In Our Time - The Abbasid Caliphs

Episode Date: February 2, 2006

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Abbasid Caliphs, dynastic rulers of the Islamic world from the mid eighth to the tenth century. They headed a Muslim empire that extended from Tunisia through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia to Uzbekistan and the frontiers of India. But unlike previous conquerors, the Abbasid Caliphs presided over a multicultural empire where conversion was a relatively peaceful business. As Vikings raided the shores of Britain, the Abbasids were developing sophisticated systems of government, administration and court etiquette. Their era saw the flowering of Arabic philosophy, mathematics and Persian literature. The Abbasids were responsible for patronising the translation of Classical Greek texts and transmitting them back to a Europe emerging from the Dark Ages. So who were the Abbasid Caliphs and how did they come to power? What was their cultural significance? What factors can account for their decline and fall? And why do they represent a Golden Age of Islamic civilisation? With Hugh Kennedy, Professor of History at the University of St Andrews; Robert Irwin, Senior Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies; University of London; Amira Bennison, Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, the Abbasid Caliphs were the dynastic rulers of the Islamic world between the middle of the 8th and the 10th centuries. They headed a Muslim empire that extended from Tunisia through Egypt, Syria,

Arabia and Persia to Uzbekistan and the frontiers of India. Unlike previous conquerors, the Abbasid Caliphs presided over a multicultural empire where conversion was a relatively peaceful business. As Vikings raided the shores of Britain, the Abar seeds were developing sophisticated systems of government, administration and court etiquette. The eras saw the flowering of Arabic philosophy, mathematics and Persian literature. The Abbasids were responsible for patronising the translation of classical Greek texts and transmitting them to Europe, back to Europe emerging from the Dark Ages.

So who were the Abbasid Caliphs and how did they come to power? What was their cultural significance? What factors can account for their decline and fall? And why do they represent a golden age of Islamic civilization? With me to discuss the Abbasid Caliphs are Hugh Kennedy, Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. Amira Benison, senior lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge,

and Robert Irwin, senior research. Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Hugh Kennedy, who were the Abbasid Caliphs and what was their power? The Abbasid Caliphs were the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle Abbas, and that was an important part of their claim to power and fame was that they were connected with the family of the Prophet himself. They came to power in 750 AD as a result really of a massive revolution in the Middle East. The previous rulers of the Islamic world had been the U.M.

dynasty based in Damascus in Syria. And the Abbasids and the Umayyad regime was very much an Arab-dominated regime that most of the ruling class were people who were of Arab-Beduin or Arab origin. The coming of the Abbasids was in a sense a revolt against this Arab domination and the attempt to move on to a more Islamic rule where all Muslims of whatever ethnic background would be equal. or at least participants in the state. So it was that sort of revolution. It was a social revolution,

but it also marked the move of the central gravity of the Muslim world from Syria and the Mediterranean coast, eastwards to Iraq. And Abbasid power from the beginning was firmly grounded in Iraq and in Baghdad. Can you just tell our listeners what the Caliph's powers were? The title Caliph comes from Arabic, Khalifa, which means the deputy of God on earth. And the powers of the caliphs vary greatly, but for the first 250 years after the death of

the prophet in 632, the caliphs were effectively the absolute rulers, the monarchs, if you like, of the Muslim world. Later on, the title becomes more symbolic, more ornamental, if you like. There are still caliphs, but they lose the political power and they retain some religious significance. Can you tell us how their court was structured because we think of the Bedouins as a very informal loose association, but as I understand it,

the Abbasid care is brought in a very strict court structure. Yes, these people were Arab, the Abbasids were Arab by descent, but they certainly were not Bedouin. They lived in towns, mostly, and in huge palaces, some remains of which can still be seen in some places. And they developed a very

formal system of court etiquette. The caliph would hold audience two or three times a week from behind a curtain and only select people were allowed to actually see him face to face. Between the caliph and the rest of the world, there was an whole army of guards, of chamberlains who would carefully vet anybody who wanted to come into the to face-to-face contact with the ruler. Why did they move their centre to Baghdad? They virtually found it back, didn't it? They Abbasid. The Abbasis virtually founded Baghdad. Yes. Baghdad was founded as a new town in a part of the world, of course, where there had been cities for millennia. Baghdad was founded as a new town in 762 by the Abbasid Caliph Mansour.

