wars, and from 750 administered an empire centralized at Baghdad.^4 After 830
the caliphate began to lose de facto power to regional administrators, and
full-fledged independent states divided the region between 950 and 1200. These
in turn became subject to waves of imperial conquest; the most successful were
the Seljuk Turks around 1040–1100; the Mongol conquerors 1220–1260, who
soon converted to Islam and split into smaller states; and the Ottomans, who
expanded from Asia Minor from the 1360s. Some of the ShiÀite factions
acquired state power, notably the IsmaÀili activists in Egypt, 970–1170. Win-
ners and losers, orthodox and anti-orthodox traded places on a geopolitical
checkerboard.
The principal consequence for intellectual life was that Islamic religion
never acquired a centralized church organization. According to theocratic
tradition accepted by all factions, the caliph was successor to the Prophet and
leader of the faithful; but his legitimacy was questioned by important factions
ever since the early generations of Islam, and was further broken up with the
dispersion of political power. De facto religious authority devolved into the
hands of the Àulama, or religious scholars. As befits a theocracy, the law was
the religious law, and the religious schools in effect monopolized the activities
of law courts as well. Orthodox religious scholars were quasi-independent of
the state, without forming an organized church comparable to the Christian
papacy. Only the ÀAbbasid caliphate at its height had enough power to attempt
uniform control of religious life; the powerful caliph al-MaÁmun (r. 813–833)
and his successors attempted to impose doctrinal orthodoxy on all Muslim
scholars. But this inquisition on behalf of caliphal power was resisted, and
finally abandoned in 848 as the caliphate began to disintegrate; thereafter the
Àulama dominated religious law and doctrine without challenge.
Insofar as the schools of the Àulama were centers of intellectual life, they
were anchored in the particularistic concerns of daily ritual, holy texts, and
practical law. Although more abstract consideration of theology did emerge
from this base, it was continually open to attack. More detached intellectual
life was supported by patronage of the political rivals of the Àulama, especially
the courtly circles around a political ruler. Precisely because the ruler at
Baghdad or Córdoba was a theocrat manqué whose religious claims were
always overshadowed by the truly devout of the religious schools, court circles
could tend toward the opposite pole of speculation or occasionally downright
secularism. This kept intellectual life in a precarious situation, at the mercy of
geopolitical events that might overthrow a particular regime. The high point
of the non-religious philosophers was under the patronage of the ÀAbbasids at
Baghdad, and faded with the loss of protection after 950. One mitigating
factor was the existence of secret societies. Although these were predomi-
nantly political and religious in their concerns, the secret societies were always
394 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths