When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty

Summary

Hugh Kennedy's When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World is a narrative history of the Abbasid caliphate at the height of its power, from the revolution that brought the dynasty to the throne in 750 to the anarchy of the later ninth century at Samarra, after which effective power slipped away from the caliphs. It was first published in Britain in 2004 as The Court of the Caliphs and in the United States in 2005 under its present title. Kennedy, a specialist in early Abbasid politics, builds the book from the Arabic chronicles, poetry and anecdotal literature, above all the great history of al-Tabari, and retells many of their stories in his own words. The ten chapters move through the dynasty's rise and its court culture. The first describes the revolution organized in Khurasan in the name of the Prophet's family, Abu Muslim's armies, the defeat of the Umayyads on the Zab and the bloody consolidation of the new regime. The second treats al-Mansur, the austere and calculating caliph who removed rivals, including Abu Muslim, and founded Baghdad as his Round City in 762, and the institutions he left. The third is Harun al-Rashid's reign, the golden prime remembered in later legend, with the power of the Barmakid family of ministers and their sudden fall in 803. The fourth narrates the civil war between Harun's sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, culminating in the siege of Baghdad and al-Amin's death in 813. The next three chapters turn from politics to the court: the poets, such as Abu Nuwas, whose verse celebrated and shaped caliphal power; the palaces and gardens of Baghdad and its surroundings; and the harem, where royal mothers and wives such as al-Khayzuran and Zubayda wielded influence. The eighth chapter follows al-Ma'mun's reign and the inquisition (mihna) over the createdness of the Qur'an, al-Mu'tasim's recruitment of Turkish soldiers, and the move of the capital to Samarra. The ninth surveys court culture more broadly, including the patronage of learning and translation, food, music and the etiquette of the caliph's presence. The last describes Samarra at its height under al-Mutawakkil, his murder in 861 and the decade of turmoil in which the Turkish military made and unmade caliphs. The chapter list ends there, with the caliphs' political power already shrinking even as their court's cultural achievements endured. The book is under copyright; this record describes it in our own words, with no quotations.

Plot or Argument

• Ch. 1: Revolution

  The Abbasid movement in Khurasan, Abu Muslim's rising under black banners, the overthrow of the Umayyads in 750 and the elimination of their family.

• Ch. 2: Mansur and his legacy

  Al-Mansur secures the dynasty, executes Abu Muslim, suppresses revolts and founds Baghdad in 762 as a round city at the centre of the empire.

• Ch. 3: Harun al-Rashid

  The reign remembered as a golden age, the government of the Barmakids, the pilgrimage and frontier wars, and the Barmakids' fall in 803.

• Ch. 4: The war between the brothers

  Harun's division of the succession, the conflict between al-Amin in Baghdad and al-Ma'mun in Khurasan, the long siege of the city and al-Amin's death.

• Chs. 5-7: Poetry, palaces and the harem

  Court poets and the politics of praise, the palace complexes of the caliphs, and the lives and power of the women of the royal household.

• Ch. 8: Ma'mun to Mutawakkil

  Al-Ma'mun's return to Baghdad and the mihna, al-Mu'tasim's Turkish guard and the foundation of Samarra, and the policies of al-Wathiq and al-Mutawakkil.

• Chs. 9-10: Court culture and Samarra

  Learning, food, music and ceremony at court; the splendour of Samarra, the murder of al-Mutawakkil in 861 and the anarchy that followed, with the long decline of caliphal power.

Lessons

• Founders and consolidators

  The revolution was won by Abu Muslim's armies, but the dynasty was secured by al-Mansur, who eliminated rivals and built a capital and an administration. Kennedy shows how the work of keeping power differs from the work of seizing it.

  • Why did al-Mansur turn against Abu Muslim, the general who had won the revolution?
  • What did founding Baghdad accomplish for the new dynasty?

• Succession as the weak point

  Harun's plan to share the succession between two sons led to a civil war that wrecked Baghdad. Again and again the book shows that the transfer of power was the dynasty's most dangerous moment.

