NATIONALS

CLARI
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Sincerity
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2015

TOPIC III:

THE ABBASID EMPIRE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE ABBASID ERA (750-1258) 3

A BRIEF HISTORY 3

THE ART OF THE ABBASID PERIOD 6

THE SPREAD OF SCHOLARSHIP 7

GEOGRAPHY AND TRADE 10

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM 14

BASIC TIMELINE 17

ISLAM: EMPIRE OF FAITH DOCUMENTARY 18

REFERENCES 19

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THE ABBASID ERA (750-1258)
The Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled the Islamic world, oversaw the golden age of Islamic culture. The
empire ruled the Islamic Caliphate from 750 to 1258 AD, making it one of the longest and most
influential Islamic dynasties. For most of its early history, it was the largest empire in the world, and
this meant that it had contact with distant neighbors such as the Chinese and Indians in the East, and
the Byzantines in the West, allowing it to adopt and synthesize ideas from these cultures.

A BRIEF HISTORY
The Abbasid Empire overthrew the preceding Umayyad Empire, which was based in Damascus, Syria.
The Umayyads had become increasingly unpopular, especially in the eastern territories of the
caliphate. The Umayyads favored Syrian Arabs over other Muslims and treated mawali, newly
converted Muslims, as second- class citizens. The most numerous group of mawali were the Persians,
who lived side- by-side with Arabs in the east who were angry at the favor shown to Syrian Arabs.
Together, they were ripe for rebellion. Other Muslims were angry with the Umayyads for turning the
caliphate into a hereditary empire. Some believed that a single family should not hold power, while
Shiites believed that true authority belonged to the family of the Prophet Muhammad through his son-
in-law Ali, and the Umayyads were not part of Muhammads family.

All these various groups who were angry with the Umayyads united under the Abbasids, who began a
rebellion against the Umayyads in Persia. The Abbasids built a coalition of Persian mawali, Eastern
Arabs, and Shiites. The Abbasids were able to gain Shiite support because they claimed descent from
Muhammad through Muhammads uncle Abbas. Their descent from Muhammad was not through Ali,
as Shiites would have preferred, but Shiites still considered the Abbasids better than the Umayyads.

A Persian general, Abu Muslim, who supported Abbasid claims to power, led the Abbasid armies. His
victories allowed the Abbasid leader Abul `Abbas al-Saffah to enter the Shiite-dominated city of Kufa
in 748 and declare himself caliph. In 750, the army of Abu Muslim and al-Saffah faced the Umayyad
Caliph Marwan II at the Battle of the Zab near the Tigris River. Marwan II was defeated, fled, and was
killed. As-Saffah captured Damascus and slaughtered the remaining members of the Umayyad family
(except for one, Abd al-Rahman, who escaped to Spain and continued the Umayyad Empire there).
The Abbasids were the new rulers of the caliphate.

The Abbasids had led a revolution against the unpopular policies of the Umayyads, but those who
expected major change were disappointed. Under the second Abbasid Caliph, al-Mansur (r. 754775),
it became clear that much of the Umayyad past would be continued. The Abbasids maintained the
hereditary control of the caliphate, forming a new empire. The alliance with the Shiites was short lived.
Even Abu Muslim, the brilliant Persian general who engineered the rise of the Abbasids, was deemed a
threat and executed. However, the Abbasids did prove loyal to their Persian mawali allies. In fact,
Abbasid culture would come to be dominated by the legacy of Persian civilization. The Abbasid court
was heavily influenced by Persian customs, and members of the powerful Persian Barmakid family
acted as the advisers of the caliphs and rivaled them in wealth and power.

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One of the earliest, and most important, changes the Abbasids made was to move the capital of the
Islamic empire from the old Umayyad power base of Damascus to a new cityBaghdad. Baghdad
was founded in 762 by al-Mansur on the banks of the Tigris River. The city was round in shape, and
designed from the beginning to be a great capital and the center of the Islamic world. It was built not
far from the old Persian capital of Ctesiphon, and its location reveals the desire of the empire to
connect itself to Persian culture.

Baghdad grew quickly with encouragement from the Abbasid state, and it was soon the largest city in
the world. At Baghdad, the Persian culture that the Umayyads had attempted to suppress was now
allowed to thrive. Art, poetry, and science flourished. The Abbasids learned from the Chinese
(allegedly from Chinese soldiers captured in battle) the art of making paper. Cheap and durable, paper
became an important material for spreading literature and knowledge.

