4 - From Triumph to Tribulation (833–990)

Summary

The caliphate of al-Mu'tasim continues the religious policies of al-Ma'mun but with a key military shift to reliance on a new cadre of Turkic and Central Asian troops. The new Abbasid capital at Samarra becomes a hub of new palaces for the next half-century (most famously the palace of Jawsaq al-Khaqani/Dar al-Khilafa).Abbasid society experiences a range of new trends in Arabic literature and lifestyle, mostly felt in the reign of al-Mutawakkil.The increasingly secluded caliphs at Samarra embolden domination by the Turkic soldiery, who make and unmake a series of caliphs. Recovery is achieved under al-Mu'tadid, who echoes the reign of al-Ma'mun, but the reign of the child caliph al-Muqtadir invites another phase of disarray. Ministerial rivalries, harem intrigue, expansion by the Byzantines, and challenges by millenarian Shi'i movements, such as the Qaramita and the Fatimids, lead to a weakened Baghdad. The rising Buyids of western Iran dominate the Abbasids from 945 to 1055, and the caliphs are reduced to a merely symbolic position.