Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid Caliphates; Islamic Golden Age

Things happened, and the rest is history

1. 01

   Abu Bakr and the Ridda wars

   Event

   What happened

   After Muhammad dies in 632, Abu Bakr is chosen as the first caliph at Medina. Several Arabian tribes refuse to pay the alms tax or follow new prophets. Abu Bakr sends armies against them in the Ridda wars, and by about 633 central Arabia is brought under Medina's control.

   ↓ The rest is history

   These wars secured Arabia as a base, and the armies that won them were then sent against Byzantine Syria and Sasanian Iraq. How far the tribes saw themselves as leaving Islam, rather than ending a political alliance, is debated. Abu Bakr died in 634 and Umar succeeded him. The Muslim conquests that followed created the empire the later caliphates ruled.

   Sources

   1. Primaryal-Tabari. Tarikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk (History of the Prophets and Kings). Arabic chronicle, c. 915 CE. Translated as The History of al-Tabari, vol. 10, The Conquest of Arabia, Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
   2. BookDonner, Fred M. The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
2. 02

   Yarmuk and al-Qadisiyya

   Event

   What happened

   In 636 a Muslim army defeats a Byzantine army at the Yarmuk River in Syria. At about the same time, a Muslim force defeats the Sasanian army at al-Qadisiyya in Iraq. Damascus falls in 636 and Jerusalem is surrendered around 637 to 638. Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, is taken in 637 or 638.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Byzantium lost Syria, Palestine and, soon after, Egypt, and the Sasanian state collapsed by 651 with the death of its last king, Yazdegerd III. Garrison cities such as Basra, Kufa and Fustat became centres of the new order. The speed of the conquests is explained by the exhaustion of both empires after their long war of 602 to 628, among other factors. Historians still debate the exact dates and details, as the accounts were written down later.

   Sources

   1. BookKennedy, Hugh. The Great Arab Conquests. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007.
   2. BookDonner, Fred M. The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
3. 03

   The assassination of Uthman and the first civil war

   Event

   What happened

   In 656 rebels from Egypt and Iraq, angry at the policies of the third caliph, Uthman, kill him in Medina. Ali is chosen as caliph, but Muawiya, governor of Syria and a kinsman of Uthman, demands vengeance. Ali's forces fight Muawiya's at Siffin in 657, and the war ends in arbitration that fails to settle matters.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Ali was murdered in 661 by a former supporter, a Kharijite, and Muawiya was accepted as caliph, founding the Umayyad dynasty. The split between supporters of Ali, the Shia, and the majority, later the Sunni, grew from this conflict and later events such as the death of Ali's son Husayn at Karbala in 680. Uthman's standard written text of the Quran is also dated to his reign. Muawiya made Damascus his base.

   Sources

   1. BookMadelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
   2. Primaryal-Tabari. Tarikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk (History of the Prophets and Kings). Arabic chronicle, c. 915 CE. Translated as The History of al-Tabari, vols. 15 to 17, Albany: SUNY Press.
4. 04

   Abd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock

   Event

   What happened

   After a second civil war ends in 692, the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, who ruled from 685 to 705, completes the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in 691 to 692. He also reforms the coinage, replacing Byzantine and Sasanian designs with purely inscribed Arabic coins from about 696 to 697. Arabic becomes the language of the administration.

   ↓ The rest is history

   These steps made the empire more unified and gave it a distinctive Islamic identity in its buildings, money and records. Under his son al-Walid I the Great Mosque of Damascus was built, and the conquests reached Spain in 711 and Sindh in the same period. The inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock are among the earliest surviving public Quranic texts. Administrative use of Arabic spread over the following decades.

   Sources

   1. BookHoyland, Robert G. In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
   2. BookGrabar, Oleg. The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
5. 05

   The Abbasid Revolution

   Event

   What happened

   From about 747 a movement led from Khurasan under Abu Muslim raises black banners against the Umayyads. It wins support from many non-Arab Muslims and others who resent Umayyad rule. In January 750 the Umayyad caliph Marwan II is defeated at the Battle of the Zab in Iraq and later killed in Egypt.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Abu al-Abbas, a descendant of Muhammad's uncle al-Abbas, was proclaimed the first Abbasid caliph. Most of the Umayyad family was killed, but one prince, Abd al-Rahman, escaped to Spain and founded an Umayyad emirate at Córdoba in 756. The Abbasids moved the centre of power east, giving Persian officials and converts a greater role. The Abbasid state ruled from Iraq from then on.

   Sources

   1. BookKennedy, Hugh. The Early Abbasid Caliphate: A Political History. London: Croom Helm, 1981.
   2. BookDaniel, Elton L. The Political and Social History of Khurasan under Abbasid Rule, 747-820. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979.
6. 06

   The founding of Baghdad

   Event

   What happened

   In 762 the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founds a new capital on the Tigris, called Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace, later known as Baghdad. It is laid out as a round city with a central palace and mosque. Within a few decades it grows well beyond the original walls.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Baghdad sat on trade routes and rich farmland, and became one of the largest cities in the world by the 9th century. It drew scholars, merchants and officials from many lands and faiths. The round city has not survived, as it was built over, but it is known from written descriptions and from modern studies. Baghdad remained the Abbasid capital, apart from a period at Samarra in the 9th century, until 1258.