The fifth caliph of the Abbasid empire, Harun al-Rashid (r. 786809), is remembered as one of historys
greatest patrons of the arts and sciences. Under his rule, Baghdad became the worlds most
important center for science, philosophy, medicine, and education. The massive size of the caliphate
meant that it had contact and shared borders with many distant empires, so scholars at Baghdad
could collect, translate, and expand upon the knowledge of other civilizations, such as the Egyptians,
Persians, Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. The successors of Harun al-Rashid,
especially his son al-Mamun (r. 813833), continued his policies of supporting artists, scientists, and
scholars. Al-Mamun founded the Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom, in Baghdad. A library, an
institute for translators, and in many ways an early form of university, the House of Wisdom hosted
Muslim and non-Muslim scholars who sought to translate and gather the cumulative knowledge of
human history in one place, and in one languageArabic.

At the House of Wisdom, important ideas from around the world came together. The introduction of
Indian numerals, which have become standard in the Islamic and Western worlds, greatly aided in
mathematic and scientific discovery. Scholars such as Al-Kindi revolutionized mathematics and
synthesized Greek philosophy with Islamic thought. Al-Biruni and Abu Nasr Mansuramong many
other scholarsmade important contributions to geometry and astronomy. Al-Khwarizmi, expanding
upon Greek mathematical concepts, developed Algebra (the word algorithm is a corruption of his
name). Ibn al-Haytham made important contributions to the field of optics, and is generally held to
have developed the concept of the scientific method.

A number of very practical innovations took place, especially in the field of agriculture. Improved
methods of irrigation allowed more land to be cultivated, and new types of mills and turbines were
used to reduce the need for labor (though slavery was still very common in both the countryside and
cities). Crops and farming techniques were adopted from far-flung neighboring cultures. Rice, cotton,
and sugar were taken from India, citrus fruits from China, and sorghum from Africa. Thanks to Islamic
famers, these crops eventually made their way to the West. Such Islamic innovation would continue,
even as the Abbasid government fell into chaos.

Due to several very capable caliphs and their advisers, the Abbasid Caliphate thrived through the early
ninth century, despite the major challenges of ruling a massive and multiethnic empire. Besides being
a great patron of the arts and sciences, Harun al-Rashid also brought the Abbasid Caliphate to its high

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point. Still, he had to deal with revolts in Persia and North Africa, and he removed from power the
Persian Barmakid family, the source of many great advisers Al-Rashids son, Caliph al-Mamun not
only continued his fathers patronage by establishing the House of Wisdom, but he made a number of
important independent innovations.

After the caliphate of al-Mamun, Abbasid power began to noticeably decline. The cost of running a
massive empire and maintaining a large bureaucracy required steady revenues, and as the authority of
the caliphate diminished it was able to collect fewer taxes. In order to stabilize the state finances, the
caliphs granted tax-farms to governors and military commanders. These governors, with their own
troops and revenue bases, soon proved independent-minded and disloyal.

The caliph al-Mu`tasim (r. 833842) furthered the gap between the caliph and his people. Expanding
on al-Mamuns new army, he created his own military force of slave soldiers called ghilman (later
know as Mamluks). As the elite guard of the caliph, these slaves began acting superior to the people
of Baghdad, which inspired anger and led to riots. Instead of trying to diffuse the situation, al-
Mutasim simply moved the capital away from Baghdad and settled in Samarra, 60 miles to the north.
Away from the bulk of their subjects who lived in Baghdad, the caliphs became insulated from the
problems of their empire.

Caliph al-Nasir (r. 11801225) attempted to restore Abbasid power in Iraq. His long reign of forty-
seven years allowed him ample time to reconquer Mesopotamia and further develop Baghdad as a
center of learning. His chief rival was the Sultanate of Khwarezm, which ruled Persia. Supposedly, al-
Nasir appealed to the Mongols, an expanding central-Asian nomad empire, for help against
Khwarezm. Under al-Nasirs less competent successors, this backfired disastrously. The Mongols
completely overran Khwarezm and then turned their attention to Baghdad.

The Mongols seem to have wanted to rule, by holding real military power but allowing the Abbasid
caliph symbolic authority. Caliph al-Mu`tasim (r. 12421258), however, refused to acknowledge their
authority. Faced with Mongol invasion, he did little to prepare, and the Mongol hordes soon
surrounded Baghdad. They captured the city in 1258 and left Baghdad a smoldering ruin. This marks
the end of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad, and the abrupt end of the Islamic golden age.

The Abbasid line was reestablished in 1261, in Egypt. The sultans of Egypt appointed an Abbasid
caliph in Cairo, but these Egyptian caliphs were even more symbolic than the late caliphs had been in
Baghdad, and were simply used to legitimize the power of the sultans. The authority of these caliphs
extended strictly to religious matters. Still, the Egypt-based period of the Abbasid empire lasted over
250 years.