What attracted them to Iraq was the fantastic agricultural richness. Iraq in the early Middle Ages was by far the most wealthy part of the Middle East, possibly the most wealthy patch of territory on the surface of the world. The irrigation systems of the alluvium of southern Iraq could generate two or three crops a year out of the same piece of land of wheat, barley and dates. It was the revenues from this agriculture that were the treasure chest of the Abbasid caliphs. Robert Owen, so we have the Abbasids established in the middle of the 8th century

and they moved to Baghdad and set up the centre of that empire then. Are they still extending the empire? In that case, are they running into political conflict all over the case? I've talked about it's going from Tunisia right to the way to Uzbekistan and India. No, they're not really extending the empire. They make a few territorial gains on the eastern frontier. But effectively, the Islamic, the Dharal Islam, the territory of Islam, had reached pretty near its full extent by the end of the Umayad period.

And indeed, what one begins to find straight away with the Abbas, is that bits of territory at the extremes fall off the end. When the Abbasis come to power, there's a purge of all the Uyads they can find in Syria and elsewhere, but one of them gets away and makes his way across North Africa to Spain, where he sets up an independent Emirate in Kordova, which is hostile to the Abbasids and an alternative. And slowly over the centuries, other bits of North Africa fall away.

The place where the Abaris do try to make gains is, again, Byzantium in Asia Minor. There's a series of campaigns. The Caliphs are leaders of jihad and the chief jihad or holy war is against Byzantium. The great target is to see if they can take Constantinople. They never succeed. And often the campaigning is really rather formal and, you know, it's done for the show of it rather in great expectation of victory. So I understand it. When the Abbasids came to power, or rather seized power, they did so on a very high note. They were destined. They were. the heavens foretold it, they would rule forever and so on. Can you give us some idea of the atmosphere which they generated around themselves when they took power? Well, yes, there are sort of millennial expectations of coming to power of people who belong to the family of the Prophet, descendants of the Prophet's uncle. The signs of this are the astrological manuals that are produced.

The Abbasids are very keen on patronising astrology because, of course, the treatises they do patronise, suggest that the Abbasids are predestined to rule, and it is their destiny to lead Islam into the last days. And there are a lot of prophets, too, that they're destined to take Constantinople, and that would be one of the signs of the end of the world. Another indication of this is the way the Abbasids take regnal titles. The Amayygh rulers before them had just used their ordinary Arab names.

But when the Abbasids come to power, they take names like Al Mansur, assisted by God to victory, or al-Mahdi, the one who will be able to be. bring justice at the end of the world. So they have this kind of messianic aura which they try to present to the people at large. What political problems did they run into briefly, Robert? It changes over the centuries. Well, let's take the first part when they're establishing themselves. And the first instance, of course, they've got to hunt down the Oman princes, as I've suggested, and they have quite a lot of trouble in Syria. The Syrian Arab tribes are not happy with

the move the shift of power to Iraq. And then I suppose the next wave of major. perges is with the those people who'd supported the Abbasid revolution under the impression that probably somebody an Arlid would become the caliph, the head of the Muslim community. That is, a descendant of Ali the Prophet's cousin and Ali's wife Fatima, who is daughter of the Prophet. And these people are very disappointed to find that the Abbasids are take take power. So with the second Caliph al-Mansaw, there's quite a purge of people who were pro-Arlet. In the long run, this sort of this partisanship for Ali and his descendants will develop into what we know as Shiism, but that's in the very long run.

