ABSTRACT
In the first decades of the 10th century, after the restoration of Abbasid power and authority in the core regions of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Iraq, and western Iran by al-Muwaffaq and his supporters and successors, the complex and elaborate Abbasid patrimonial-bureaucratic leadership experienced a whirlwind of events and internecine conflicts. The disintegration of the Late Antique Arabo-Islamic empire and the definitive end of the umma as one coherently centered trans-regional entity had many reasons, causes, and consequences. Many modern historians have long followed these traditional views of 10th-century Abba-sid decadence and decay in their descriptions and analyses. The renewed empowerment of atrak leaders such as Munis in the center of Abba-sid power is often linked to the power politics of al-Muqtadir’s aforementioned ‘Queen Mother’. The western parts of the Abbasid imperial territory, ever more firmly Arabized in this period, were arguably the earliest to be confronted with the appearance of a diverse post-Abbasid order, especially on its most distant margins.