In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt. The last Abbasid caliph, al- Mutawakkil III, was forced
to surrender all his authority to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I. This was the end of seven-and-a-half
centuries of Abbasid history.

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THE ART OF THE ABBASID PERIOD
Under the Abbasid caliphate the focal point of Islamic political and cultural life shifted eastward
from Syria to Iraq, where, in 762, Baghdad, the circular City of Peace (madinat al-salam), was
founded as the new capital. The Abbasids later also established another city north of Baghdad,
called Samarra (an abbreviation of the sentence "He who sees it rejoices"), which replaced the
capital for a brief period (83683). The first three centuries of Abbasid rule were a golden age in
which Baghdad and Samarra functioned as the cultural and commercial capitals of the Islamic
world. During this period, a distinctive style emerged and new techniques were developed that
spread throughout the Muslim realm and greatly influenced Islamic art and architecture.

Since the style set by the capital was used throughout the Muslim world, Baghdad and Samarra
became associated with the new artistic and architectural trend. As virtually nothing remains from
Abbasid Baghdad today, the site of Samarra is particularly significant for understanding the art
and architecture of the Abbasid period. In Samarra, a new way of carving surfaces, the so-called
beveled style, as well as a repetition of abstract geometric or pseudo-vegetal forms, later to be
known in the West as "arabesque," were widely used as wall decoration and became popular in
other media such as wood, metalwork, and pottery. In pottery, Samarra also witnessed an
extensive use of color in decoration and, possibly, the introduction of the technique of luster
painting over a white glaze. Admired for its glittering effect reminiscent of precious metal, luster
painting, the most notable technical achievement at the time, spread in the following centuries
from Iraq to Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Spain and eventually also contributed to the development of
ceramic decoration in the Western world. In terms of architecture, along with the palace of Jawsaq
al-Khaqani (ca. 836 onward), the mosques of al-Mutawakkil (84852) and Abu Dulaf (85961) in
Samarra were important in setting the style that was emulated in regions as far as Egypt or
Central Asia, where it was adapted to need and taste.

In the tenth century, Abbasid political unity weakened and independent or semi-autonomous local
dynasties were established in Egypt, Iran, and other parts of the realm. Following the capture of
Baghdad, Abbasid caliphs retained little more than moral and spiritual influence as the heads of
Orthodox Sunni Islam. During the brief revival under caliphs al-Nasir (r. 11801225) and al-Mustansir
(r. 122642), when Baghdad once again became the greatest center for the arts of the book in the
Islamic world, the first college for the four canonical schools of Sunni law, was built. However, this
burst of artistic vitality came to a temporary halt with the sack of Baghdad by the Ilkhanid branch of
the Mongols in 1258.

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THE SPREAD OF SCHOLARSHIP
With the spread of Islam came the spread of the Arabic language across Afroeurasian lands from
Central Asia to the Atlantic. Just as the Greeks, the Romans, and the Persians had done under their
rule, Muslim governments established centers of learning to collect and translate scientific, literary,
and philosophical works. Among the most famous effort was the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma in
Arabic) the Caliph al-Mamun established in 870 CE in Baghdad. Under the leadership of al-Hunayn, a
Christian scholar, a great effort to collect and translate available knowledge took place. Works in the
library at Jundishapur played a role, and emissaries were sent out to purchase books from wherever
they could be found. All of the great traditions were included.

Just around the time the House of Wisdom was founded in Baghdad, a new technology gave a boost
to the spread of knowledge. In the early 700s, the Chinese invention of paper arrived in the Muslim
countries of Southwest Asia. Paper can be made from cotton, linen, other plant fibers, or even from
old rags. Suddenly, making books became cheaper and easier. Parchment was a good writing
material, but it was made from expensive animal skins. Papyrus was cheap, but not very durable.
Now, in the growing cities of Muslim lands, more and more people bought books, wrote books, and
collected books than ever before. Instead of having just a few copies of a work in existence, more
could be produced, increasing the chances that the work would not be lost to history. Books and
paper-making spread westward across Africa to al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain. Use of water-power to
pound the fiber was another technology that moved with the spread of paper-making. The result:
libraries in Muslim lands grew to thousands of volumes, even though books were still copied by hand.

The cities in western Muslim lands, including Cordoba, Toledo, Seville and Granada, shared in this
exchange of books and scholarship. Muslims, Jews and Christians took part in the growth of learning
and culture in eastern and western Muslim lands. Scholars in different places using the same book
could correspond with each other, contributing to the growth of knowledge. Trade, travel and
migration speeded this process, fueled by growing wealth and eased by the use of Arabic language
and Islamic law across a wide territory. It was a very dynamic period for learning.