Is it, it doesn't seem to be comparable in, in the religious sphere, does it? That there, I'm told, or I've read, that there was a general tolerance of other religions of Buddhism and Christianity in Zoroastrianism, Judaism. Yes, I don't think they have any, there are a general, occasional Zoroastrian revolts in the earlier Basid period. But in general, the Basids don't have trouble with the Christians and Jews. They are known as the Ahadhyma, the people of the pact. They are protected, they are tolerated,

though they are to a degree discriminated against. And at times when the Muslim rulers are feeling very strict, they will enforce a dress code so that the Christians and Jews have to wear some kind of yellow garment or yellow label on their garment. and the Christians are banned from building new churches and sometimes even from repairing old ones. Amir Benison, of course, it seems, from what I've read, advantageous to the ruling body

because they charge extra taxes to those who are not of their faith. So it was an advantage almost to tolerate and would you develop that? Yes, I mean, I'd very much agree with that. I mean, that was one of the features of the Islamic Empire from before the rise of the Abbasids, a heavier taxation of non-Muslims to Muslims. In fact, it was one of the things that discouraged Muslims from converting people in large numbers

because they perceived themselves certainly initially as a ruling elite who taxed a non-Muslim subject population. That was in fact one of the issues which had contributed to dissatisfaction with the Amayas and the rise of the Abbasids. they presented themselves as a dynasty who would introduce a fairer, a more genuinely Islamic regime in the sense that when people did convert, they would actually lower the tax on them and not force them to pay the poll tax which non-Muslims had to pay,

which was known as the Jizya. So to get it just to try to nail this, the fact is it can be described as tolerant in terms of other religions. but you're nodding, that is the case. Yes, that's very much the case. And I think you need to think of Islam, right from its inception, was a religion which wanted to dominate territory rather than force people to convert.

And in a sense, the Ahele of Emma, or the peoples of the government, submitted, which is the essential meaning of the word Islam, by agreeing to be obedient in return for paying taxes and not bearing arms. But in the time of the Abassids, did the conversions increase? Did it become more,

cease to be a minority religion, Islam? Very much so. The processes of conversion took time across the empire. They occurred first in the northeast of Iran and also in North Africa. And those individuals were instrumental in bringing the Abbasids themselves, to power. The Abbasid administration itself was an Arabic-speaking administration. It encouraged

people who wanted to work for government to Arabis, but that tended to lead on also to Islamization. So you do see a process by which the population is gradually shifting over to Islam. But this is, if you like, as a result of pull factors rather than push factors. We're talking about a massive empire. Can you briefly tell us how they kept it? together. This is an enormous chunk of planet Earth, of territory, isn't it? How did they manage to control it and run it? Well, as Robert was mentioning, of course, they didn't manage to keep all of it together, in fact. Under strong caliphs, there was quite a high level of centralisation with the Abbasids through positioning garrisons in major centres away from Baghdad, places like

Cairo, which was known as for start at the time, and in Cairo-on, in Tunis. They managed to keep some control over the provinces. But they had such a level of prestige that even when their provinces began to become autonomous and you get rather independent lines of governors, those governors did for centuries still acknowledge the Abbasid Caliphs and hope for investiture from them. It was remarkable feat keeping all that together, wasn't it? I mean, it just as a military and administrative feat,

even if it was run as provinces as well as, centralisation in some of the areas. Yes, indeed. It certainly is. And the Abassids also facilitate communications by introducing a very sophisticated postal service known as the Barid, which helped link up the different parts of their empire. There were regular watering stops and hostelries where fresh horses could be found so that riders could actually carry information backwards and forwards across the empire remarkably quickly for the era. So we have this great empire and we have these care. Can we turn Hugh Kennedy to the,

it's seen as the golden age of Islam, or one of the golden age, the first great golden age of Islam, particularly in terms of its rich cultural life that flourished in Baghdad and Basra most of all. What kinds of cultural activity were going on? And could you tell us about the significance of the war with China that brought paper into the equation? Yes, this was a society that valued literature

and above all poetry extremely highly. The poets were the best paid and most respected artists of the era. There was all sorts of poetry. This is Arabic poetry, of course. There was poetry of praise for rulers. There was poetry, above all, there was love poetry, but there was also hunting poetry. There was poetry about wine.

