THE ABBASID CALIPHS, 750-1058 A.D.
The Abbasids continued to reign over the Moslems in Asia for more than three hundred years. The most celebrated of Abbasid caliphs was Harun-al- Rashid (Aaron the Just), a contemporary of Charlemagne, to whom the Arab ruler sent several presents, including an elephant and a water-clock which struck the hours. The tales of Harun-al-Rashid's magnificence, his gold and silver, his silks and gems, his rugs and tapestries, reflect the luxurious life of the Abbasid rulers. Gradually, however, their power declined, and in 1058 A.D. the Seljuk Turks, [20] recent converts to Islam, deprived them of their power. A Turkish chieftain, with the title of "King of the East and West," then took the place of the Arabian caliph, though the latter remained the religious head of Islam. He lost even this spiritual authority, just two centuries later, when the Mongols from central Asia overran the Turkish dominions. [21]
BAGDAD
The Abbasids removed their capital from Damascus to Bagdad on the banks of the middle Euphrates. The new city, under the fostering care of the caliphs, grew with great rapidity. Its population in the ninth century is said to have reached two millions. For a time it was the largest and richest city in the Moslem world. How its splendor impressed the imagination may be seen from the stories of the Thousand and One Nights. [22] After the extinction of the Abbasid caliphate, its importance as the religious and political center of Islam declined. But memories of the former grandeur of Bagdad still cling to it, and even to-day it is referred to in Turkish official documents as the "glorious city."
EXTINCTION OF THE ARABIAN EMPIRE A MISFORTUNE
It was a very great misfortune for the eastern world when the Arabian Empire passed under the control of rude Asiatic peoples. The Turks accepted Islam, but they did little to preserve and extend Arabian civilization. The stagnant, non-progressive condition of the East at the present time is largely due to the misgovernment of its Turkish conquerors.
136. ARABIAN CIVILIZATION
THE ARABS AS ABSORBERS OF CIVILIZATION
The great Moslem cities of Bagdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordova were not only seats of government for the different divisions of the Arabian Empire; they were also the centers of Arabian civilization. The conquests of the Arabs had brought them into contact with highly developed peoples whose culture they absorbed and to some extent improved. They owed most to Persia and, after Persia, to Greece, through the empire at Constantinople, In their hands there was somewhat the same fusion of East and West as Alexander the Great had sought to accomplish. [23] Greek science and philosophy mingled with the arts of Persia and other Oriental lands. Arabian civilization, for about four centuries under the Ommiad and Abbasid caliphs, far surpassed anything to be found in western Europe.