The House of Wisdom was a translation center and library, a museum, and an institute for scholars.
Scholars copied, studied and discussed its books and manuscripts from every angle. In the courts
and palaces, in the streets, homes and book shops, Baghdads scholars also worked with the
scientific ideas, and tested them by measuring, experimenting and traveling. In time, they developed a
large body of new knowledge, in addition to the wisdom of ancient times. One important concern,
which would be shared across religious boundaries, was the question of how these ancient ideas fit in
with Islamic teachings. If scriptures, based as they believed on revelation from God, contained all
wisdom, was it permitted to look to other sources of knowledge? Numerous scholars wrestled with
this issue, and they generally reached agreement that faith, or belief, and reason, or independent
investigation, are not just permitted, but encouraged. God created the human being with the capacity
to think and to reason, and like other human abilities, it could be used for good and evil. The search
for knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are another way to discover God and glorify Him. This
important balance between faith and reason would be explored for centuries, and passed on through
the work of Muslim, Jewish, and later Christian, philosophers and scientists. This shared

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understanding among the Abrahamic faiths put in place one of the cornerstones of modern science,
and the scholars of al-Andalus played an important role in its formation and transmission.

Educational institutions such as schools, universities and libraries spread across the network of
Muslim cities. Mosques offered classes in reading Arabic, and the wealthy employed tutors in theirs
homes or palaces. In the centuries from the 800s to the 1100s, formal schools and colleges were
established in major Muslim cities, and several important universities for teaching and research
existed. In al-Andalus, there was a college in Cordoba attached to the Umayyad caliphate, the Seljuk
Turks had established the Mustansiriyyah in Baghdad, and Cairos famous al-Azhar university had
been founded by the Fatimid rulers. Traveling students came to these colleges. Among the students
who were young European scholars. They came, learned Arabic, and transmitted important ideas, and
even styles of song, poetry, and new foods when they returned home.

During the time when Muslims ruled territory in Spain and Sicily, people in those lands became
centers of Muslim learning and culture. Spain and Sicily are Mediterranean lands within Europe, and
linked to the East. Both warfare and peaceful contacts brought to Christian Europe information about
the advanced way of life, luxury goods, music, fashions and learning available in al- Andalus. Some
curious scholars, including Church officials, traveled to al-Andalus to learn first-hand and see the
libraries of wondrous books available there in Arabic, on many important and useful subjects. Like a
mirror of the translation effort in the House of Wisdom at Jundishapur centuries earlier, groups of
scholarsJews, Christians, and Muslimssat down together to translate these precious books. With
the support of some wise Christian rulers, they began to translate into Latin the Arabic books they
found there.

During the 1100s and 1200s, Latin translations of Arabic books helped to bring about changes in
Europes schools and growing cities. Books about mathematics, including algebra, geometry and
advanced arithmetic, introduced Arabic numerals. It took another 200 years before they replaced
Roman numerals in Europeans everyday life. Use of Arabic numerals by North African and Italian
merchants helped to spread them first among accountants (people who do bookkeeping for
merchants). Other books brought knowledge about astronomy contributions from Greek, Persian,
and Arabic sources. Geography and maps, as well as careful measurements of latitude and longitude,
helped Europeans to see the world in a new way, and instruments for navigation eventually helped
them to cross the Atlantic and discover the Americas. Among navigational instruments were the
astrolabe, the quadrant, the compass, and the use of longitude and latitude to create accurate maps
and charts (calculating longitude at sea came in later centuries). Medical books, especially works by
Ibn Sina, al-Razi and al-Zahrawi, and some classical Greek works, lifted the cloud of superstition over
illness. Descriptions of diseases and cures, surgery, and pharmacythe art of preparing medicines--
helped develop a medical profession in Europe.

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To summarize the importance of the translation work that took place in Spain after the Christian
conquest of Toledo in 1085, modern writers Francis and Joseph Gies wrote:

It was the Muslim-Assisted translation of Aristotle followed by Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy

and other Greek authorities and their integration into the university curriculum that
created what historians have called the scientific Renaissance of the12th century.
Certainly the completion of the double, sometimes triple translation (Greek into
Arabic, Arabic into Latin, often with an intermediate Castilian Spanish...) is one of the
most fruitful scholarly enterprises ever undertaken. Two chief sources of translation
were Spain and Sicily, regions where Arab, European, and Jewish scholars freely
mingled. In Spain the main center was Toledo, where Archbishop Raymond
established a college specifically for making Arab knowledge available to Europe.
Scholars flocked thither...By 1200 virtually the entire scientific corpus of Aristotle
was available in Latin, along with works by other Greek and Arab authors on
medicine, optics, catoptrics (mirror theory), geometry, astronomy, astrology, zoology,
psychology, and mechanics.

