United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Its voidness would sooner have been realized, if lack of energy had not prevented the later Abbasids from trying to recover the lost power by the sword, or if amongst their rivals who could also boast of a popular tradition e.g., the Omayyads, or still more the Alids a political genius had succeeded in forming a powerful opposition.
Yet the Alids never succeeded in accomplishing anything against the dynasties of the Omayyads, the Abbasids, and the Ottomans, except in a few cases of transitory importance only. The Fatimite dynasty, of rather doubtful descent, which ruled a part of Northern Africa and Egypt in the tenth century A.D., was completely suppressed after some two and a half centuries.
In the Omayyads the ancient aristocracy of Mecca came to the helm, and under them, the Mohammedan state was above all, as Wellhausen styled it, "the Arabian Empire." The best khalifs of this house had the political wisdom to give the governors of the provinces sufficient independence to prevent schism, and to secure to themselves the authority in important matters.
In the eleventh century there was anarchy, produced by the African guard of the caliphs, which played a part like that of the Turkish guard at Bagdad, and by reason of the rebellion of the governors. In 1031 the last descendant of the Omayyads was deposed, and in 1060 the very title of caliph vanished. The caliphate gave place to numerous petty Moslem kingdoms.
Their first imam or successor of the Prophet was Ali, whose divine right had been unjustly denied by the three usurpers, Abu Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and who had exercised actual authority for a few years in constant strife with Kharijites and Omayyads.
The old antipathy between the Iranians and Turanians, the Schiite Persians and the Sunnite Turks, was afterwards carried into Europe by the Ottoman Moslems. THE ABBASSIDES: BAGDAD. Misgovernment embittered the faithful against the rule of the Omayyads in Damascus, although Syria had become a source of higher culture for the Arabians: there they became acquainted with Greek learning.
There is even more evident continuity in the development of the empire of the Omayyads out of the state of Mohammed, than in the series of events by which we see the dreaded Prince-Prophet of Medina grew out of the "possessed one" of Mecca.
THE OMAYYADS: CONQUEST OF AFRICA AND SPAIN. Othman was assassinated by three fanatics, and Ali was then raised to the caliphate; but Muawiyah, representing the family of the Omayyads, made himself the head of an opposing party, and, after the assassination of Ali, became sole caliph . He removed the seat of the caliphate to Damascus.
The adherents of Ali found vigorous champions in the Abbassides, who, as Hashimites, laid claim to the caliphate. One of them, Abul Abbas, was made caliph by the soldiers in 750. The fierce cruelty of his party against the Omayyads led to the murder of all of them except Abderrahman, who fled to Africa, and, in 755, founded an independent caliphate at Cordova.
This narrow greed and absence of political insight seemed to be hereditary in the descendants of Ali and Fatima; for there was no lack of superstitious reverence for them in later times, and if one of them had possessed something of the political talent of the best Omayyads and Abbasids he would certainly have been able to supplant them.
Word Of The Day