Download Slides Lecture 7

Lecture 7:
The Abbasids and the High
Caliphate
Review
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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 nonMuslims 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
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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 nonArabs
• 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
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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
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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 multiethnic local elites from throughout the empire
to participate in and reflect a cosmopolitan
imperial government
Court Culture
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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
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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