 5: The High Caliphate:
685-945
 Abd al-Malik
 Laid the basis for absolutist rule
 Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
 Minted Muslim/Arabic coins
 Defeated Byzantine navy
 Later: crossed into Spain and Portugal
 Stopped only in central France, 732
 Attacked the Turks in the east
 Reached China’s NW border
 North to Aral Sea (Russia)
 Pakistan
 The Byzantine Empire
 Constantinople’s Walls
 Withstood three sieges
 “Greek Fire”
 Caliphate gave up
 Reforms of Umar II
 Before: Gov’t favored the Arabs
 Non-Arab Muslims paid high taxes
 Umar II:
 Wanted to treat all Muslims fairly and equally.
 “Covenant of Umar”
 Exempted mawali (converts) from non-Muslim taxes.
 Cut military expenditures
 Put restrictions on non-Muslims
 The Fall of the Umayyads
 Popular discontent
 Arab tribes divided
 civil wars
 decadence of elites
 Revolts favoring the line of Abbas (Muhammad’s uncle)
 “Abbasids”
 Abu-Muslim
 Persian supporter of the Abbasids
 750: Defeated the Umayyad army
 Killed the last caliph.
 Wiped out all the living Umayyads.
 Is killed during revolts.
 Results of fall of the Umayyads
 Replaced an Arab tribal aristocracy with a more egalitarian government
 based on principles of Islam.
 Shift of power from Syria to Iraq.
 Rise of Persian influence.
 Growing interest in the arts.
 Construction of Baghdad as capital.
 Persian Influence
 The caliphate is Persianized from within.
 By their harems–
 more Persian than Arab wives
 Persian bureaucratic families rose to power.
 Barmakids:
 Greatest of these.
 Viziers:
 High ranking ministers
 Mamun (7th Abbasid Caliph;
reigned 813-833)
 Mother was a Persian slave girl.
 Defeated Arab half-brother for caliphate.

Questioned some Muslim beliefs (p. 76)
 Decreed his own views (unpopular)
 “Mu’tazila”
 Mamun
 Sponsored search for new knowledge:
 Translations of Greek works
 envoys to Europe
 “House of Wisdom”
 astronomical observatory
 Decline of the Abbasids
 Continual revolts, 750-945
 Revival of Byzantine Empire in 10th C.
 More Turks into service/ slaves/ army.
 Become strongest element in army.
 Took over the caliphate from within.
 6: Shi’is and Turks,
Crusaders and Mongols:
The 10th-13th Centuries
 Shi’i Islam
 Believe Ali was Muhammad’s true successor
 Ali’s line inherited Muhammad’s “perfect” knowledge of the Quran
 Reject all other caliphs
 The Fatimid Caliphate
 A Shi’i dynasty
 Founder claimed descent from Fatima (M’s daughter) and Ali
 Wanted to overthrow Abbasid caliphate
 Captured Egypt, 969
 founded Cairo
 Intellectual center; Al-Azhar (university)
 Mostly religious freedom to subjects
 Ruled Egypt for 2 centuries
 The Buyid Dynasty
 Captured Baghdad and the Abbasids in 945
 Revived Persian sovereignty and culture
 The Buyid Dynasty
 Founded by 3 brothers,
 each with own capital
 Used the Abbasids as puppet rulers
 Allowed viziers to govern for them
 The Turks
 Probably from Central Asia
 Gradually became Muslim
 Slaves and soldiers for Islamic rulers
 2. Seljuks:
 Attracted other tribes to join them
 Defeated the Ghaznavids
 Seljuk Turks
 Entered Baghdad to assist Abbasids
 “Sultan” (authority)
 Brought much land under Abbasid/Seljuk control
 Manzikert (1071)
 Took much of Anatolia
 “saviors of Islam”
 Empire crumbled
 by end of 12th Century
 Except for “Rum”
 Seljuk Legacies:
 Influx of Turkic tribes from Central Asia
 Turkification of Anatolia
 Restoration of Sunni rule in southwest Asia
 Spread of Persian institutions and culture
 Development of madrasa
 (mosque-school for Islamic law)
 Regularization of the iqta’ system
 for paying troops in land grants
 Weakening the Byzantines in Anatolia
 The Crusades Begin
 Seljuk threat to Byzantines–
 emperor asks Pope Urban II for help
 Pope agrees, for own reasons:
 Demonstrate the power of the papacy
 2nd sons…
 Calls for Christians to liberate the Holy Land from the “wicked race”
 Early Successes
 Thousands of volunteers respond
 Joined with Byzantines in 1097
 Took Antioch
 reached Jerusalem in 1099
 Siege and bloodbath
 Some Europeans stayed and set up “Crusader colonies”
 Muslim Reactions
 Were fighting one another
 Lands being taken were mostly inhabited by Christians or Jews who supported the Crusaders
 Some Muslim rulers:
 alliances with Crusaders against rivals
 Second Crusade attacks Syria but fails
 Salah al-Din
 “Saladin”
 Revered as symbol of Muslim resistance to the Christian West
 Excellent general
 Defeated Crusader invasion of Egypt
 Declares himself sultan of Egypt
 Captured Jerusalem
 Fought Richard the Lion Heart at Acre, 1191
 Used Turkic slave soldiers, “Mamluks,” in Egypt.
 Muslim militancy and intolerance grow in response to Crusades
 The Mongol Empire:
 The Mongols
 Related to the Turks
 12th C: Jenghiz Khan united eastern tribes
 Attack Muslim armies in Central Asia
 Atrocities
 Pause in 1227 when Jenghiz Khan dies
 Grandson, Hulegu:
 Renews attacks on Islamic lands
 Rejects calls for alliance by Europeans
 Attacks Baghdad to destroy the Caliph (no rivals!)
