HY 101 Dr James Mixson Chapter 4 Abbasid Empire faced serious political challenges from the outset of their reign The Abbasids had to deal with o 1 Shi i opposition persisting in various regions southern o 2 pro Umayyad uprisings Syria and northern Iraq Mesopotamia This made their empire unstable from the start and challenged their legitimacy so they decided to begin using propaganda to up their standing Pro Abbasid poets writers and preachers used ideas like the following to convince their audience o 1 The Umayyads were tyrannical rulers and had led Muslims astray from the teachings of the Qur an and the guidance of the Prophet pp 49 The Abbasids claimed to want to guide the umma back onto the proper path They placed power in the hands of those who embodied the Prophet s model of leadership o 2 The Prophet had bestowed his leadership upon his uncle al Abbas rather than Ali ibn Abi Talib In this way the Abbasids had reconnected Islamic society to its cherished origins Islamic civilization as a complex religious sociopolitical and economic entity sprang from its urban centers o The Arab armies avoided these cities at first but soon over time the Arab populations integrated within the urban cities and the Islamic and Arabian culture was adopted from within those cities o Arab Islamic towns originated in the garrison settlements the amsar built to house the conquest armies of the 7th and 8th centuries The settlement of large civilian populations the construction of markets and other permanent structures and the creation of roads and water systems transformed the amsar into thriving urban centers Gordon 52 o Creation of the Islamic Empire created significant change to the physical and economic landscape of the regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean Gordon 52 o The collapse of the Sassanid Empire the retreat of the Byzantines into Anatolia ended the political divisions that separated Syria Iraq from Iran Central Asia Gordon 52 Bands of inscription adorned mosque walls most of which contain Qur anic and other religiously oriented texts o Calligraphy emerged early on as the preeminent form of art in the Islamic Near East Baghdad Round City o Founded around 762 by Abbasid caliph al Mansur o Al Mansur intended for the site to be a new administrative center o Baghdad became the prototype for many later palatine centers in Islamic history o Each new center was there to symbolize the authority of the respective dynasty o Became impossible to defend because of its swift vastness in population threats were held from not only the Shi i and Kharijis but also from within the city s populace o A conflict 809 819 occurred when Al Rashid died and left his succession to his two sons al Amin and al Ma mun Ma mun challenged his brother and eventually led to a collapse of central authority the demise of their army Ma mun won over al Amin and campaigned to reunify Syria and Egypt but after his death Baghdad eventually rose in lawlessness and the decline of neighborhoods Baghdad entered a period of difficulty in many aspects The Caliph and Courtly Society o An elaborate system of ritual was put in place in order to worship the caliph o In this time of history the caliph was seen as the head of the Islamic umma and God s agent o The abbasid court relied on pre Islamic conceptions of imperial leadership as well Caliphs were portrayed as heirs to the monarchs of the ancient Near East o The Abbasid Empire adopted many of the Umayyad Empire s ways pp 57 59 Merchants the Commerce of Baghdad o Muslim merchants in subsequent periods played a central role in the dissemination of Islam o Papermaking had spread into the Islamic world Impact on record keeping o Knowledge of all sorts was made more accessible than ever before Slaves o Fell into two categories 1 Captives 2 Those born into slavery o Muslims legally speaking couldn t be enslaved o Important component of trans regional trade in the Abbasid period Military o Abbasid empire being based primarily as an Agrarian empire required force alongside its wealth in order to prosper and succeed o Caliph distributed generous land grants to a number of civilian officials and military officers Scholars o Rise of Islam Rise of largely religious scholarship o Early Abbasid rise second and dynamic current of scholarship o Wealthy Iraqis and members of the Abbasid house offered financial and material support to scholars their students and their families o Philosophy was heavily emphasized in early Abbasid Empire