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GEOGRAPHY AND TRADE
In popular imagination, Islam was a religion of the desert, which arose in the oasis towns of Syria, Iraq,
and Egypt in the seventh century AD. Of course, neither Mecca nor Medina, the twin cities of the
Prophet Muhammad, really belonged to the desert or the Bedouin nomadic way of life. The Umayyad
military victories in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Iran within a decade of Muhammad's death in 632 produced
immediate and tangible results, the most notable of which was the consolidation of the two
transcontinental trade routes through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The economic foundation of
the Muslim world system created by the Umayyads and the Abbasids in the first century of Islam
rested on three factors: settled agriculture, urbanization, and long-distance trade. Nomadism and its
economy had provided the backdrop to the early Arab expansion and they were not entirely
marginalized in the development of urbanized Islam. The Bedouin of Arabia did not give up their
nomadic way of life; the desert and the camel continued to signify certain aspects of Islam and
certainly to signify the context of its movements. Anyone who contemplates the magnificent mihrab of
the Great Mosque in Cordoba built in the eight century, with its pure Arab geometry, must be aware
that the historical roots of the Islamic world were already strong by the Umayyad and Abbasid periods.
But those political leaders and their Arab followers who did migrate to the old and new towns to adopt
an urban life soon revived the economic unity of the ancient world, which had been lost with the
decline of Rome and Persia.

The expansion and the new activities which became faintly evident in the rhythm of both caravan and
trans-oceanic trade from the seventh century onwards in northern and southern China received a
great deal of their impetus from the domestic aspirations and developments of the T'ang and Sung
empires. However, in the West it was joined by the second and most powerful of the historical forces
of the time, the rise of Islam and its expansion across the fertile lands of the Near East and South Asia.
Movements of people by definition involve the exchange of ideas, economic systems, social usage,
political institutions, and artistic traditions. The spread of Islam subsumed all these things. It may be
an exaggeration for lack of definite proof to state that the commerce of the Indian Ocean in the
westward direction had entered a period of relative contraction during the later Roman Empire with the
weakening of a Mediterranean world economy. It is certainly true that the Arab conquests and rapid
demographic diffusion and the political integration of Egypt, Syria, Iran, and North Africa created an
enormously powerful zone of economic consumption. It was an expanding area that drew its
commercial and fiscal strength from refashioning in the West the Mediterranean economy of antiquity
and from harnessing the productive resources of the lands around the Indian Ocean in the East. Arab
economic success in the early caliphate period was achieved with the aid of the skills possessed by
the people of the ancient Near East. But the growth of great urban centers, a universal feature of
Islam, and the new capital cities gave rise to an expanding demand for commodities of all kinds and
for precious objects. This in turn quickened the pace of long-distance trade. The revival of the sea and
caravan routes across the famous international boundary lines, known to merchants since Hellenistic
times, owed much to the ability of the Islamic rulers to protect their property and persons against
violence. The laws of commercial contracts and the principles of juridical rights, which evolved in the
centuries following the foundation of Islam, took into account a cardinal fact of pre-modern trade.
Merchants who traveled by land and sea into the realms of foreign princes were prone to take their
business elsewhere without the guarantee of a certain amount of commercial freedom secured by
reciprocal political rights and obligations.

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Trade was a significant source of income for Muslims during the Abbasid Caliphate. Some of the
trading routes used during the Abbasid Caliphate are shown on the map on page 11 with red
lines. Muslims established trading colonies throughout the Middle East and even as far away as China
to obtain porcelain and silk. The main centers for trade and commerce at this time were: Baghdad
(Iraq), Cairo (Egypt), and Cordoba (Spain).

Muslims spread transportation technology. Camel caravans were used as one method of travel during
the time of the Abbasid Caliphate. Arab and Muslim conquerors of North Africa brought the one-
humped camel and the efficient North Arabian saddle to expand trans-Saharan trade. Many trade
routes went through the Arabian Desert and Sahara Desert. The camel made it possible for people
from the southern Sahara to establish contacts with the people of the northern Sahara. Since camels
can travel for such long periods of time on a smaller amount of water than other animals would need,
the use of camel caravans was a practical method of trade while traveling through desert lands. The
Bedouin (the people of the Arabian Desert) used camel caravans for trading, not only because of their
small need for water, but because they were ideal for carrying goods. The Bedouin used camels to
carry goods such as milk, butter, wool, hides, and skins. Still used today, camel caravans are an
example of the Abbasid Caliphate's influence on the world today and the clever thinking that was
done during this time.