And connoisseurs were very discriminating about what was good poetry, what was bad poetry. There were in the Caliph's Court. and in the great houses of Baghdad. There were salons where poets came and performed, and there were also singers. A lot of poetry was sung. A lot of singers, male and female,

were extremely highly respected and extremely highly paid. What place did paper pay in this? The importance of paper is that it appears in the Middle East at the beginning of the Abbasid period. There is an old story, which may well be true, that the Arabs fought a battle with the Chinese, at the borders of the two empires, if you like,

in 751 and that Chinese paper makers were captured and brought to Baghdad or to Iraq. Whatever the truth of it is, the paper becomes widespread very quickly. Now, we're custom thinking of the coming of printing as being the great revolution that makes literature available to a wide public. But there is this earlier revolution when paper comes in and replaces parchment animal skins, basically, and papyrus. Paper is cheaper, it's easy to produce, it's a better writing medium. And this new technology allows a real book trade to develop in Baghdad. There are booksellers who make money selling books or authors who can make money selling books,

and it generates a terrific literate culture. Can we take this cultural development on, I'm here, I've been there's an extraordinary flowering of scholarship, which is quite, I think it's a revelation, it's become more generally known over the last decade or two, but it's a revelation for some people. that particularly Aristotle was translated, mathematics were developed, medicine was developed and so on. Can you give us some round idea of that? Yes.

A lot of the caliphs, in addition to patronising poets and poetry, were also extremely interested in other academic pursuits. And one of the benefits to the empire of having incorporated Byzantine and Sasanian territories were there was an awful lot of older knowledge from late antiquity and also from the Gryco-Roman period, which was available mostly in Greek. A lot of administrators who were working at the court spoke Greek, but also Arabic, and were able, therefore, to engage in a process of translating this information into Arabic.

Then Arab scholars were able to build upon that. The areas which were of most interest to the Arabs were Greek philosophy. You've mentioned Aristotle. They were also interested in the Neoplatonists and their writings. Also a lot of medical information. Diascorides was translated into Arabic and then became a basic medical text, both in Iraq and across the Islamic world.

It's not coincidental, of course, that the first hospitals were actually established in Baghdad, which sought to apply some of the knowledge from Greek medicine, but also which built up a new surgical tradition, which was then subsequently transmitted to Western Europe. Of course, there's the process of translation. transmission wasn't completely direct. Baghdad and the Abbasid court and its scholars

exported their own ideas and knowledge across the Islamic world, even beyond the frontiers of the Abbasid Empire itself. And in this respect, Islamic Spain was crucially important. Many individuals moved to Cordoba. Many individuals moved from Iraq and the other Abbasid centers to the Islamic West and vice versa, creating a great deal of cultural traffic. And it was in fact subsequently in the city of Toledo after it fell to the Christians in 1085 that a lot of this information actually percolated into Europe. It seems like a sort of extraordinary romantic almost, but real spiders at the centre of where papers coming from China, ideas and purchase growing from Persia,

texts are coming from Greece, they're going across North Africa, into Spain, which will move up into medieval Europe. and it's happening inside this, it's happening in this hub, this centre of the web, in Baghdad. Can you take that on for us a little, Robert Owen, and maybe step back first. How did they, they came into, the Amazis came into a massively oral culture. And to a certain extent, obviously there was only a small percentage of who were doing this, but they did turn it round into a written culture. Yes, I don't think we should be too centred on Baghdad.

Basra is in a way just as important. And if you've made it as a writer or an intellectual, you'll go to Baghdad and you'll find patronage from the Kali for one of his ministers. But to get there in the first place, the best place to start from is Basra. This is where a lot of the intellectual ferment is happening. This is where the great literary debates are happening. And the reason people go to Basra to make their fortunes as writers or intellectuals of other kinds is that Basra is right on the edge of the desert. And it has a big marketplace called the Mirabad. and the Bedouin come in from the desert

and to sell their camels and whatever else they've managed to and their flocks and the Bedouin are the custodians of the Arabic language they're the purest speakers of it they know all the obscure vocabulary they know the pre-Islamic poets they know the meanings of... And they're a total oral culture It's a totally oral culture

and the writers sort of go out early in the morning to talk to the Bedouin who come into the market and they take their sort of pads with them to take notes on what... So, for example, with poet Abu Nua, studied, he's Persian by birth, but he gets very good Arabic by studying with these Bedouin. Well, so it happens there.

