When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty [Paperback]

Hugh Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 14, 2006

The "golden age of Islam" in the eighth and ninth centuries was as significant to world history as the Roman Empire was in the first and second centuries. The rule of Baghdad's Abbasid Dynasty stretched from Tunisia to India, and its legacy influenced politics and society for years to come. In this deftly woven narrative, Hugh Kennedy introduces us to the rich history and flourishing culture of the period, and the men and women of the palaces at Baghdad and Samarra-the caliphs, viziers, eunuchs, and women of the harem that produced the glorious days of the Arabian Nights.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. These days Baghdad is associated with violence and insurgency. But more than a thousand years ago, during the Abbasid caliphate, Baghdad was a center of the arts and sciences, a city of dreams and limitless opportunities. This eminently entertaining book by respected British historian Kennedy focuses on these glory days of Baghdad in the eighth and ninth centuries, and the city's eventual downfall. Firmly grounded in the original Arabic literary sources of the era, Kennedy (Mongols, Huns and Vikings) emphasizes the amazing personalities of the period, such as Caliph Harun al-Rashid (mythologized in TheArabian Nights) and his powerful queen Zubayda. Kennedy's account is not a dry political chronicle but rather full of stories of love, sex, power, corruption, sibling rivalry and political intrigue—for which he makes no apology. Kennedy does a superb job resurrecting the human dimension of the period, as in apt descriptions of life in Harun al-Rashid's harem or the various caliphs' decisions whether or not to wage war. He also provides a sophisticated account of the general cultural and political climate based on recent scholarship. Combining academic rigor and accessibility, this is compelling reading for anyone concerned with the perils of power, the medieval Islamic legacy and the images that Baghdad continues to conjure in the modern imagination. 24 pages of illus., 3 maps. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Baghdad was founded in 762 by the Abbasid caliphate, which, claiming its legitimacy from lineage to the family of the prophet Muhammad, had overthrown the Umayyad caliphate. Chronicling the first two of the Abbasids' five centuries of rule, historian Kennedy acquaints nonspecialists with an important segment of Islamic history, perhaps best known to Westerners as the period setting for Arabian Nights. Sensitive to the biases of available sources, Kennedy picks through their panegyrics to political winners or condemnations of losers to present a narrative that realistically outlines the motivations and characters of caliphs, viziers, and even court attendants. He recounts contested successions to the caliphate, with detail on the immediate political tensions and their usually gruesome release. Weakened by these struggles for the throne and essentially a powerless pawn of generals by the time Kennedy leaves off in 935, the Abbasid caliphate nevertheless produced a munificent court culture. Reveling in its richness of ritual, poetry, song, and architecture, Kennedy accessibly presents his expertise on the Abbasids in this insightful history of the dynasty. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306814803
• ISBN-13: 978-0306814808
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Islamic Dynasty, May 23, 2005

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Hardcover)

The Prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE, and a universal caliphate was begun, the greatest political power ever in the Islamic world. The Abbasid Caliphate held sway afterwards for almost two hundred years. It included the reign of Harun al-Rashid, who became famous within the legends of the Arabian Nights. In _When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty_ (Da Capo Press), Hugh Kennedy has described his share of eunuchs, harems, slave girls, viziers (both sycophantic and traitorous), and lavish palaces, so although those knowing the legends will find few djinns or flying carpets, there is plenty of Arabic exoticism. There is also, as Kennedy says, a "fair share of, to put it bluntly, booze and sex." Kennedy, who has superb academic credentials in Arabic Studies, almost apologizes to pious Muslims, who may find this an irreverent account of glorious years of their history, and to his colleagues, who may think the book frivolous. He has deliberately concentrated on "dramatic events, striking personalities, and the trivia of everyday life." He says that he can do so because "... the writers of the ninth and tenth centuries knew that their rulers had their fair share of human frailties and they were quite happy to describe them."

Besides booze and sex, there is plenty of blood here, shed in sometimes imaginative and cruel ways. The account of conflicts largely concerns the transfer of power from one caliph to another. Although some caliphs were more patrons of the arts than others, the period was rich in historic writing (from which Kennedy has directly drawn) and in poetry. Poems might be sung on intimate evenings between the caliph and his musicians, but there was no means of musical notation, so while we have the poems, we can never know what the music sounded like. Similarly, we have lost the architecture of the time. There are no ancient temples like those at Karnak: "The remains of Ur and Babylon are little more than piles of mud, comprehensible only to the specialists." The problem is that the region around Baghdad was terrific for agricultural production (and resultant wealth) but there was no good building stone. Nonetheless, the palaces were gargantuan, sprawling structures, encompassing gardens, courtyards, baths, mosques, and more. The women were not all slaves, and being taken into the harem was a blessing for many, a career choice for girls with few other options. There were moralists at the time that complained about the activities of the harem, and its expense, and they have blamed it for the eventual fall of the caliphate. Kennedy shows, however, that the harem was a politically stabilizing influence, with mistresses helping viziers who had fallen from grace; there was financial stabilizing, too, from the richness of the harem as a source of stock valuables which could be cashed in, useful in a society where borrowing was impossible.

