Word Finder - caliphs

definition

The political leader of the Muslim world, successor of Muhammad's political authority, not religious or spiritual.

example

The Abbasid caliphs patronized art and science beside religious developments ushering in the Islamic Golden Age when their capital Baghdad began to flourish as a center of knowledge, culture and trade.

The Shiite caliphs of Egypt were by this time the playthings of contending viziers, as the Sunnite caliphs of Bagdad had long been the puppets of Turkish sultans or amirs; and in 1164 Amalric I.

The first explorer to enter the sacred Hejaz with a definite scientific object was the Spaniard, Badia y aeblich, who, under the name of Ali Bey and claiming to be the last representative of the Abbasid Caliphs, arrived at Jidda in 1807, and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The caliphs were chosen there, and there the rules for the administration were framed.

Had the simplicity and religious severity of the first four caliphs continued in their successors, the fate of poetry would have been hard.

Madaini's History of the Caliphs is the best, if not the oldest, published before Tabari; but this book is known only by the excerpts given by later writers, particularly Baladhuri and Tabari.

The town is enclosed by nearly square brick walls, flanked by massive round towers, dating from the time of the caliphs, but now falling into decay.

It became the seat of the Ayyubite sultan Saladin in 1184; was bequeathed in 1233 to the caliphs of Bagdad; was plundered by the Mongols in 1236 and in 1393 by Timur, and was taken in 1732 by the Persians under Nadir Shah.

His ancestors had also ruled in Egypt as caliphs of the BeniFatimites for a number of years, at a period coeval with the Crusades.

In the 10th century it suffered severely, being repeatedly pillaged in the wars of the Fatimite caliphs Al-Qaim and Abu Tahir Ismail el Mansur with the Sunnite leader Abu Yazid and the Zenata Berbers.

It became a bone of contention between the various Syrian dynasties and the caliphs first of Damascus, then of Egypt, and in 748 was sacked with great slaughter.

Abu Bekr and his three (or four) immediate successors are known as the "perfect" caliphs; after them the title was borne by the thirteen Omayyad caliphs of Damascus, and subsequently by the thirty-seven Abbasid caliphs of Bagdad whose dynasty fell before the Turks in 1258.

There were titular caliphs of Abbasid descent in Egypt from that date till 1517 when the last caliph was captured by Selim I.

It was a menace to his empire on the south, the occasional ally of the Franks and the home of the unorthodox caliphs.

There is indeed a tradition that a written collection (diwan) existed in the family of an-Nu ` man, the last Lakhmid king, containing a number of poems by the Fuhul, or most eminent poets of the pagan time, and especially by those who had praised the princes of the house, and that this collection passed into the possession of the Omayyad caliphs of the house of Marwan; to this, if the tradition is to be believed, al-Mufaddal probably had access.

The date of al-Mufaddal's birth is unknown; but he lived for many years under the caliphs of the Omayyad line until their overthrow by the 'Abbasids in 749.

On the death of Mowaffaq in 891 the Egyptian governor was able to renew peaceful relations with the caliphs, and receive fresh confirmation in his possessions for thirty years.

It continued to be the seat of great commercial activity under the early Moslem caliphs, who corrupted the name to Haila or Ailat.

At the request of Mir `Alishirr, himself a distinguished statesman and writer, Mirkhond began about 1474, in the quiet convent of Khilasiyah, which his patron had founded in Herat as a house of retreat for literary men of merit, his great work on universal history, Rauzat-ussafa fi sirat-ulanbia walmuluk walkhulafa or Garden of Purity on the Biography of Prophets, Kings and Caliphs.

When the seat of the Fatimite Empire was removed to Egypt, the Zirites, a house of the Sanhaja Berbers, ruled as their lieutenants at Mandia, and about 1050 Mo`izz the Zirite, in connexion with a religious movement against the Shiites, transferred his very nominal allegiance to the Abbasid caliphs.

In the general confusion of the caliphate produced by the change of dynasty, Africa had fallen into the hands of local rulers, formerly amirs or lieutenants of the Omayyad caliphs, but now aiming at independence.

It became a question between Amalric and Nureddin, which of the two should control the discordant viziers, who vied with one another for the control of the decadent caliphs of Egypt.

This put the caliphs fatally at the mercy of their guards.

In the 8th century Kairawan was the capital of the province of Ifrikia governed by amirs appointed by the caliphs.

The principal bazaar, the Khan-el-Khalil, marks the site of the tombs of the Fatimite caliphs.

