The Abbasids (750-1258)

The Abbasids, was the name given to the second dynasty of Islamic caliphs, whose sovereigns, descendants of al-‘Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle, reigned from 749 – 1258.

The rise to power of the Abbasids marked a return to power of members of the Hashemite clan. This rise was aided by a propaganda campaign, which made use of anti-Umayyad discontent and ‘Alid aspirations, rooted in the eastern regions of Dâr al?islâm in the first half of the 8^th century. The first Abbasid caliph was proclaimed at Kufa in 749 and the last of the Umayyad caliphs, Marwan II was captured and killed along with his family the following year.

The crucial decisions that would mould the identity of the Abbasid dynasty were however taken by the second caliph, al-Mansur (r. 754 – 775). The first of these was to establish a new capital, Baghdad, on the western banks of the river Tigris, which effectively moved the centre of gravity of the Muslim world to the east. The “Round City”, which was the first urban nucleus of the city, was built of brick, carefully planned throughout and completed in 762. It contained the caliph’s palaces, a central mosque, administrative buildings and living quarters. As well as being the political capital, Baghdad rapidly became the centre of Abbasid intellectual activity and thus the cradle of Arab-Muslim culture.

Amongst the successors of al-Mansur was the caliph Haroun al-Rachid (r. 786 – 809), who once again went to war with the Byzantines and had to face regional demands for autonomy, which threatened the unity of the empire (the Aghlabids of Ifriqiya). A Quarrel for the succession between his two sons al-Amin (r. 809 – 813) and al-Ma’mun (r. 813 – 833), degenerated into a civil war and in 813 the city was left in ruins and the caliphs left for the city on the opposite banks of the Tigris. The religious policies of al-Ma’mun were original to say the least. At first he attempted to reach an agreement with the Chiites, then trying to impose doctrines that were the result of a rationalist approach to Islam, he embraced Mu’tazilism. The two attempts were doomed to failure but in the meantime he encouraged the development of science and philosophy and ordered the translation of many Greek works into Arabic. This intellectual activity gravitated around a library known as Bayt al-hikma “The House of Wisdom”.

During the second half of the 8^th century, Baghdad had spread to both banks of the Tigris but conflicts between the Turkish soldiers of caliph al-Mu’tasim’s guard and the city’s population led to the founding of a new capital at Samarra, 125 km north of Baghdad.  Samarra remained the centre of power between 836 and 892, when the Abbasid caliphs returned to the east banks of Baghdad where they built a palatial complex, the Dâr al?khilâfa, which was surrounded by beautiful gardens.

The first two centuries of Abbasid rule are often considered as a “golden age” due to the political authority the caliphs enjoyed, the general prosperity of the empire and the original artistic and material output, sometimes qualified as “Abbasid art”, though marked by oriental influence, especially that of the Persian Sassanids.

In the field of architecture, these two centuries saw the construction of impressive monuments in fired brick reproducing Sassanid construction techniques: the massive fortifications of the “Round city”, the gigantic mosques of Samarra (the al-Mutawakkil mosque and the Abu Dulaf mosque) with their spiralling, cone shaped minarets as well as several palaces of which little remains today. The Fortified palace of Ukhaydir 120 kms southwest of Baghdad, constructed by a nephew of al-Mansur is a perfect example of the monumental building techniques of the time. It was also at the end of the 8^th century that the first royal mausoleums were built, such as the Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya in Samarra, the first tomb to be equipped with a dome. Elsewhere, it was only in the 10^th century that this type of monument began to appear. The interior walls of these structures in brick were often covered in stucco with geometric shapes.

One innovative technique from the early Abbasid era, which was to survive for several centuries in the Muslim world and in Europe, was that of ceramic lusterware. This technique involved painting metallic oxides onto already fired glazing and giving the object a second firing. The so called “Samarra” ceramics were first produced at the beginning of the 9^th century and had several different types of finish, which could be monochrome or polychrome depending on the oxides used. This technique was still in use long after the return of the caliphs to Baghdad.

This lusterware took the form of both functional objects (bowls) and architectural decoration (tile used for the interior decoration of buildings) and was exported to the other regions of Dâr al?islâm. The tiles for example, were used to decorate the Great Mosque in Kairouan (9^th century) and have been found in Madinat al-Zahra, the town in al-Andalus, where the Umayyads had their royal palace (10^th century). Lusterware was also produced regionally in Iran (Rayy and Nishapur), in Egypt (Fustat) in the Maghreb and in Andalusia.

Other goods produced in Iraq were exported to the provinces of the empire, such as cotton cloth made in the tirâz (weaving workshops), which has been discovered in Fustat. Under the Abbasids, weaving workshops were also found in the provinces, particularly in Yemen, Iran and Egypt (linen workshops in Delta, Fayoum and Upper Egypt)

Towards the end of the 9^th century, the Abbasid caliphs were obliged to come to terms with provinces seeking some measure of autonomy or even independence. During the first decades of the 10^th century proclamations of independence by the Umeyyad caliphate in Cordoba and the Shi’ite Fatimids of Ifriqiya and Egypt put an end to the myth of a united Dâr al?islâm under the rule of the caliphs of Baghdad. Furthermore between 945 and 1055, the Abbasids were obliged to accept the political domination of the Buwayhids, a militarily powerful group of Shiite emirs from Daylam on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. In both the eastern and western regions of the Abbasid caliphate, the appearance of numerous regional courts and the patronage of autonomous dynasties led to an upsurge of local artistic creativity and the renaissance of Persian literature in the 10^th century.

In the mid 11^th century, the Seljuk, Turkish generals from central Asia, put an end to the reign of the last Buwayhid and liberated the Abbasid caliphs from Shiite domination, only to replace it with a Sunni regime. Under their rule, new institutions were founded called madrasas, where Islamic law was taught. Numerous madrasas appeared in Baghdad in the second half of the 11^th century and from the 12^th century onwards in other regions of the Mediterranean (Syria, Egypt and the Maghreb).

From the mid 12^th century the Seljuk hold over the caliphs of Baghdad became more indirect, which opened the way to a slow return to power for the Abbasids that reached it’s zenith under the reign of al-Nasir (r. 1180 – 1225) the first half of the 13^th century was a period of great artistic creativity. Illuminated manuscripts were produced in Mossoul and Baghdad from 1220 onwards, the most famous of which is the Maqâmât by al-Hariri, illustrated by al-Wasiti in 1237, which is conserved in the French National Library. The brickwork of the Mustansiriyya madrassa in Baghdad is another example of 13^th century creativity. In 1258 however, the military advances of the Mongols put an end to the Abbasid caliphate when Baghdad was taken and the last Iraqi caliph, al-Musta’sim was executed.

In 1261, Baybars, the Mamluk sultan of Cairo received a survivor of the Abbasid family and re-established a puppet dynasty, whose unique function was to legitimise the reigning Mamluk sultan. The Cairo Abbasids continued this fantasy reign until the Ottomans put an end to the Mamluk regime in 1517.

V.V.R.