  • Why did Harun's arrangement for al-Amin and al-Ma'mun fail?
  • How did later caliphs try to avoid the same problem, and did they succeed?
  • What does the Abbasid experience suggest about hereditary rule?

• Culture and power together

  Poetry, palaces, music and learning were not decoration but instruments of rule, displaying the caliph's majesty and binding elites to the court. The court's culture outlived its political strength.

  • How did court poets serve the caliphs, and what freedom did they have?
  • Why might a dynasty's cultural achievements last longer than its political power?

• The soldier problem

  Al-Mu'tasim's Turkish soldiers gave the caliph a loyal army independent of older factions, but within a generation they were deciding who would be caliph. Kennedy traces how a solution to one problem created a greater one.

  • Why did al-Mu'tasim recruit Turkish soldiers and move to Samarra?
  • How did the murder of al-Mutawakkil change the relation between caliph and army?

Context

The Abbasid caliphate (750-1258) succeeded the Umayyads and moved the centre of the Islamic world from Syria to Iraq. Its first century saw the founding of Baghdad, a flourishing of Arabic poetry, scholarship and translation from Greek, Persian and Syriac, and the stories later gathered around Harun al-Rashid in the Thousand and One Nights. From the 860s the caliphs' political power declined, and in 945 the Buyids took control of Baghdad, though the caliphate survived as a religious and symbolic institution until the Mongols sacked the city in 1258.

Composition

Kennedy wrote for general readers after decades of scholarly work on the early Abbasids. The book draws on Arabic chronicles such as al-Tabari's History, on poetry and on literary anthologies, retelling their anecdotes while noting where they may be embellished. It appeared in 2004 in London from Weidenfeld & Nicolson as The Court of the Caliphs and in 2005 from Da Capo Press as When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World.

Reception

The book was welcomed as an accessible, source-based account of the Abbasid golden age and its court, and its publication soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq gave it a wide readership interested in Baghdad's past. It remains a standard introduction to the period alongside Kennedy's more academic studies.

Comparisons

• ibn-khaldun-muqaddimah

  Ibn Khaldun's theory that dynasties rise on group feeling and decline through luxury and dependence on mercenaries can be tested against Kennedy's account of the Abbasids from revolution to Samarra.

• the-arabian-nights

  The Nights turned Harun al-Rashid and his vizier Ja'far the Barmakid into figures of legend; Kennedy's chapter on Harun shows the historical court behind the tales.

• kennedy-the-great-arab-conquests

  Kennedy's later book narrates the seventh- and eighth-century conquests that created the empire the Abbasids inherited.

• herrin-byzantium

  Herrin's Byzantium was the Abbasids' great Christian rival on the frontier; the two books show the two empires facing each other across Anatolia.

• avicenna-canon-of-medicine-book-i

  The Canon draws on the Greek medical works translated into Arabic under Abbasid patronage, a translation movement Kennedy treats in his chapter on court culture.

• gibbon-decline-and-fall-selections

  Gibbon's chapters on the caliphs offered an eighteenth-century European account of the same dynasty that Kennedy retells from Arabic sources.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How the Abbasid revolution used loyalty to the Prophet's family to unite discontented groups in Khurasan.
• Al-Mansur's founding of Baghdad and what its design and location meant.
• The rise and sudden fall of the Barmakids under Harun al-Rashid.
• How chapters on poetry, palaces and the harem show court culture as part of politics.
• The move to Samarra and the growing power of the Turkish soldiers.

Key terms and names

Abbasids

The dynasty descended from al-Abbas, uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, which ruled as caliphs from 750, with Baghdad as capital for most of that time.

Khurasan

The north-eastern province of the empire, in modern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, where the Abbasid revolution began.

Round City

Al-Mansur's circular walled city founded on the Tigris in 762, the core of Baghdad.

Barmakids

A family of Persian origin who served as chief ministers to the early Abbasids until Harun al-Rashid destroyed them in 803.

Mihna

The inquisition begun by al-Ma'mun in 833 requiring scholars and judges to affirm that the Qur'an was created; Ahmad ibn Hanbal's refusal became famous.