And do we have, is the Arabian nights, which come out of that period, they arrived to the Abbasid Kediths from India, as I understand it. But then they turned into Harun al-Rashid into the Arabian night, which then, of course, infected. European literature and of course Arabic literature sense. Can you talk about that? Because people know about the 1,1 Arabian Nights.

It's a complex story and somewhat conjectural. It does seem that there was a collection of stories in India, subsequently translated into Persian. We don't have the Indian collection. We don't have the Persian collection. We have one fragmentary page of papyrus from the Abbasid period, 9th century, which is clearly the opening of a primitive version of the Arabian nights. It doesn't have the frame story of Sherazard telling stories to save her life.

That's what we have from the Abbasid period. But then in, I guess, the 15th century, we have a substantial manuscript to the Arabian Nights. And that is the one that Gallaud will translate and make famous in early 18th century Europe. But the two aspects to the Arabian nights, as far as the Abbasids are concerned. The first thing is that it's not just a collection of fairy stories. There are a lot of stories that are based on history. historical truth. There are a lot of stories about Haruna Rashid and about his poets. Always a great and famous ruler for about nearly 30 years he ruled, yeah.

I mean, a lot of these, some of the stories in the Arabian Nights are actually taken from serious chronicles like Masudi's Chronicle of the Abbasid Caliphs. And the other aspect is that Haruna Rashid was such a famous Caliph that he becomes a fictional hero in the Arabian Nights. There are all sorts of stories which start out with Haruna Rashid saying, I'm bored. I'll go for a walk in Baghdad. in disguise with just Jaffa the Vizier and Masrho the headsman with me and then they encounter something mysterious happening and the whole serious adventures happens.

Before me, I'd just like to say a little more because I'm sorry to self-intelligence here. I'm fascinated by the degree of scholarship. And you've written books about it and there and more books will be written about it. But just to particularise you with a worn person, I hope I've got the pronunciation right. I'm not very good at these pronunciations,

but there you go. Avivinsena. Can you tell us about him as a scholar? I'm not pronounced you so badly you can't even recognize you. Avicenna is the European word. Ibn Sina is the original name. Yes, he's a man from the later Abbasid period. He's an Iranian.

He works for, in fact, not for the Abbasids themselves, but for an Iranian sub-dynastis. But he is a great philosopher and he is also a great authority on medical science. He's typical of the Arabic writers of the tense. What I wanted to get out with him is not only to translate, he's a commentator, and he not only brings Aristotle into the language, he makes Aristotle sort of fit for the culture. Is that right? Yes.

The Arabs basically look to Greek culture for things they believed were useful. They were not interested in poetry, in history. They were certainly not interested in Greek drama. What they wanted was Greek philosophical tools, and they wanted Greek scientific. information and they adapted it as you rightly say for Islamic needs. What sort of scientific information in particular did they take and adapt? They were particularly interested in mathematics and as Amira was saying they were

interested in Das Korides in books about herbles. They were interested in medicine. They were interested in astronomy which was very much the same as astrology and so on. And they were interested in mechanics, weren't that? There was that one of the Caliphs that fitted them up with. with a hydraulic lift. So when persons came to see him, up he went in the hydraulic lift. That is Amir aside. Let's come to the Harim.

I'm not going to be typecasting Amir, so I'll go to Hugh first. Can you tell us about the significance of the Harim, which was very significant. The Abbasids were the first Islamic dynasty to develop a Harim in the sense of an enclosed area where the female court was kept. And they developed a female court, which was in many ways a parallel universe to the male court. It had its own structures, it had its own hierarchy. And the two really only intersected at the level of the caliph himself. Who were in the Harim? Let's start from basically who were in the Harim.

