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Abbasid Caliphate

Middle East & Central AsiaHeartland today: Iraq

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The third Islamic caliphate. The Abbasids took power from the Umayyads in 750 and ruled from Baghdad, a city they founded in 762. From 945 the caliphs lived under Buyid and then Seljuk overlords, regained some independence in the 1100s, and lost Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258.

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Key events

  1. Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah is proclaimed caliph in Kufa, the first of the Abbasid lineDisputed

    Sources place the proclamation in 749 or 750, and the Abbasid victory at the Great Zab in January 750.

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  2. An Abbasid army defeats a Tang Chinese army at the Talas river, in what is now Kazakhstan

    The story that Chinese prisoners taken here introduced papermaking to Samarkand is doubted: paper was already in use in Central Asia earlier.

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  3. Caliph al-Mansur founds Baghdad on the Tigris as the new capital, laid out as a Round City

    Work began in 762. Sources differ on when the Round City was finished, from about 766 to 768.

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  4. – Under al-Ma'mun, Baghdad's House of Wisdom is described as a library and centre for translating Greek works into ArabicDisputed

    Some scholars, including Dimitri Gutas, doubt that the House of Wisdom was a formal institution. Translation and scholarship in Baghdad under al-Ma'mun (813 to 833) are not in dispute.

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  5. – Caliph al-Mu'tasim moves the court to the new city of Samarra, which stays the caliphs' residence until 892

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  6. Buyid forces enter Baghdad and take secular power from the Abbasid caliph

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  7. A Mongol army under Hulegu besieges and takes Baghdad; the last Baghdad caliph, al-Musta'sim, is killedDisputed

    The siege ran from late January to 10 February 1258. Medieval accounts give death tolls from the hundreds of thousands to a million or more; historians treat these figures as exaggerated.

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