The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abbassides, The

ABBASSIDES, abăs′sĭdz, The, 750–1517, caliphs at Bagdad and later in Egypt; nominal sovereigns of all Islam, but losing Spain at the outset, and never practically obeyed in Africa outside Egypt; the most famous dynasty of Saracen sovereigns. They took their name from Abbas (q. v.), the uncle of Mohammed. This descent had given the family great influence by a century after the Prophet's death; and Ibrahim, fourth in descent from Abbas, had gained several victories over the Ommiads (q. v.), supported by the province of Khorasan, when the Ommiad caliph Merwan defeated and put him to death in 747. His brother Abu ’l-Abbas, whom he had named his heir, assumed the title of caliph, crushed the Ommiad dynasty in a decisive battle near the Zab (750) and acceded to their position. Its members and relatives were nearly all tolled into one spot and exterminated, earning for Abu ’l-Abbas the nickname of As-Saffah, “the butcher”; but one of them, Abder-Rahman (q. v.), escaped, and after picturesque adventures set up an independent emirate in Spain, which toward two centuries later took the title of caliphate. On Abu ’l-Abbas' death, his successor Al-Mansur removed the seat of royalty to Bagdad, and won successes against Turkomans and Greeks in Asia Minor; but by this time the warlike impulse had begun to decay, and the love of luxury and its literary and artistic attendants to come to the front. Means were found of evading the strictness of Mohammedan rules; and no courts of any age or country were gayer or more splendid than those of the great Harum al-Rashid, Charlemagne's contemporary (786–809), and Al-Mamun (813–33). The splendor of their palaces, their decorations, their equipages, and the seemingly exhaustless treasures they possessed, gave them a world-wide celebrity – especially in contrast with the poverty-stricken barrenness and barbarism of most Christian sovereigns at that period – which is vivid even yet in literature and popular memory: Harum is the chief princely figure of the ‘Arabia Nights,’ and Bagdad the centre of all picturesque and varied enjoyment. Al-Mamun is still more honorably remembered as the patron of arts and literature. What lay underneath this external gorgeousness – the corruption, the flurries of jealousy and bloodshed, and the barbarous oppression of the many – is outside a notice like this. But external decay soon began to witness internal rottenness. The Ashlabites, Edrisites, etc., carved out independent sovereignties in Africa; the Taherites in 820 set up a separate power in Khorasan, even under the great Al-Mamun. The Greeks, under the new life of the Byzantine empire brought in by Leo the Isaurian (q. v.), pushed them back in Asia Minor; and Al-Mamun's last years were contemporary with the philosopher, soldier, and statesman, the all-accomplished Emperor Theophilus. But the final stroke came from barbarians. The caliph Motassem (833–42), who had fought both Theophilus and the hordes of Turkestan successfully distrusting his subjects, formed bodyguards out of his Turkish prisoners. They soon became what Roman prætorians were – masters of the empire. Motassem's son Motawakkel was assassinated by them in his palace (861) and the succeeding caliphs were their puppets; and in 936 the caliph Radhi (934–41) was forced to give up the command of the army and other powers to his general and mayor of the palace, Mohammed ben Rayek. The provinces one after another threw off allegiance; the caliph held only Bagdad and its neighborhood; and at last Hulagu, prince of the Mongols, fired Bagdad and slew the reigning caliph Motassem in 1258. The Abbassides retained a nominal caliphate in Egypt under the ægis of the Mamelukes, and never gave up the claim or the hope of their old position and seat; but in 1517 the Turkish Sultan Selim I, the conqueror of Egypt, bore the last of them Motawakkel III, a prisoner to Constantinople, finally allowing him to return to Egypt, where he died a Turkish prisoner in 1538. Consult Muir's ‘Caliphate’ for the best English account; the monumental treasure-house of information for scholars is Weil's great ‘Geschichte der Chalifen’ (Mannheim and Stuttgart 1846–62). Consult also Muller ‘Der Islam in Morgen-und Algadland’ (1887).