Everybody thinks masses and masses of wives and eunuchs. But if that's so, say so. If not, who else were in? There were the women who were the partners of the caliphs. After about the year 800, the caliphs stopped marrying. earlier on the caliphs had married women and had been their lawful wives and they had concubines as well

after that period they stopped marrying but they still had lots of concubines so these were as it were the favourites were amongst the most important people in the harrim but above all it's the queen mothers who come in in from the year 800 about the haram is ruled by the queen mothers and a number of these women are extremely rich

extremely powerful and very cultivated. They have their own resources. They have their own estates. They have their own estate managers, their own accountants. They can spend money on what they want to spend it on. They spend money on arranging the pilgrimage to Mecca on beautifying the shrines at Mecca and Medina.

But they also, on occasion, spend it on military operations, on fortifying the frontiers against the Byzantines and so on. And the Queen Mothers, both politically and financially, become extremely powerful people in the state. Can we develop that? of medicine, because in some cases, as Hugh's hinted at, but if you give us some specific examples of the power that the Queen Mother had,

maybe over Harun, or you choose whatever you want. I mean, there are various different examples one could choose, and I'm sure Hugh knows much better than I do. There are women like Krabbeha, who was a favourite of the Caliph Mutuakal, but really came into her own when her son Mautaz became caliph. She was then able to play quite an important role. But when we're talking about parallel courts as well,

and it's probably one of her successors, Shagab, who plays the biggest role. She's sort of a persona on Grata as far as I'm away whilst the caliph's actually alive. But it's when her son Mokhtadr becomes chosen as a child caliph that she comes into her own and creates this sort of parallel court structure. I mean, one of the things I think is important about the Harim, of course, there is a sort of an undertone at times that women interfering in politics is a negative thing. But overall, you can see the Harim is playing quite a positive role. I mean, a lot of these women invested in land reclamation and land development in Iraq,

helping to keep the revenues coming in to the centre. The court consumed an awful lot, but then also provided a lot of employment. for a lot of people who were producing the luxury textiles, you know, tableware and so on, which the court used. So it was also a very important point for the circulation of resources. Robert Darwin. I'd like to talk about a slightly more frivolous type of denizen at the hiring. That's the singing girl.

These were massively important for the culture of the literary culture. Because poems were often sung rather than just recited. And the singing girls were the people who usually did this, accompanying their recitations of the poetry with a lute. And they were really rather like geishas. They were terribly highly educated. They were learned not just in poetry, but in other things as well. And a kind of cult of the singing girl develops,

which Jahi is the famous essayist, wrote an essay in praise of singing girls, which is actually a savage attack on them and their heartlessness and the way they take money from men and give them nothing back. and these singing girls are the become a sort of object of it becomes a fashion for the dandies the Zarifs of the Barsit period to pick on a slave girl particularly a singing girl and declare himself to be in love with her and then there's a kind of etiquette develops of submitting to the slave girl

and prostrating oneself before her and the literature on how to do this and how one should address and how one should address the slave girl gets produced. We have a lot of intellectual life then. That might imply a political and intellectual dissent. Was that the case? There's a lot of dissent of all kinds. We've already mentioned the Arlids. There's also the Harijites who couldn't see why the leadership of the Islamic community

had to be vested in a member of the House of the Prophet. They thought anybody could become leader of the Muslim community if he was pious and if he was learned. and it was a very democratic movement and you find all sorts of odd little movements of communists and anarchists, particularly in Basra. What about the influence of the Persians, Hugh Kennedy? Persian style becomes very, very important.

There are a lot of Persians who come to the Abbasid court, including the Barmaquid family of viziers who appear in the Arabian. That's a classic example. But Persian manners and customs become very fashionable. The old Persian emperian emperience, provided the model for the Abbasid Calis, the model of how to organise a court and the model of how great things displayed.