Muslim traders on long-distance sea trade used dhows. Dhows are sailing vessels that use two or
three masts, and were common on the Arabian, Indian, and East African coasts. Much of the trade
that took place during the Abbasid Caliphate was on the sea, so these dhows were often
used. Muslim sailors and merchants on these ships traded ivory, gold, frankincense and myrrh, animal
skins, rice, cloth, glass beads, and more on these ships.

Muslim Sailors used the Astrolabe for navigation on the seas. It helped them determine latitude and
contributed to the development of geography. It is said to have originated in Baghdad, a center place
for Islam during the Abbasid Caliphate, in the 900's. They also developed cartography, the knowledge
of the monsoon wind patterns and map making recorded in books supported by Islamic governments
(mostly the Caliphates), to aid them on their sea-routes.

Coins produced by governments and having Arabic texts and standard shapes made trade easier. In
the Red Sea port of Aqaba, archaeologists found at the eleventh century street levels a cloth sack full
of gold coins, 32 dinars, possibly left by a hajj pilgrim trying to escape an attack on the city. Three of
the coins appear to have been minted in North Africa. Others were gold coins probably minted at
Sijilmasa, a Moroccan town on the northern edge of the Sahara.

Muslim government protected trade and property for merchants. In his eleventh-century work A Guide
to the Merits of Commerce Abu al-Fadl Jafar bin Ali ad-Dimashqi wrote about Damascus:

There are three kinds of merchants: he who travels, he who stocks, he who exports. Their
trade is carried out in three ways: cash sale with a time limit for delivery, purchase on credit
with payments by installment, and muqaradah (in Islamic law a contract in which one individual
entrusts capital to a merchant for investment in trade in order to receive a share of the profits).
The investor bears all of the financial risks; the managing party risks his labor.

The Book of Routes and Kingdoms by the eleventh-century Andalusian geographer Abu Ubayd al-
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Bakri writes on the West African kingdom of Ghana:

"The city of Ghana consists of two towns situated on a plain. One of these towns, which is
inhabited by Muslims, is large and possesses twelve mosques in one of which they assemble
for the Friday prayer. There are salaried imams and muezzins, as well as jurists and scholars.
The king's town is six miles distant from this one. . . . The king has a palace and a number of
domed dwellings all surrounded with an enclosure like a city wall. Around the king's town are
domed buildings and groves and thickets where the sorcerers of these people, men in charge
of the religious cult, live. In them too are their idols and the tombs of their kings."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter1.shtml

The hajj, the annual Muslim religious pilgrimage to Makkah, affected trade positively. Ibn Jubayr was
a Muslim from Spain who made the hajj in 1184 CE. From all parts produce is brought to it, and it is
the most prosperous of countries in its fruits, useful requisites, commodities, and commerce. And
although there is no commerce save in the pilgrim period, nevertheless, since people gather in it from
east and west, there will be sold in one day, apart from those that follow, precious objects such as
pearls, sapphires, and other stones, various kinds of perfume such as musk, camphor, amber and
aloes, Indian drugs and other articles brought from India and Ethiopia, the products of the industries of
'Iraq and the Yemen, as well as the merchandise of Khurasan, the goods of the Maghrib, and other
wares such as it is impossible to enumerate or correctly assess. Even if they were spread over all
lands, brisk markets could be set up with them and all would be filled with the useful effects of
commerce. All this is within the eight days that follow the pilgrimage, and exclusive of what might
suddenly arrive throughout the year from the Yemen and other countries. Not on the face of the world
are there any goods or products but that some of them are in Mecca at this meeting of the pilgrims.
This blessing is clear to all, and one of the miracles that God has worked in particular for this city.

Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and adherents of other belief systems cooperated in trade
together. The Geographical Encyclopedia of Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179-1229) included a section about
Baghdad under the Abbasids, c. 1000 CE :

The long wide estrades [platforms] at the different gates of the city were used by the citizens
for gossip and recreation or for watching the flow of travelers and country folk into the capital.
The different nationalities in the capital had each a head officer to represent their interests with
the government, and to whom the stranger could appeal for counsel or help.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1000baghdad.html

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THE SPREAD OF ISLAM
It is quite easy to map the large territory ruled by different Muslim political groups, or to illustrate the
expansion of an empire. We can shade in areas of a map, and we can track the dates of Muslim rulers
and dynasties from the time of Muhammad to the present day. It is more difficult, however, to
understand why historians speak of a geographic area as a Muslim region, Muslim society,
Muslim civilization, or even the Islamic world. At a minimum, such terms must mean that most of
the people who lived in those places considered themselves to be Muslims, that is, people who
believed in the religion called Islam. By what point in time did the majority of people in those places
accept Islam, and how rapid was its spread? What effect did the gradual or rapid spread of Islam have
on language, customs, art, and politics? How did the fact that many people were converting to Islam
relate to the development of Muslim culture and civilization? We know, of course, that substantial
numbers of people in those regions continued to practice the faiths they had belonged to before
Islam, including Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus and others. The social contributions
of people of these religions continued under Muslim rule. As these former majorities became
minorities, how were they affected? How did the presence of a large region in which the majority of its
inhabitants were Muslim affect adjoining regions where the majority accepted other faiths?