   Sources

   1. BookLassner, Jacob. The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970.
   2. Primaryal-Khatib al-Baghdadi. Tarikh Baghdad (History of Baghdad). Arabic text, 11th century CE.
7. 07

   The Battle of Talas and the arrival of paper

   Event

   What happened

   In 751 an Abbasid army and its allies meet a Tang Chinese force near the Talas River in Central Asia, and the Tang army is defeated. Papermaking, known in China for centuries, is practised at Samarkand by this period. The first paper mill in Baghdad is recorded in the 790s.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Paper was cheaper and easier to produce than parchment or papyrus, and it helped the spread of books, records and copying in the Islamic world. Papermaking reached Spain and Sicily by the 11th and 12th centuries and then the rest of Europe. The traditional story that Chinese prisoners at Talas brought papermaking is doubted by many scholars, as the craft was probably already known in the region. Talas did mark the limit of Tang expansion westward.

   Sources

   1. BookBloom, Jonathan M. Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
   2. BookKennedy, Hugh. The Early Abbasid Caliphate: A Political History. London: Croom Helm, 1981.
8. 08

   The Translation Movement and the House of Wisdom

   Event

   What happened

   From the 8th century and especially under al-Mamun (ruled 813 to 833), scholars in Baghdad translate Greek, Syriac, Persian and Indian works into Arabic. Patrons include caliphs and wealthy families such as the Banu Musa. Translators such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, a Christian physician, work on medicine and philosophy, and al-Khwarizmi writes on algebra and Hindu-Arabic numerals.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Arabic became a major language of science, philosophy and medicine, and many Greek works survive today only through these translations. Later thinkers such as al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham built on this work, and Latin translations in Spain and Sicily carried it to Europe from the 12th century. The Baghdad Bayt al-Hikma was a real institution, but its exact size and role are debated, and it was probably less grand than is often claimed. The word algebra comes from the title of al-Khwarizmi's book of about 820.

   Sources

   1. BookGutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society. London: Routledge, 1998.
   2. PrimaryIbn al-Nadim. Kitab al-Fihrist (The Catalogue). Arabic bibliographic work, c. 987 CE.
9. 09

   Harun al-Rashid and the Thousand and One Nights

   Folk tale

   The legend

   In the Thousand and One Nights, the caliph Harun al-Rashid walks through Baghdad at night in disguise with his vizier Jafar and the executioner Masrur. He meets porters, merchants, fishermen and beggars, and hears their strange tales. The city is shown as a place of wealth, magic and surprise.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Harun al-Rashid was a real caliph, who ruled from 786 to 809, and Baghdad was then at its height. The stories, however, were gathered over centuries from Indian, Persian and Arabic sources, and the Baghdad tales were probably added in the later Middle Ages, with the Cairo-based collection taking shape later still. The oldest known fragment of the Nights is a 9th-century Arabic paper scrap, and the frame story with Shahrazad is first described by al-Masudi and Ibn al-Nadim in the 10th century. Antoine Galland's French translation, begun in 1704, introduced the tales to Europe. The real Harun is better documented in chronicles, which describe a pilgrim, a patron of scholars and a ruler whose family, the Barmakids, fell from favour in 803.

   Sources

   1. BookIrwin, Robert. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Allen Lane, 1994.
   2. BookMahdi, Muhsin, ed. The Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla) from the Earliest Known Sources. Leiden: Brill, 1984.
10. 10

    The Tigris ran black with ink

    Popular belief

    The legend

    When the Mongols sack Baghdad in 1258, they are said to throw so many books into the Tigris that the river runs black with ink. The great libraries are said to be destroyed in a single week, ending the Golden Age at once.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The Mongol army under Hulagu took Baghdad in February 1258, killed the last Abbasid caliph al-Mustasim, and the city suffered massive loss of life and damage. Accounts that mention books thrown in the river come from later writers, and are probably exaggerated, though some libraries and institutions were certainly lost. The creative period of Abbasid learning had been slowing for generations, as political power had passed to regional dynasties from the 9th and 10th centuries. Scholarship also continued in Cairo, Damascus, Maragha and elsewhere, and an Abbasid line was kept up in Cairo under the Mamluks.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRashid al-Din. Jami al-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles). Persian chronicle, c. 1300-1310 CE. Translated by W. M. Thackston, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998 to 1999.
    2. BookKennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2016.
11. 11

    The caliph Umar and the Library of Alexandria

    Popular belief

    The legend

    After the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the general Amr ibn al-As asks the caliph Umar what to do with the books of the great library of Alexandria. Umar is said to reply that if they agree with the Quran they are unnecessary, and if they disagree they are harmful, so they are burned to heat the city's baths for six months.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The story appears only about 500 to 600 years after the event, in writers such as Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (around 1200) and Ibn al-Qifti (13th century). No contemporary source for the conquest of Alexandria in 641 mentions it. The great library had by then probably been in decline for centuries, with damage in Julius Caesar's war in 48 BCE, and under Aurelian in the 270s CE, and the destruction of the Serapeum in 391. Most modern historians reject the tale. It also sits oddly with the later Abbasid enthusiasm for collecting and translating books.

    Sources

    1. BookButler, Alfred J. The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902.
    2. BookEl-Abbadi, Mostafa. The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Paris: UNESCO, 1990.