Essays on Abbasid

There is a wide accepted concept that after centuries of development, the Muslim world began to decline in the 15th century. Did it really decline? In this work I would like to illustrate the main trends of developments of the Muslim world in early 15 – early 20 century. We know that in part of the second millennium, and for five centuries later there were many Asian invasions in other regions of the world, wide expansion (Seljuk, Arab, Turkish). But then the stagnation began. Since the "golden age" of the Abbasid Empire, it has not changed territorially. And large areas ...

The thirteenth century to the seventeenth century can be considered a period of ascendancy as there are many examples of dominance and the fight for superiority between various groups and empires: most notably through the Mongol Empire, the destruction of the Abbasid Empire, and the consolidation of the Ottoman Empire. In the thirteenth century, Mongol invasions were rampant all over Asia, leading through the Middle East and into Europe. They were sent by the Mongol Empire to gain territorial expansion across Eurasia and the Middle East. Mongol armies led by Genghis Khan invaded Iraq and Iran beginning in the ...

The world has undergone myriad transformations, which has ultimately changed this epoch into the knowledge era. Two major empires of the world that are considered to form the knowledge base of Christian and Muslim worlds are Roman Empire and Abbasid Caliphate. If a historical analysis is done on both the empires, various commonalities can be drawn from both – first being the significant spread of knowledge. Roman Empire lasted for over 1400 years and the Abbasid Empire lasted for over 500 years. The first common factor that remains common in both the empires is marked by internal peace. For Romans, ...

Discussion Questions

Although the Umayyads achieved great success during their reign, they never had the support of the whole empire. Cracks started emerging, especially for the newly conquered regions made up of Non-Arab Muslims. Most of their caliphs were not elected through popular vote nor were they elected by respected community leaders (Alkhateeb). Again, the Umayyads began losing the support of newly converted Muslims because of treating them differently from other Muslims (Alkhateeb). They treated them differently by imposing a tax, as though they were not converts. That was against the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, who preached equality of all the ...

Abbasid Caliphate

During the time that Europe was still grappling with the Dark Ages, civilization and knowledge revolution was being adopted in Baghdad. In this regard, Muslim scholars were gathered in the House of Wisdom under the leadership of the Abbasid Caliphate. The House of Wisdom was instituted with the focus of promoting the translation of scientific related texts and concepts. They endeavored to conserve information related to classical civilizations which lay a basis for the formation of academic disciplines which still maintain their relevance in the current society. The Abbasid Caliphate sought to spread Islam through conquest and conversion in ...