dysfunctional

• Soldiers and administrators central to the government’s functioning excluded from participating in imperial Arab elite

Caliph Umar II

• Attempted to accommodate converts and undermine principal of Arab elitism

• First to declare empire as ‘Muslim’

• Undermined Arab ethnic claims to status

• Opened high administrative and military posts to Non-Arabs

• Re-organised tax system so Muslims and non-Muslims taxed equally

Umayyad resistance

• Umar could not impose order on system accustomed to privilege

• Taxes major burden on Arab settlers and farmers

• Caused double resentment

• Arab settlers lost prestige

• And being crushed by a heavy tax burden

• Change required revolution of social-order

Abbasids

• Tribe settled in Khurasan

• Claimed descent from the prophet via Muhammad’s uncle Abbas

• Coalition of resistance:

• Disenfranchised and exploited muwalis (Persian)

• Heavily taxed Arab farmers

• Various disenfranchised Alid and Kharaji factions

• Revolt in 747

• Destroyed Ummayad army in 750

4 Key features of Caliphate

• Promoted inclusivity

• Built new capital

• Supported court culture

• Upheld the office of the Caliph

Inclusivity

• Opposite of Umayyad Arabism • Abbasid’s first and foremost Muslim empire • Actively incorporated Muslims regardless of

ethnicity or caste into regime • Umayyad’s attempted to accommodate non-

Arabs • Abbassid’s actively welcomed • Promoted notables and elites from throughout

the empire • A matter of principle and a modality of rule

“Under the Abbasids the empire no longer belonged to the Arabs, though they had conquered its territories, but to all those people who would share in Islam and in the emerging networks of political, social, economic and cultural loyalties which defined a new cosmopolitan Middle Eastern society” (Lapidus, p. 58) Warriors of Abbasid Caliphate: Horseman from

Sind, archer from Transoxania, Infantry from Azerbaijan. Source: Jose Daniel Carbrera Pena

Baghdad “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 mobilizing adquate political support from Arab Muslims, converts and from the non-Muslim communities…The new dynasty had to secure the loyalty and obedience of its subjects…and justify itself in Muslim terms” (Lapidus, ibid).

Map Baghdad 7th century (source Smithsonian)

Significance

• Largest Middle Eastern city in history

• Metropolitan conglomeration spanning Tigris river

• Size: 25 square miles (larger than Manhattan)

• Population between 300,000-500,000

• Constantinople population 200,000

• Largest city in the world outside China

Design

• Intersection of Tigris and Euphrates

• Administrative, commercial and military heart of empire

• Design promoted new Muslim cosmopolitan identity

• Palace anchors Islamic world around Caliph

• The city and empire radiate out in symmetrical fashion

• Symbolises order of heavens and Caliphs authority

• Caliph and imperial city create order out of chaos

• Idea has roots in Zoroastrianism but understood in Islamic terms - Islam binds and brings order to the world

Baghdad Government

• Did not reflect Arab tastes or tribal norms • Administrators, soldiers, bureaucrats not clients • Servants of empire – no divided loyalties • Baghdad to mirror cosmopolitan character of empire and an

Islamic imperial ideal • In same way Muhammad attempting to break down tribal

divisions of Arabs, Abbasids attempting to break down ethnic divisions of empire

• A binding trans-cultural polity anchored in the universal moral vision of Islam

• “Prominence of the Arabs was no longer a prescriptive right but was dependent upon loyalty to the dynasty” (Lapidus, p.59)

Politics of Cosmopolitanism

Abbasid bureaucracy built on a system of patronage Provincial elites bound to Baghdad court via elaborate systems of reciprocity and favour.

Baghdad bureaucratic rotation

• Bureaucracy relied upon notables moving from provinces to work in Abbasid administration for limited period

• Rationale three-fold: • Loyalty: incorporates provincial elites into imperial

regime • Security: Guards against factions working together • Governance: creates system of key contacts between

provinces and Baghdad and cadre of elites who understand how Baghdad works

• Overall: creates powerful political ties between Baghdad and notables throughout empire

Summary points

• Baghdad highly symbolic in design of city and in the constitution of its administration

• But also practical in its manner of governance

• Symbolises and incorporates a cadre of multi-ethnic local elites from throughout the empire to participate in and reflect a cosmopolitan imperial government

Court Culture

• Continues tradition of Umar II

• Purpose two-fold

• To develop a high imperial Islamic art form

• To develop a fully elaborated Islamic religious tradition

Art and politics

• Continue tradition of patronising artists, architects, poets and designers from provinces

• Purpose: to Islamicise traditional art forms

• Create artistic vocabulary to symbolise the regime

• Court not only disseminates systems of governance

• Also imperial tastes

• Court creates, diffuses and propagates high imperial art-forms across empire

• Unity in Islam and Islamic empire

• Empire embraces and transcends provincial traditions

Upheld Office of the Caliph

• Positioned Caliphate as ‘leader’ of the faith

• Claimed to be appointed by God

• Promoted pilgrimage to Mecca

• Built way stations and military security in desert

• Made gifts to holy places

• Drew religious leaders into public service

Used court to promote Islamic identity

• Court not only used for art and culture

• To develop and refine distinctive Islamic identity

• Umayyads sponsored debates between Christian, Muslim and Jewish thinkers

• Christians and Jews from Byzantine empire

• Familiar with Hellenistic modes of debate

• Muslim scholars encounter Greek thought for first time

Translation movement

• Muslim scholars dedicate themselves to reading and translating Greek philosophy

• Contemplate relevance for developing Islam

• Movement at its height in Abbasid period

• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen translated from Greek into Arabic

• Also Indian and Persian philosophy

Greek texts in Europe translated from Arabic

• Greek sources disappeared in Europe

• Europeans translated Greek philosophy, medicine and mathematics from Arabic after fourth crusade (13th century)

• Greek thought significant influence on Muslim philosophy, theology, politics and medicine

Abbasid court and theology

• Abbasid court promotes use of Greek thought to develop a distinctive Islamic theology

• Theology also supports Abbasid rule

• Abbasid claim to caliphate tenuous

• Who had the authority to lead the umma?

• Kharajites and Alids query Abbasid legitimacy

• Groups had helped Abbasids to power

Mu’tazilites

Basic tenants

• God is unified and one (no attributes)

• Thus: God knowable and untranslatable to human experience

• Thus: God wholly separate from human beings

• Thus: human beings responsible for their actions

• Thus: God not directly involved in human affairs

Mu’tazilites and Greek thought

• Emphasis on human reason

• Humans must use rational faculties to conclude God exists

• Belief over faith

• Faith an empty gesture of will

• Belief a gesture of intellect

• To believe in God is to use rational thought

Mu’tazilites patronised by Abbasids

Why?

• Emphasis on rationality mollifies sectarian division

• Emphasis on human will gives Caliph religious authority

– If Quran not divine then open to interpretation

– Paves way for authority over religious matters

• Becomes another means of promoting unifying Islamic identity

Conclusions

• Take-home point: Abbasid caliphate had profound influence on development of Islam and Islamic civilisation.

• Period often called ‘the flowing of Islam’ • Flowering has distinctly aesthetic and artistic ring • Burgeoning forth of ideas, art and literature • I think of the word in terms of maturation • The high-point of plant’s life cycle • By end of Abbasid period Islam confident religious tradition • Evolved enough to diffuse throughout the region • The high point of Islamic religion and culture just beginning