A Concise History of the Middle East

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 ...

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SEVEN Shi'is and Turks, Crusaders and Mongols The period of Middle East history from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries ...

88 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS from various European lands launched a series of crusades to recapture the "Holy ...

Shi'i Islam in Power • 89 The Major Sects of Islam As you know, we tend to identify Muslims as being Sunni, Shi'i, or Khari- jit ...

90 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS Yemen and Tabaristan, both mountainous regions. Under the Zaydi sys¬ tem, each im ...

Shi'i Islam in Power • 91 threw the Aghlabids, Muslim Arabs tied to the Abbasid caliphate, and seized their North African empire ...

BLACK O <tr BYZANTINE EMPIRE '<? <T ^> >, ARABIAN SEA Seljuks Fatimids Territory contested between Byzantines and ...

Shi'i Islam in Power ••• 93 persecuted Christians, destroyed their churches, killed stray dogs, out¬ lawed certain foods, and ev ...

94 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS the ninth-century establishment of local Persian dynasties. During the tenth cent ...

The Turks • 95 Turkic peoples has been lost in the mists of legend; we will know little un¬ til archaeologists have excavated mo ...

96 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS the government. The first Turkic soldiers for Islam were probably prison¬ ers of ...

The Turks • 97 they used to graze their horses and to attract other Islamized Turkic tribes, who would occupy the grazing lands ...

98 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS THE CRUSADES The last of these enumerated results of Seljuk rule opened a new cha ...

The Crusades • 99 pean generals of the day (but not by rulers), the soldiers of the Cross joined up with the Byzantines in 1097. ...

100 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS ties with the Crusader states because of the lucrative trade going on be¬ tween ...

The Mongol Invasion ••• 101 when told that a wedding feast was going on inside. Yet he could be vindic¬ tive toward Muslims who ...

102 • 7 SHI'IS AND TURKS, CRUSADERS AND MONGOLS he annexed their lands, Jenghiz faced the ambitious but foolhardy Prince Muhamma ...