Samarra

The capital founded by al-Mu'tasim in 836 north of Baghdad, home to the caliphs and their Turkish troops until 892.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Who led the Abbasid revolution, where did it begin, and how did the Umayyad dynasty fall?
2. Comprehension Why did the war between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun break out, and what did it do to Baghdad?
3. Comprehension Why did al-Mu'tasim recruit Turkish soldiers and build Samarra?
4. Interpretation Harun al-Rashid is remembered as the greatest Abbasid caliph, yet his reign ended in a divided succession and the destruction of the Barmakids. How does Kennedy balance the legend and the record?
5. Interpretation What do the chapters on poets and palaces show about how the caliphs used beauty and display to rule?
6. Interpretation Why did al-Ma'mun try to impose a theological doctrine through the mihna, and what did its failure reveal about the limits of caliphal authority?
7. Big Question The Abbasids lost real power within two centuries, yet the culture of their court endured. Which lasts longer in a civilization, its political institutions or its learning and art, and why?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 127:1 (Scripture)

  Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Al-Mansur's carefully planned city and dynasty, and the turmoil that later engulfed both, give a vivid historical setting for the psalm's warning.

• Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 (Scripture)

  The Preacher builds houses, gardens and pools, gathers singers and treasure, and finds it all vanity. Kennedy's chapters on Abbasid palaces and pleasures describe the same kind of royal splendour.

• John of Damascus, On Heresies 100 (Great Conversation)

  Written under the Umayyads shortly before the Abbasid revolution by a Christian who had served at the caliph's court, this chapter is one of the earliest Christian accounts of Islam and shows how Christians under the caliphs understood their rulers' faith.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The Abbasids came to power through a revolution that united many groups under the banner of the Prophet's family; they built in Baghdad a capital and a court of extraordinary wealth and culture; but disputed successions, civil war and dependence on a professional Turkish army undermined their authority; therefore, within little more than a century of al-Mansur, the caliphs lost effective political power, while the culture their court had fostered endured.

Rhetorical device: anecdote (narrative exemplum). Kennedy repeatedly opens or illustrates a theme with a story drawn from al-Tabari or the anthologists, such as an episode at a caliph's banquet or a poet's encounter with his patron, then steps back to explain what it shows about power.

Debate: Resolved: The recruitment of Turkish soldiers was the decisive cause of the Abbasid caliphate's political decline.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Kennedy shows a dynasty at the height of cultural brilliance losing political control. Using the chapters on Harun, the civil war and Samarra, argue which single cause did most to weaken the Abbasid caliphs.

Comparison with The Muqaddimah: Ibn Khaldun argues that dynasties lose their founding solidarity in luxury and come to depend on hired soldiers. Test his theory against Kennedy's narrative from the revolution of 750 to the anarchy at Samarra, and argue how well it fits.

Medical Lens

The book is political and cultural history with little medical content. Its relevance to the history of medicine lies in the setting: the Abbasid court patronized physicians, including Christian families such as the Bukhtishu of Gundishapur, and supported the translation of Greek medical and philosophical works into Arabic, the movement that made Galen and Hippocrates available to later physicians such as al-Razi and Ibn Sina. Readers interested in medicine should treat Kennedy's account of court culture as background and turn to the medical texts themselves for detail.

• Chapter 9, Abbasid court culture

  The patronage of learning and translation at the caliphal court, the context for the Arabic reception of Greek medicine.

  Physicians Doctors Ancient Medicine

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Have students draw Baghdad's Round City as al-Mansur planned it, with gates, palace and mosque at the centre, and explain what the design said about the caliph's power.

• Dialogue

  Write a conversation between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun on the eve of their war, each arguing from their father's succession arrangements.

• Essay

  Compare Kennedy's Harun al-Rashid with the caliph of the Arabian Nights. What did legend keep, and what did it change?

Further Reading

• The History of al-Tabari, al-Tabari (various translators)

  The main Arabic chronicle behind Kennedy's narrative, translated in 40 volumes.

• The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, Hugh Kennedy

• Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, Dimitri Gutas

  On the Graeco-Arabic translation movement in Baghdad.

• The Great Arab Conquests, Hugh Kennedy