Beyond the eastern wall of the city are the splendid mausolea erroneously known to Europeans as the tombs of the caliphs; they really are tombs of the Circassian or Burji Mamelukes, a race extinguished by Mehemet Ali.

They are architecturally of less interest than those of the " caliphs."

The numismatic collection, as regards the period of the caliphs and later dynasties, is one of the richest in the world.

The new town speedily became a place of importance, and was the residence of the naibs, or lieutenants, appointed by the orthodox and Omayyad caliphs.

The period between the rise of the Abbasids and the quasi-independent dynasties of Egypt was marked by much religious persecution, occasioned by the fanaticism of some of the caliphs, the victims being generally Moslem sectarians.

The policy of these caliphs also led to severe measures being taken against any members of the Alid family or adherents of their cause who were to be found in Egypt.

This personage was himself the son of a Turk who, originally sent as a slave to Bagdad, had risen to high rank in the service of the caliphs.

On the death of Ahmads father-in-law in the same year, when Egypt was given in fief to the caliphs brother Mowaffaq (famous for his defeat of the Zanj), Ahmad secured himself in his post by extensive bribery at headquarters; and in the following year the administration of the Syri,an frontier was conferred on him as well.

He was succeeded by his son Khomarflya, then twenty years of age, who immediately after his accession had to deal with an attempt on the part of the caliph to recover Syria; this attempt failed chiefly through dissensions between the caliphs officers, but partly through the ability of Khomgruyas general, who succeeded in winning a battle after his master had run away from the field.

He succeeded in so far that 15,000 Kufians swore to fight with him for the maintenance of the commandments of the Book of God and the Sunna (orthodox tradition) of his Prophet, the discomfiture of the tyrants, the redress of injury, and last, not least, the vindication of the family of the Prophet as the rightful caliphs.

This Mahommed, the father of the two first Abbasid caliphs, was a man of unusual ability and great ambition.

From that time forward the Abbasid caliphs became the maintainers of orthodox Islam, just as the Omayyads had been.

We have now reached the most celebrated name among the Arabian caliphs, celebrated not only in the East, but in the West as well, where the stories of the Thousand and One Nights have made us familiar with that world which the narrators represent in such brilliant colours.

This resolution of Motasim was destined to prove fatal to his dynasty; for it placed the caliphs at the mercy of their praetorians.

In the year of his elevation to the Caliphate, he had regulated the succession to the empire in his own family by designating as future caliphs his three sons, al-Montasir billah (" he who seeks help in God"), al-Mo`tazz billah (" he whose strength is of God"), and al-Mowayyad billah (" he who is assisted by God").

There were thus in Bagdad three caliphs who had been dethroned and blinded, Qahir, Mottaqi and Mostakfi.

He not only caused the mourning for the death of Hosain and other Shiite festivals to be celebrated at Bagdad, but also allowed imprecations against Moawiya and even against Mahomet's wife Ayesha and the caliphs Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, to be posted up at the doors of the mosques.

Only in tho secluded districts of northern Media (Tabaristan), the generals of the house of Karen (Spahpat, Ispehbed) maintained themselves for a century as vassals of the caliphs exactly as Atropates and his dynasty had done before them.

For about 150 years it was governed, first from Medina and afterwards from Bagdad, by officers of the Mahommedan caliphs whose principal aim it was to destroy the old nationality by the suppression of its religion.

Ali, the Shiite imam, who raised a great army, drove the caliphs general Nasr b.

From 825 to about 898 a similar dynasty, the Dulafidsi or Dolafids reigned nominally as governors under the caliphs till they were put down by Motadid.

The Abbasid caliphs, who still enjoyed a precarious and shadowy authority at the pleasure of Turkish viziers, gladly surrendered themselves to the protection of the Mahommedan Seljuks, who paid them all outward respect.

During the whole of this period the Abbasid caliphs had been nominally reigning throughout the Mahommedan world with their capital at Bagdad.

A stipulation was included in the treaty to the effect that Persians were not to curse any longer the first three caliphs, a sort of privilege previously enjoyed by Shiites as part and parcel of their religious faith.

As regent, he had failed twice in taking the city of the caliphs, but on the second occasion he had defeated and killed its gallant defender, Topal Othman, and he had succeeded in regaining Tiffis, Kars and Erivan.

The first who wrote such a mathuawi was Abti Shukur of Balkh, the oldest literary representative of the third dynasty of KhorSsSn, the Skmgnids, who had been able in the course of time to dethrone the Saffarids, and to secure the government of Persia, nominally still under the supremacy of the caliphs in Bagdad, but in fact with full sovereignty.