Abbasid

Abbasid was a caliphate from Islam in the ninth and tenth century. Islam is rapidly growing and becoming the second largest religion in the world today with about seven billion followers world wide. Muslims (the Islamic people) believe that Muhammad was a prophet of Allah (their god) and he was the one man who began the Muslim religion in 610 AD. After Muhammad had died, they decided to create caliphs; people who are in charge of all Muslims but are not equal to Allah or Muhammad. Also, caliphates were created; a family which is ruling for an amount of time and the power is passed down for many generations. Abbasid was the third caliphate, after Rashidan and Umayyad. During the three Caliphates, an empire arose. Here is how the Abbasid caliphate succeeded and failed during that empire.
 * __Intro[[image:trcs:605islam.gif width="89" height="119" align="right"]]__**

__**Abbasids coming to power**__

The Abbassids started their reign in 758 and their control was what kept them to be the most powerful caliphate. The Abbasids were the caliphate that followed the Ummayads power. In 750 the last Ummayad caliph had been killed and they were then removed, so the Abbasidds were able to take control and gain power. They then conquered Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and many more places. They kept a strong rule for 500 years when the caliphate ended in 1258. The name Abbasid came from the caliph Al Abbas, who was a paternal uncle of Muhammad and was also an early supporter of the prophet. The Abbasids were able to seize power with help from the muwani's. A muwani was a person who converted to Islam instead of being born into it. They were very helpful to the Abbasids because they made the caliphate much more unique. The Abbasids had a heavy reliance on the client Muslims or the mawaii's. The Abbasid caliphate consisted of two Shia caliphs by the names of Abu Al Abbas and Al-Mansur. They were very strong and powerful caliphs who kept control and gave the caliphate such a great foundation.The Abbasids ruled all the middle east and north Africa and were able to keep everyone under control.


 * __Baghdad__**

The capital of the Muslim empire at the time of the Abbasid caliphate was originally known as Madinat as-Salam. This means city of peace. Under the Abbasids this city was in its golden age. It flourished with wealth and new ideas. Eventually, the city was renamed and was called Baghdad. Baghdad, Iraq was the place where Abu Moslem defeated the last of the Ommayad forces, as a result of this the Abbasids came to power. The city was the home to aproximately half a million people of all different religions and nationalities. Because of this, Baghdad became a center of power where cultures were blended together. This blending of cultures also brought many ideas together leading to the sharing of knowledge which helped the city reach its golden age. Another factor that lead to Baghdad's success was its location. The city had access to both the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. These rivers brought an abundance of fresh water and fish and it also allowed for a vast trade network to grow.



The Abbasid's power declined very gradually, until it came to an end in 1258. Al-Muqtadir, a thirteen year old prince (908-932), was the leader that was ruling as the empire started to slip away. The empire became uncentralized and parts of the empire broke away from the larger group to be ruled as smaller kingdoms under local rulers. Following the crusade, with help from the Christians, Jerusalem was captured and the Abbasid Caliphate lost its power. Al-Mansur renounced the Shi’ite origins of the movement, causing the Abbasid’s to stress their relationship with Muhammad, the prophet of Allah. The Sunni orthodox were then left to help unify a cosmopolitan Muslim Empire, but never got it back to where the religion's powerful empire was before.
 * __Decline__**



In conclusion, the Abbasid caliphate was a key aspect in the Islamic religion. The caliphates were created to unify the Islams and keep one family or group ruling while also having a caliph. The caliphates were very helpful to Islam because they were able to keep the people under their control and to be able to understand who the one ruling family was. Bagdad was the empire's capital, where many rulers lived and new ideas were created. But on the other hand, they caused the decline of the Islamic empire because the empire got too big and the Crusaders went to Jerusalem caused them to become weaker. Islam is a huge religion in today's world, and is only getting larger. Do you think they will ever create a new empire?
 * __Conclusion__**

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 * __Sources__**