A Concise History of the Middle East

66 • 5 THE EARLY ARAB CONQUESTS to Islam, but he then turned 180 degrees and became the Prophet's secre¬ tary. Some of his desce ...

Changes in the Government of Islam ••• 67 their support in Husayn's hour of need. When the Prophet's grandson reached Karbala, I ...

68 • 5 THE EARLY ARAB CONQUESTS Hashim Abd-al-Muttalib I Abu-Talib Abdallah Abbas (1) Ali Muhammad [Abbasid caliphs] , I , I I I ...

Conclusion • 69 oppose Abdallah's partisans, and in July 684 the Umayyad supporters de¬ feated the opposing Arab tribes and drov ...

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SIX The High Caliphate For about a thousand years, history has been playing mean tricks on the Arabs. They have been wracked wit ...

72 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE The relative power of the various peoples shifted gradually during the High Caliphate. Under the Abbas ...

Restoration of the Umayyad Order ••• 73 the worst year of the second fitna. When Abd al-Malik took charge, the northern Arab tri ...

74 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE camel nomads and merchants. But it is these Persians we can thank (or curse, if you study Arabic) for ...

Restoration of the Umayyad Order • 75 There was but one nut too tough to crack, the Byzantine Empire. From the time they conquer ...

76 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE They could not ride horses or camels, only mules and donkeys; they had to wear special clothing that i ...

The Abbasid Caliphate • 77 lutionaries and disgruntled mawali in order to gain power. Their power center was Khurasan, in easter ...

78 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE conjecture would prove true for the Abbasid Empire under its fifth caliph, Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809 ...

Abbasid Caliphate 0 100 200 300 400 500 miles 1 • ' I •'! '• I ' • i 0 200 400 600 800 kilometers MAP 6.1 The Abbasid caliphate ...

80 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE girls, but he also paid handsomely to expand the courtyard surrounding the Ka'ba and to set up guard p ...

The Abbasid Caliphate • 81 death. Some Arabs called Abu-Muslim a zindiq ("heretic"), meaning that he may have practiced a pre-Is ...

82 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE move that many people ascribed it to a thwarted homosexual love affair that also involved a fictitious ...

The Abbasid Caliphate • 83 Al-Mamun A l-Mamun (786-833) was the son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid by a Persian slave girl named Mara ...

84 • 6 THE HIGH CALIPHATE over divine predestination. Under Mamun and his two successors, each high-ranking Muslim official or j ...

Conclusion • 85 sive. Hundreds of boys were bought from traders in Central Asia, taken to Baghdad, converted to Islam, and train ...