International Context: the Islamic World

The Arab Islamic empire expanded extremely rapidly. By the mid-640s the Sasanian kingdom had been destroyed, Egypt and all the east Roman provinces south of Asia Minor taken, the beginnings of a push into North Africa were evident, and the momentum of conquest was still strong. By about 711 Muslim armies had reached Sistan and beyond and were poised to enter India, and in the west Berber converts to Islam had crossed into Visigothic Spain. In 751 a drawn battle with the armies of the Chinese T’ang dynasty on the Talas river marked the westernmost limits of Chinese power and, for the moment, the easternmost extent of Islamic expansion.

As a result of the civil war of the period 658-660 the Umayyad dynasty had gained power in the shape of the Caliph Mu’awiya, and Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law, had been ousted. Those who entirely rejected arbitration of the succession dispute seceded from Ali’s side and were known as ‘seceders’ (Kharijites), believing that any member of the faithful could succeed to the position of Caliph. Those who disputed the Sunna (the tradition of the habits and sayings of the prophet), were known as Shi’a, and supported the legitimacy of Ali against Mu‘awiya. This split, together with the vast territorial extent of the empire and the problems of effectively governing it, sowed the seeds of future division. The Umayyad dynasty ruled its vast empire from Damascus, but its removal from power in 750 during the Abbasid revolution brought with it a move to Iran and a new capital created in the 760s, Baghdad. In spite of the Abbasid victory, the Islamic world was thereafter permanently divided. The last of the Umayyads fled to Spain, there to establish the emirate of Cordoba (755-1031, which became the Caliphate of Cordoba from 929 under the emir Abd ar-Rahman) and a flourishing culture.

From the later eighth century the Abbasid empire was rent by factional strife. Several independent dynasties appeared in North Africa, including the powerful Idrisid emirate in Morocco, which spurned the religious authority of Baghdad in 789 and established a Shi’ite caliphate, and the Aghlabids in Tunisia. In the 880s Egypt was effectively independent under the Tulunid emirs. While central Abbasid power in Egypt was restored briefly in the early years of the tenth century, the rebellion of the Shi’ite Qaramati (Qarmatians) in the Hejaz from 899 and in other parts of the Caliphate thereafter caused further political disruption; and the Shi’ite Fatimids replaced the Aghlabids of Tunisia at the same time and began to their rule westwards. To the east they contributed to the collapse of the Idrisid Caliphate, whose lands fell largely to the Spanish Umayyads; and by 972 they were masters of Egypt. From here the Fatimid Caliphate dominated until the twelfth century (and became the major Islamic power in the region during the eleventh century).

From the 820s eastern Iran was effectively independent under the emirs of the Tahirid family; but by the 880s the Samanids ruled Transoxiana, nominally loyal to the Caliph at Baghdad, while the Shi’ite Saffarid emirs controlled eastern Iran, although by 900 the former had entirely displaced the latter. Northern Mesopotamia was ruled by two separate dynasties at Mosul and Aleppo after the 890s; while in Azerbaijan the emir Ibn Abi al-Saj was recognised by the Caliph as effectively autonomous. By the end of the tenth century the Sajid emirate had been replaced by the Shadaddid emirate in the south and the emirate of Shirwan to the north. But the largest such independent emirate was that of the Buyid (or Buwayhid) dynasty, with its origins in the Daylam region on the south-western littoral of the Caspian. An Iranian people, the Daylamites had long served in the armies of the Caliphs; but economic decline in their homeland and a tradition of political independence, among other factors, caused them to rebel against central authority in the 920s, and while a number of Daylamite leaders established small emirates along the shores of the Caspian and farther to the east, the Buyids were able to take control of much of southern and western Iran and, in 945, enter Baghdad to take effective control of the Caliphate. This political change also furthered the renaissance of Persian language and culture within the central and eastern parts of the Caliphate. The Buyids ruled from 932 to 1055, although their rule was not centralised, consisting in effect of a loose confederation of three separate emirates - of Baghdad, of Hamadan and of Isfahan.

Of great importance to these developments was the appearance of Turkic soldiers in the Caliphate from the 830s as slave-soldiers (Mamluks). Originally recruited as loyal guards to insulate the Caliphs from court and garrison factionalism, Turkish soldiers and their leaders quickly rose to dominate the armies of the Caliphate. Although not the first Islamic Turkish dynasty to establish itself (that honour goes to the Karakhanid khanate in Transoxiana in the 980s and early 990s), the emir

Mahmud of Ghazna (998-1030), renowned for his attacks into northern India, seized power from the Samanid emir and established his rule across Afghanistan and eastern Persia. His dynasty ruled in their homeland of Afghanistan until the later twelfth century. But their power in Iran and the central lands of the Caliphate fell prey to the Seljuks, who replaced the Buyids from 1055 and who, having extended their power across the Iranian and middle eastern territories of the Caliphate, began to look to Byzantium and the Fatimid lands as possible targets for further expansion.