SIXThe High Caliphate
For about a thousand years, history has been playing mean tricks on the
Arabs. They have been wracked with internal factionalism and strife, ex¬
ternal invasion, subordination to outside rulers, natural disasters, and
exaggerated hopes and fears. But in the bleakest moments of their history,
the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East have comforted them¬
selves with the memory of a time when their ancestors ruled most of the
Eastern Hemisphere, when the Europeans and the Chinese feared and
courted them, and when theirs was the language in which humanity's
highest literary and scientific achievements were expressed. This was the
time of the two great caliphal dynasties, the Umayyads and the Abbasids.
This chapter uses a term coined by Marshall Hodgson to denote the years
from 685 to 945: the High Caliphate.
During this period, the Islamic umma was initially headed by the Mar-
wanid branch of the Umayyad family, ruling in Damascus, and then by
the Abbasids of Baghdad. Both dynasties belonged to the Quraysh tribe
and were backed by those Muslims who came to be called Sunnis. The
caliphal state was militarily strong, relative to western Europe, the Byzan¬
tine Empire, India, and China. Territorial conquests continued until about
750, when the Abbasids took over from the Umayyads. After that time
some land was lost, and the caliphal state began to break up. As long as
any semblance of unity remained, though, the old Roman, Syrian, and
Persian political practices and cultural traditions went on combining in
new ways. Economic prosperity, based mainly on agriculture, was en¬
hanced by commerce and manufacturing. These factors facilitated the
movement of people and the spread of ideas, and hence the growth of an
Islamic civilization.