The Collapse of the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate

Abstract

If anything parallels the astounding rapidity with which the sons of the Arabian desert conquered in the first Islamic century most of the civilized world, it is the swift decadence of their descendants’ domination between the middle of the third and the middle of the fourth centuries. About 820 more extensive authority was concentrated in the hands of one man, the caliph in Baghdād, than in those of any other living person; by 920 the power of his successor had so diminished that it was hardly felt even in his capital city. By 1258 that city itself lay in ruins. With its fall Arab hegemony was lost for ever and the history of the real caliphate closed.