ABSTRACT
TheʿAbassid dynasty was the fruit of a revolt originating in Khurasan on the eastern perimeter of Islam. Though promising a return to rule by descendants of the Prophet’s family, its main motivation was to wipe out all memory of the Umayyads. The capital was accordingly moved to Iraq and a new capital founded later at Baghdad. Many ideas were adopted from the Sasanian Persian tradition and new schools of learning encouraged the mining of Greek philosophical and scientific texts. A descendant of the Umayyads managed to escape ʿAbbasid Syria and established a new branch in Spain. The Caliphate in Baghdad eventually fell prey to their Turkish bodyguard who rose to power in their own right as the regime began to lose authority. Amid the groups alienated from Baghdad were the Shiʿite followers of ʿAli who took up new bases in Syria but the most successful branch of Shiʿism were the Fatimids who took power in Cairo. By the eleventh century, the Islamic world was badly fragmented with minority ethnic groups able to assert their rule, paving the way for the Seljuk Turks, a branch of which (the Burids) seized power in Damascus.