In the decades after Muhammads death, nearly all of the inhabitants of Arabia accepted Islam, except
Christian and Jewish communities, which were allowed to continue practicing their faiths. As Muslim
rule extended into regions beyond the Arabian tribal system, however, khalifas, that is, the successors
of the Prophet as leaders of the Muslim community, did not encourage conversion to Islam among the
populations of newly conquered areas. Nevertheless, during the early caliphates (632750) non-Arabs
began to accept Islam. Conversion took place at first among the lowest classes of people. Men and
women migrated to Muslim garrison cities to look for jobs and to offer their services to the ruling
group. Learning about Islam in these centers, some converted and expanded the Muslim population.
These migrants became associates, or mawali, of Arab tribes, a traditional method of integrating
outsiders. Some migrant Arab and mawali converts founded families that later made important
contributions in preserving and spreading Islamic knowledge. They became scholars of Islamic law,
history, literature, and the sciences. In this way, Islam spread in spite of the policies of political rulers,
not because of them.

During the years of the Umayyad Caliphate (Umayyad dynasty) from 661750 CE, the overwhelming
majority of non-Arab populations of the empire, which stretched from Morocco to Inner Eurasia, did
not practice Islam. Toward the end of that time, the North African Berbers became the first major non-
Arab group to accept the faith. Within a few centuries, Christianity disappeared almost completely in
North Africa (todays Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), though Christian groups persisted in many other
Muslim regions. Jews remained as a small minority, with many living in Muslim Spain. The spread of
Islam among Iranians and other peoples of Persia was the second major movement, beginning about
720 CE. Both of these early groups of converts caused problems for the central government. In North
Africa, Berbers set up an independent caliphate, breaking up the political unity of Islam. In Persia, the
revolution arose that replaced the Umayyad with the Abbasid dynasty in 750, though only a small
proportion of the population of Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia, centered on the Tigris-Euphrates valley)
had at that time accepted Islam. From then, however, Islam was no longer the religion of a single
ethnic or ruling group, and the rates of conversion climbed more rapidly in lands under Muslim rule.

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For example, Arab Muslim forces conquered Egypt in 642, but by 700 few Egyptians had become
Muslims. By 900 CE, about fifty percent of the population was probably Muslim, and by 1200, more
than 90 percent. In Syria, Islam spread even more slowly. There, the 50-percent mark was not reached
until 1200, nearly six hundred years after the arrival of Islam. Iraq and Iran probably reached a Muslim
majority by around 900 CE, like Egypt. In much of Spain and Portugal, Islam became established in
the 500 years following the initial conquests of 711 CE, though it may never have become the majority
faith. After Spanish Catholic armies completed the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, many
Muslims and Jews were either expelled from Spain or converted to Christianity. Islam continued to
exist, however, until after 1600. As in Spain and Portugal, Islam withered away in Sicily, the
Mediterranean island that Muslims had conquered in the ninth century.

In Persia, Inner Eurasia, and India, Muslim law treated Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and Hindus just as it
treated Jews and Christians. Muslim rulers offered adherents of these religions protection of life,
property, and freedom of religious practice in exchange for the payment of a tax, as an alternative to
military service. In Sind (northwestern India), the Buddhist population seems to have embraced Islam
in the eighth and ninth centuries. Buddhism disappeared entirely in that region. Hinduism, however,
declined there more slowly than Buddhism did.

All of the lands described above had Muslim rulers. After the decline of the unified Muslim empire
from about 750Islam gradually spread to lands outside the boundaries of Muslim rule. After 1071,
Anatolia (or Asia Minor), which makes up most of modern Turkey, came under the rule of Turkish
animal-herding groups that had become Muslims. Islam spread gradually for centuries after that, and
when the Ottoman Turkish Empire enfolded much of southeastern Europe in the mid-fourteenth
century, most Albanians and Bosnians, as well as some Bulgarians, became Muslims.

