The Breakdown of Abbasid Authority and the Turkic Migration

THE POST-ROMAN WEST and THE CRUSADING MOVEMENT HIST 1301 | History The Breakdown of Abbasid Authority and the Turkic Migration After toppling the Umayyad caliphs, the Abbasid dynasty advanced eastward and established Baghdad as their capital. In order to create an empire, the ruling class there was able to encourage a period of extraordinary intellectual prowess and inventiveness that permitted many cultures, languages, and races to coexist. The administrative framework of the Abbasid Caliphate, which preserved riches for the elite and encouraged the rebirth of towns and trade, was derived from Persian and Byzantine sources. Persian language and literary forms started to influence Arabic although Arabic remained the language of government and religion. This resulted in the creation of a rich heritage of secular and religious works, which are now kept in the Great Library of Baghdad. The caliphate developed a global outlook. Persians worked as administrators, Christians and Jews worked as bankers and doctors, while Syriac Christians translated Greek literature into Arabic. The trading routes that linked the Mediterranean with India and China brought wealth, and Baghdad emerged as the hub of the empire, a cosmopolitan metropolis renowned for its academic, commercial, and trade activities. A centralised government was successfully established by the early Abbasid caliphs, and some of the ethnic strife that had brought down the Umayyad dynasty was alleviated. But the Abbasid rulers had to deal with new issues as well as unsolved ones. In the early ninth century, caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty started using enslaved males of Turkic descent to form an army devoted only to the Abbasid monarch. These fighters, known as mamluks, were frequently young boys who were abducted from their parents, trained as warriors, and then converted to Islam. They received social status guarantees and an education, but in exchange, they were supposed to remain obedient to the caliph alone. At first, the mamluks were helpful in putting down uprisings, battling rival Byzantine dynasties, and providing caliphs like al-Mutasim with some protection against antagonistic nobles. While al-Mutasim's forebears had attempted to achieve a balance between Arab and Persian elites, his own authority depended on the mamluks' military might. However, the caliph's standing with the conventional elite was only strengthened by the money and favour bestowed upon the military, particularly upon these Turkic troops. Al-Mutasim relocated his capital from Baghdad to Samarra in northern Mesopotamia in order to address this issue and keep the Turkic warriors apart from the general populace. Following his demise, the mamluks backed many heirs in a bloody civil war that lasted over 10 years. In the core of the Abbasid empire, their influence and authority had grown ingrained. In addition to dealing with criticism and disagreements within the religious community, the Abbasid caliphate's global outlook encouraged the development of rationalising and speculative philosophy. Philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, for instance, studied the logic and medical systems of the ancient Greeks in great detail. They advanced novel approaches to philosophy and produced advances in the fields of science, law, and religion that eventually shaped the ideas of European Christian thinkers. These Islamic academics translated classical philosophical works into Arabic, which were then translated into Latin by Christian intellectuals. But the fact that these two prominent personalities were not Arabs, and that they rationalised Islamic realities, enraged religious fundamentalists and encouraged dissatisfaction with the worldly caliphs. Although the Abbasid government was not universally praised, the Abbasid cultural renaissance was an impressive accomplishment. A significant and long-lasting theological advancement during the Abbasid era was the rise of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. Sufism was divided into "brotherhoods," each of which pursued sincere and individualised worship of God by adhering to the beliefs and customs of its forefathers. Sufis lived similarly to monks in other faiths, forgoing worldliness and luxury along with the forced fulfilment of religious obligations in favour of a life devoted to mystical unity with God. Additionally, some Sufis objected to the rationalisation of religion and the appropriation of Greek philosophy by Islamic theologians. Sufism was not a political movement, but the Abbasids' position was undermined by its rejection of classical philosophy and quest for spiritual purity. Political and cultural unity within the Islamic world started to erode as the Abbasid rulers battled to hold onto power in Mesopotamia and Persia, the Islamic core. Dynasties that saw the Abbasids as too far away or too corrupt started to break apart. The Aghlabids in Algeria and the Amazigh Idrisid dynasty in Morocco strayed from Abbasid rule in Spain and North Africa. Without officially dissolving the Abbasid Caliphate, Persian and Turkic dynasties openly challenged its sovereignty on its eastern periphery. Political devolution is the process by which local bodies obtain responsibilities previously held by a centralised state, and it is responsible for the increasing divisiveness in society. Religious conservatives were appalled by the Abbasid culture's worldliness. For instance, when discussing Islamic beliefs, the scholar al-Ghazali objected to the inclusion of Greek speculative thinking. The influence granted to Persian families and professors, together with their patronage of Persian literature and culture, caused the caliphs to alienate the Arab elites. The Abbasid administration appeared weak and corrupt due to the usage of the mamluks and an established and strong bureaucracy. The capacity of competitors to found their own kingdoms and lay claim to the title of caliph, along with the advent of strong Turkic tribes such as the Seljuks in the core of the Abbasid empire, dealt the worst blow to Abbasid authority.