Was there a thought at one stage that actually Aristotle and the Greeks were Persian rather than Greek philosophers? That's a very Persian way of looking at it. There's a sort of a little bit of Persian cultural imperialism here, I think. So you had the Persians there. And we're talking about a period of a political unrest threatening the caliphate in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their, in their heartland in Baghdad, Basra? Yes, there's political unrest, certainly, by people, usually people who want a more Islamic society,

a more religious society to be developed. There's a lot of unrest from that. But there are also unrest in the provinces as well. People saying, why should we pay all these taxes to Baghdad? They don't give us anything in return. And what you get is the appearance of independent Muslim dynasties in different provinces. It's first in what we've already discussed the Spanish example,

but in parts of Iran and in Egypt by the year 900, there is an independent Muslim dynasty, which is truly Islamic, but saying at the same time, were not part of the caliphate, were not going to pay the taxes to Baghdad anymore. After the death in 809th of Harun, al-Russia, the famous caliph,

his two sons began a civil war. Was that some kind of, breaking point for that the Abbasid caliphate? Yes, there was a savage civil war between his two sons, Amin and Mahmoun, resulted in the death of Amin, which did terrific damage to the fabric of the state. It was more or less a war between the Arab and Western supporters of Amin and the Iranian and eastern supporters of Mahmun.

But it caused terrific damage in the city of Baghdad. Baghdad, by this stage, was probably a city of half a million people. It grew very, very quickly. That'll make it one of the biggest cities in the world at the time, wouldn't you? It was probably the biggest city in the world at the time. There may have been bigger cities in China. It's very difficult to work on these sorts of populations. But we have terrifically vivid descriptions of the civil war in Baghdad,

the damage that was done to the fabric of the city, the way in which innocent people were caught up in between, rival armies as it were battling it out in the streets. A lot of really sort of melancholy and poignant poetry about the damage that was done to houses, the damage that was done to people, the damage that was done to innocent families and so on, caught up in this terrible conflict.

And when the caliphate re-emerged under Mahmoun, it was a very different sort of institution. It was dominated by Eastern Iranians. It was dominated by Persians and by Turks from Eastern Iran. came much more of a military dictatorship and much less of a pluralist political society. Let's bring in the Turks because the Turkish so-called slave soldiers played an extremely important part. Amira Benson, can you tell us why the Turkish, they were employed as mercenaries, but where did the slave soldier come from and how powerful did they become?

The Turks were not all slaves, but they were all, if you like, from the frontiers. and for that reason they were desirable to the Abbasids as a military force which would not be sort of embedded in local society and have conflicting loyalties to caliph and to local society. So on the one hand they were seen as being likely to be more loyal to their master because they wouldn't have other links in society. They were also seen as being particularly good soldiers at this period that they had superior fighting skills to other groups.

the Turks were extremely skilled cavalrymen. They learned at a very young age. And it appears that at the time that they began to be recruited in significant numbers in the middle third of the 9th century, there was a certain demographic pressure in the Central Asian steppe, which was pushing Turkic peoples towards the Islamic Empire and leading to a surfeit of youths in the slave markets. So a certain number were purchased.

some came into the army by other methods. And this large army was built up, which was seen as being potentially much more loyal to the caliph than other military forces. In effect, a mercenary army? I'm not quite sure. I wouldn't personally use the term mercenaries for the Turks. I mean, they become an integral part of the army.

Do they convert? They do convert. I think I wouldn't call the mercenaries because there's no opportunity for them or no desire apparently on their part to move off and find other masters. They become part of a military society, which is an integral part of the state.

And they become very powerful. And Hugh Kennedy and Robert Owen between you, can you tell us how that power is exercised the more because the court has moved from Baghdad to Samara, 150 kilometres about north of Baghdad? I think if we go back to the after effects of the civil war in Baghdad, at the end of it, you've got a radicalised population. a lot of sort of militias of cudgel men. The civil war's over, but from then on Baghdad's a much

more turbulent place and there are riots and street fights about too high prices for food or the Caliph not going on, jihad enough. And then as these Turkish slave soldiers come into Baghdad and a garrison there, there's increasing fights between the local population of Baghdad and the slave soldiers. So that's the major motivation for the Abbas of Caliph's to move out of Baghdad and to establish a new capital in Samara. As they do that, of course, well, it's not of course, but as they do that, they've leapt from the frying pan into the fire. They're away from the riots and the turbulence of Baghdad,

but somewhat isolated in Samara, they become in effect over the decades. That's about 150 kilometres away from. And it's purpose built for court at army. Yes. And that's about it. Yes. It's a kind of property speculation as well. The Caliph plunks this palace there

And if anybody wants to exercise influence and do well He's going to have to buy land near here And build his shop or his small palace here as well But the effect of this is then That the caliph is vulnerable to being taken over By the Mamluks, the slave soldiers They become a Praetorian guard They don't just take orders

They start to give orders And they That was obviously a very important transition to your candidate That Roberts began to explain Can you take it further? Because the Caliphs became captives in their own palaces, did they or did they not? And there were quite a few Calists. I think there's one period of about 15 years where six of them are assassinated by the Turkish slaves.

