ABSTRACT
The Abbasid dynasty was to have a very long life—some five hunred years, from the eclipse of the Umayyads in the middle of the eighth century until the Mongols’ destruction of Baghdad in the middle of the thirteenth century. From a technical point of view it lasted still longer, since the glamour of the Abbasid caliphate sustained a long line of mock-caliphs under the protection of the Mamluks in Egypt for another three centuries, until the Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