Beginning in 1192, other Muslim Turkish military groups conquered parts of India, including most of
the north all the way to present-day Bangladesh, which borders the Bay of Bengal. The number of
Muslims in India gradually increased from that time. The people of Bangladesh had been Buddhists,
but beginning about 1300, they rapidly embraced Islam. Elsewhere in India, except for Punjab and
Kashmir in the far northwest, Hinduism remained the religion of the majority.

In South India and Sri Lanka, both merchants and Sufi preachers, that is, followers of mystical Islam,
spread the faith. By 1300, traders and Sufis also introduced it to Southeast Asia. Over the next two
centuries, Islam spread from Malaysia to the great archipelago that is today Indonesia. Entering a
region where Buddhism, Hinduism, and local polytheist religions existed, Islam required several
centuries to become well established.

In Inner Eurasia beginning in the eighth century, Islam gradually spread to the original homelands of
the Turkic-speaking peoples until it became the main religion of nearly all of them. Islam also spread
into Xinjiang, the western part of China, where it was tolerated by the Chinese empire. Islam entered
southern China through seaports, such as Guanzhou, the city where the earliest masjid exists.

Before 1500, Islam spread widely in sub-Saharan Africa. Before 1000 CE, the first major town south of
the Sahara that became majority Muslim was Gao, a commercial center located on the Niger River in
Mali. Over the centuries, many other rulers and parts of their populations followed this pattern. By

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1040, groups in Senegal had become Muslims. From there, Islam spread to the region of todays Mali
and Guinea. Muslims established the kingdom of Mali in the thirteenth century and the Songhai empire
from 1465 to 1600. Farther east, Kanem-Bornu near Lake Chad became Muslim after 1100. In West
Africa, like Turkestan, India, and Indonesia, traders and Sufis introduced Islam. When rulers accepted
the faith, numerous Muslim scholars, lawyers, teachers, and artisans migrated into the region to help
build Muslim administration and cultural life. African Muslim scholars became established in major
towns like Timbuktu, where they taught and practiced Islamic law as judges. By 1500, Islam was
established in West Africa in a wide east-west belt south of the Sahara. Local polytheistic religions
remained strong, however, and Islam did not become the majority faith in this region until the
nineteenth century.

In East Africa, traders spread Islam along the coast beginning at least by the tenth century. By the
fourteenth century, the numerous commercial city-states along the coast from todays Somalia to
Tanzania were predominantly Muslim. In the Sudan, south of Egypt, the population of Nubia gradually
became Muslim during the fourteenth century, through immigration of Muslim Arab pastoral groups
and because Christian rule became weak in that region.

Strong Governments and the Spread of Islam. By understanding that the expansion of Muslim rule
was different from the spread of Islam, we can see an interesting trend. Ironically, Islam has spread
most widely and rapidly among populations at times when Muslim rule was weaker and less unified.
When Muslim political regimes were decentralized, disunited, or completely absent, Islam as a religion
flourished and often spread to non-Muslims. Influence by traders and Sufis and influence of Muslim
scholars, lawyers, and artisans in the cities aided the spread of Islam to new areas. On the other hand,
the Ottoman Empire in southeastern Europe, or the Sultanate of Delhi, and the later Mogul empire of
India had little success in spreading Islam, though they did gain territory. Non-Muslim populations
seem to have viewed these powerful, tax-gathering Muslim rulers negatively, and so they resisted
conversion to Islam. Whoever did embrace Islam in such circumstances, if not for material gain,
usually did so because of the efforts of merchants, teachers, and traveling Sufi preachers, who were
not part of the government.

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BASIC TIMELINE

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ISLAM: EMPIRE OF FAITH DOCUMENTARY

This Quiz Bowl topic will also include questions from the following documentary:

Islam: Empire of Faith, Part 2: The Awakening - http://youtu.be/X1PxJomypQE

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REFERENCES

Cohen, Sharon, and Susan Douglass. Afroeurasia and the Rise of Islam, 600-1000 CE. World History
for Us All. Web. Jan. 2015.

http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/units/five/landscape/05_landscape2.pdf

Douglass, Susan. "Legacies and Transfers: The Story of the Transfer of Knowledge from Islamic
Spain to Europe." Unity Productions Foundation. 2007. Web. Jan. 2015.

http://www.islamicspain.tv/For-
Teachers/11_Legacies%20and%20Transfers%20Story%20of%20Transfer%20of%20Knowledge.pdf

Yalman, Suzan. Based on original work by Linda Komaroff. "The Art of the Abbasid Period (750
1258)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Web.
Jan. 2015.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abba/hd_abba.htm

The Abbasid Empire: The Golden Age of Islamic Civilization. The Saylor Foundation, 2014. Web. Jan.
2015

http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HIST101-9.3.1-AbbasidDynasty-FINAL.pdf

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