So as it was Samara, we have a problem. Yes, absolutely. Because as Robert's just been saying, Samara was isolated from the, it was very much an isolated garrison capital city. And in these huge palaces, the Caliphs were really at the moment. of their guards. And the guards were concerned above all with being paid. It was a time when financial problems were beginning to dominate the caliph. The guards were intent on finding a ruler who would guarantee their money, basically, their salaries and their privileged financial position.

And a ruler who didn't do that didn't last very long. And they were put to death with a whole lot of variety of horrible and ingenious tortures. And it, for, as you say, for about a decade, the caliphate was in complete crisis. Interestingly, the Baghdad of the Abbasids has almost completely disappeared. We have very little archaeology. We know a lot about it from descriptions at the time of where the streets were and so on. But Samara, we can get a very clear idea about because it became uninhabited when the caliphs left virtually. And aerial photographs can reveal the street plans where the palaces were, where the mosques,

were in astonishing detail, so we can actually follow on the ground the turbulent events of these years. Amira, can you give us some idea, as we come to the end of the programme, how this great period came to an end, how the Abbasids were, to put it, relieved of power in about 9.50.

Yes, the Abbasids were relieved of power, although not of authority, by a lineage of warlords from the area called, called Dalem, which is actually near the Caspian Sea. The lineage were known as the Bouyids. They moved on Baghdad, partly out of a, as they asserted, a desire to restore order at the centre, if you like, in a period where life in Baghdad and the heartlands of the Abbasid Empire seemed more and more chaotic. So they moved in, took over the city and established themselves as protectors of the caliph.

However, they weren't seen as protectors by many on the grounds that the caliphs were themselves, Sunni Muslims, and they were Shi, or at the very least proto-shee, they had strong Shi sympathies. Sorry, Robert, do you want to take that on? Yes, I think that's true. But the Abbasids, the memory of the Abbasids lingered on. The memory of the Abbasids as a great dynasty,

if all subsequent Muslim rulers look back to the Abbasid court to see how you should be a great ruler, how you should be a great monarch. So though the calists themselves lost their power, they've got this political cultural legacy, which runs really right through to the end of the Ottoman caliphate in 1925. Yeah, I mean, under the Mamlux in Egypt and Syria in the 13th, 14th, 15th centuries, you get an attempt to bring the caliphs to Cairo and give them at least nominal spiritual authority.

And you also get a quite deliberate attempt to preserve or even revive the literary culture of the Abbasids and to revive the cult of the dandy and even the 15th century. They're still writing treatises about the correct way to sit at a dinner party and all the material, almost all of it, is taken from the Abar Sid period. This is the culture they go to. Does it still, do you feel it still is in the air, this great golden age, something to aspire to? Certainly the ideal of the caliphate is an ideal that, still carries a lot of weight in the Middle East.

The idea that a united, powerful Muslim monarchy, yes, definitely. People look back to that as a golden age and perhaps as a blueprint for the future. Yes. The idea of it, that being a key period of transmitting knowledge from classical world to the European world, is now achieving some prominence in scholarship, Amir.

Is that developing too? We're finding out more and more that was transformed and transmitted at that time. Yeah, I mean, certainly if you look at the Islamic West and the area of Hispanic studies, a lot of work is being done on the transmission of knowledge on into Europe. But of course, that didn't itself take place directly from the Abbasid centres of knowledge into Europe.

But as I said earlier, via Islamic Spain. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Robert Owen. I'm Ira Bennisin and Hugh Kennedy. And next week we'll be talking about Jeffrey Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.uk forward slash radio 4.