 Mamluks Stop the Mongol Invasion
 Hulegu turns to conquer Egypt
 Called home due to succession issues
 Leaves reduced army near Egypt
 Mamluks
 (Egyptian, but ethnically Turk)
 Defeat Mongols in Palestine, 1260
 Ended the Mongol threat to Islam
 Mamluks defeat Mongols, 1260
 Hulegu and descendants
 settle in Iraq and Persia
 and adopt Islam!
 Mamluks drive last of Crusaders out, 1293
 7: Islamic Civilization
 The Laws of Islam
 Shari’a
 Islamic law code
 Influenced by Roman and Persian law
 Sources:
 The Quran
 Muhammad’s practices (sunna)
 Analogy
 Consensus of the umma
 Judicial opinion
 Shi’i legal systems:
 The imams can interpret the law
 Judges
 But no lawyers, prosecutors, or district attorneys
 Islamic Society
 Social groupings
 Islam stressed equality,
 But class structures survived from earlier times
 Ruler and subject
 Subjects: nomads and settled peoples
 Ancestry, race, religion, sex
 Arabs were favored
 Early converts over later ones
 Christians and Jews had fewer rights
 Women had different responsibilities
 Family Life
 Family played central role
 Marriages arranged by parents
 Preferably between cousins—
 Keep property intact
 Men were allowed four wives
 But few could afford this
 Divorce easier for men
 Close and intense family ties
 Intellectual Life
 Arabs preserved classical Greek knowledge for later revival in the West
 Advances in math
 Algebra, geometry, decimals, etc
 Arabic numerals
 Hindu invention, spread to West by Arabs
 Geography, astronomy
 Literature:
 Arab, then Persian, then Turkish
 Poetry
 Prose and fables; The Arabian Nights
 Architecture
 Especially large mosques
 Theology
 Mu’tazila
 People are responsible for their own acts
 Use of reason
 Hanbal
 Predestination
 Divine revelation is a better guide to the Quran than reason
 View of the Quran is similar to Christians’ view of Jesus:
 The means by which to know God.
 Sufism:
 “Organized Muslim mysticism”
 Seek to uncover hidden meanings
 Meditation, fasting, other rites
 Enabled Islam to absorb some customs of converts from other religions.
8: Firearms, Slaves, and Empires
Mamluks
250 years in power
Control of main trade routes to East
Military based on slaves
Decline around 1500
Greed, Black Death, failure to use firearms
The Mongol Il-Khanids
Descended from Hulegu
Settled in Tabriz, Azerbaijan
Intermarried and became Muslims
Introduced some Chinese influences into Persian art and architecture
Written histories and poetry with Persian flavor
Tamerlane
Led army of Muslim Turks
Sought to create vast empire
Capital at Samarqand
Conquered parts of Persia, Russia, India, and Turkey
Slaughtered thousands
Died suddenly in 1405,
before he could invade China
Most lands then won back independence quickly
The Ottoman Empire
Venetians occupied Constantinople, 1204-1262
Weakened Byzantine power
Osman I
Turkish warrior chief
Conquers some Byzantine territories for Islam & Turks
By 1354, Turks on European side of the city
1395: European multi-national army is defeated by Ottomans in the Balkans
Setback—
Tamerlane nearly destroys the Ottomans around 1402
Mehmet I rebuilds the empire
Mehmet II:
conquers Constantinople itself in 1453.
Uses cannons
“End of the World” to Europe!
“Istanbul”
Soon it is richer than ever
Selim I:
Ottoman Empire--greatest since the caliphate.
Firearms and disciplined troops
Defeated the Mamluks
Captured Arab heartland
Suleyman the Magnificent
Greatest of the Ottoman sultans
Revamped the government and laws
Causes of Success
“Just and brave” rulers
New sultans put their brothers (rivals) to death
Rewards based on ability
Schools for government service
Europeans in the empire free from obeying Ottoman laws and local taxes
Decline
Besieged Vienna in 1683, but repelled.
By 1699: on defensive.
One army, inflexible.
Economic conditions deteriorated.
Europe exploiting New World
Sea routes
Family ties and favoritism
Safavid Persia
The Safavids
Turkish
Shi’ites
Conquered Persia—
Converted them to Shi’ism.
Isfahan
 10: European Interests
and Imperialism
 Ottoman Empire at its height:
 Ottoman Weakness
 Sultans lost interest:
 in maintaining their empire
 In defending the lands
 Wealth, harems, wine and hashish
 Internal revolts
 Failure to use new weapons
 Growth of superstition and ignorance
 Oblivious to growth of knowledge in Europe
 The Eastern Question:
 “Will Russia take the Ottoman lands?”
 The West: surpassed the Muslim world in the 1700s.
 Rise of Tsarist Russia
 A growing empire
 “The Third Rome”
 Seeking ice-free ports
 Desire access to Black Sea
 Russia
 Fought the Ottomans five times in the 1800s.
 Opposed by the major European powers.
 Feared Russian disruption of the “balance of power”
 Austria
 Annexed Ottoman lands in the Balkan Peninsula,
 as the Ottomans lost control of them.
 Bosnia.
 Russian expansion to east:
 Russia, Balkan Peninsula, Black Sea, etc
 Britain
 Sides with the Ottomans in the 1830s:
 Trade deals
 Mutual suspicion of Russia
 Crimean War:
 Britain with the Ottomans, against Russia.
 Troops to Afghanistan to counter the Russians.
 France:
 Close ally of the Ottoman Turks
 Both were opposed to Austria
 Involvement in Syria and Lebanon
 Maronite Christians–
 close with France
 Napoleon invades Egypt in 1798
 Suez Canal
 Built by France;
 opened in 1869.
 Opposed by the British,
 who then mostly took it over.
 France colonizes most of North Africa