and religious practices have evolved.^159 Moreover, because the Shia have always
been a minority, they have developed an interpretation of history quite different
from the Sunnis. Esposito provides an insightful summation of the two groups’varied
worldviews:
While Sunni history looked to the glorious and victorious history of the Four Rightly
Guided Caliphs and then the development of imperial Islam...[Shia] history was the
theater for the struggle of the oppressed and disinherited. Thus, while Sunnis can claim a
golden age when they were a great world power and civilization, which they believe is
evidence of God’s favor upon them and a historic validation of Muslim beliefs, [Shia] see
in these same developments the illegitimate usurpation of power by Sunni rulers at the
expense of a just society. [Shia] view history more as a paradigm of the suffering, disinheri-
tance, and oppression of a righteous minority community who must constantly struggle to
restore God’s rule on earth under His divinely appointed Imam.^160
These contrasting perspectives should provide you with greater insight to the his-
torical enmity that continues to influence relations between Sunnis and Shia world-
wide. Their religious differences play a central role in political tensions and armed
conflicts throughout the Middle East, such as the rivalry between Iran and Saudi
Arabia and the Syrian civil war. The Sunni–Shia divide is at the heart of Iraqis’
seeming inability to form a united polity.
In the mid-eighth century the Umayyad Caliphate was succeeded by the Abbasid
Caliphate (749–1258), the seat of government moved to Baghdad, and a cadre of
multiethnic Muslims of non-Arab originsupplanted the ruling Arab hierarchy.
With Islam as the uniting force, all believers, regardless of ethnicity or place of ori-
gin, were considered equal. Under the Abbasids, Baghdad became one of the world’s
most important cities, and its wealth enabled Muslim emissaries to continue to
expand Islamic influence. But this preeminence could not be sustained. As a result
of political decline, agricultural failure, and the rise of numerous independent
Islamic dynasties in other regions, Baghdad’scontroloftheIslamicempirehad
become decentralized by the tenth century. These new outlying dynasties continued
to expand Islamic culture as they sought to emulate Baghdad, becoming new centers
for learning, art, and craftsmanship.^161
The early years of the eleventh century saw the onset of history’s most storied clash
between Christianity and Islam—the Crusades, which lasted almost 200 years.
Although Muslims had occupied Jerusalem, the seat of both Christianity and Judaism,
in 638, they ruled without religious persecution, and the city remained open to Chris-
tian and Jewish pilgrims.^162 Arrival of the Seljuk Turks, however, brought change to
the Islamic world. Pushing outward from Central Asia, the Seljuks gained a position
of power in the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad in 1055 and drove the Byzantines
from their lands in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey). This gave them control over
the Christian pilgrimage routes connecting Europe with Jerusalem. The Byzantine
rulers appealed to Rome for assistance, hoping for trained armies. In response, Pope
Urban II in 1095 called for the masses to help in“saving fellow Christians”and liber-
ating the Holy Land.^163 Thus were the Crusades launched. Christian forces comprised
of nobles, mercenaries, and adventurers were able to gain control of isolated pockets
in the Holy Land before ultimately being defeated by the Arab ruler Saladin in the
late twelfth century. Smith notes,“Saladin’s treatment of the Christian population [in
Jerusalem] was humane and reasonable, in notable contrast to the way in which
Christians had earlier dealt with Muslims and Jews upon their arrival in Jerusalem.”^164192 CHAPTER 5•Cultural History: Precursor to the Present and Future
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