A NEW ORDER (935-1258)
By the tenth century it was clear that Islamdom could no
longer function effectively as a single political unit. The
caliph would remain the nominal head of the ummah and re-
tain a symbolic, religious function, but in practice the differ-
ent regions of the empire were governed independently.
From Egypt, the breakaway caliphate of the Ismaili Fatimids'
ruled North Africa, Syria, much of Arabia, and Palestine; in
Iraq, Iran and Central Asia, Turkish army officers (amirs)
seized power and established what were really independent
states, competing with one another militarily. The tenth cen-
tury has been called the Shii century, because many of these
dynasties had vague Shii leanings. But all the amirs continued
to acknowledge the Abbasid caliph as the supreme leader of
the ummah, so entrenched was the ideal of absolute monarchy.
These dynasties achieved some political success. One even
managed to found a permanent Muslim base in north-west
India in the early eleventh century. But none managed to sur-
vive for very long, until the Seljuk Turks, from the lower Syr
basin, seized power in Baghdad in 1055 and came to a special
arrangement with the caliph, who recognized them as his
lieutenants throughout the Dar al-Islam. During the years be-
fore the Seljuk victory, it had seemed as though the empire
was doomed to perpetual disintegration. As one dynasty suc-
ceeded another and as frontiers shifted, an outside observer
might have been justified in assuming that, after an initial pe-
riod of success, Islamdom was in decline.
But he would have been wrong. In fact, almost by accident,
a new order was emerging that would be much more conge-
nial to the Muslim spirit. Despite the political turbulence, Is-