The number of major and minor players within these pages is daunting, and battle scenes are often confusing. Kennedy relates that in the heat of one battle, a defender "... became confused about which caliph he was supposed to be supporting, and called out for Muctazz rather than Mustacin by mistake." He lost his head figuratively, and then lost it literally because of his mistake, killed on the spot with his head turned into a trophy. Kennedy jokes that this poor man's confusion is something with which readers of this book may well sympathize. However, as confusing as the battles may be, there is a richness to the descriptions of the culture and atmosphere that is quite valuable. After all, readers will find here lively and even aggressive disputants about such things that seemed vital to them as whether the Koran was created or had existed since the beginning of time; heresies involving both positions were passionately denounced. Here, too, are the beginnings of the fight between the Sunnis and the Shiites, a conflict which still affects the world. The legacy of the Abbasid court, Kennedy maintains, remains enormously powerful, even so many centuries ago. Its celebrated power and unity provide not only nostalgia, but inspiration, and it deserves to be understood. After all, it inspires Osama bin Laden, who aims to re-establish the caliphate.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title and Back Cover Description, November 8, 2008

By 

Naeem Ali (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Paperback)

The title and back cover mislead you into believing this book is about the conditions that led Baghdad to becoming the intellectual, economic and military power of the world at the time. But reading this book it's only about gossip, court intrigue, the harem, singers & poets of the court. This book is no different than reading about the life style of the rich and famous of the Abbasid Dynasty.

The back cover states "Professor Hugh Kennedy's lively and compelling study shatters many of the preconceptions held by both sides and gives some indication of the roots of our current impasse". I have no idea what preconceptions this book is trying to shatter because it only details the life of the Caliphs Court. Understanding today's problems in the Muslim world has nothing to do with the singers, poets and harem of an eighth and ninth century court.

I was hoping (expecting) to find in this book the conditions that led to the rise of the Muslim Golden age during the reign of the Abbasid dynasty. There were giants in the field of astronomy and mathematics who walked the streets of Baghdad conjuring up theories and ideas that never existed before. What established this environment and spirit of free thought? What created this dynasty's enormous wealth? What were the foundations of the Caliphs power? Unfortunately, this book does not answer these questions.

Also, the Abbasid dynasty is considered the golden age of the Islamic civilization but this book gives a skewed impression of a morally bankrupt society. When an era is considered the Golden age, there are reasons for that label. Those reasons are not explored here; instead the opposite impression is given.

For those who enjoy reading about the life style of the rich and famous, they will find this book a very interesting read. But for myself, from what I was expecting compared to what I got, I was disappointed.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous history, February 14, 2006

By 

Sarah (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Hardcover)

I studied the medieval Islamic world a little in college, and fell in love. It's a fascinating age in which Central Asian Buddhists, North African nomads, Ethiopian slaves, Greek cave-dwellers, Persian aristocrats, Arab bureaucrats and a host of different cultures came together, mixed, wrote wonderful literature, and lived the kind of drama that makes history fun. But it's hard to find anything written about the time that isn't arcane professor babble or Islam 101. (You know, "There are five pillars of Islam..." Snore.)

Here Hugh Kennedy has written the book I always wanted. He wisely concentrates on medieval Islam's golden age, the early Abbasid dynasty, when Baghdad ruled a large portion of the world-and, even more astutely, on the dramatic stories and personalities of the court. Let's face it, you read about the Abbasids because you want to know how the slave girl Khayzuran not only managed to marry the caliph but to quell a military revolt, why her son Harun al-Rashid was immortalized in The Arabian Nights, and why the all-powerful Barmakid family suddenly fell from grace to prison and execution. Kennedy brings the caliphs and their families to life. He's up front about the fact that the book is about aristocrats, but the common people of Baghdad, the "pickpockets and sellers of cheap sweets" who fought back when their city was besieged, and the middle class who developed Islamic tradition dance around the edge of the narrative.

Kennedy doesn't believe everything he reads, and doesn't think you will either. He repeats stories-like the "harem intrigue" tales, in which devious women are blamed for various deaths-that are almost certainly not true, but tell us something about the people who believed them, and are still enormously entertaining. He also is frank about the same-sex relationships, male and female, that were a part of the era's culture, without the awkwardness of many modern historians. And he's smart enough to explain the geography-why southern Iraq could support such a fabulously wealthy monarchy, and why the Afghanistan/NE Iran region was so critical to the faraway Middle East-in a way an American can understand. Very rare for books on Islamic history, the book boasts an excellent map, naming both cities and regions-invaluable for a hapless Westerner who doesn't know where the major cities of Iran are today, never mind where long-gone kingdoms like Yamama and Ushrusana used to be. There's also a surprisingly good index (another rarity).

The book isn't flawless. Kennedy twice awkwardly interrupts his straightforward account of political events with fascinating chapters on aspects of court culture-palaces, poetry, science, and (my favorite) women's lives. Unfortunately, this structure means the reader learns about the palace Mutawakkil built before she knows enough about him to care, and doesn't hear anything about Ma'mun patronage of scientific research until long after he's dead in the main narrative. The last chapter goes into far too much detail about the depressing downfall of the dynasty, short-changing a more interesting discussion about its legacy. But all in all Kennedy does a great job, and I for one plan down to hunt down his earlier books.

If you know nothing about Islamic history and want an accessible introduction to an fascinating period, or like me know a little and want to learn more, I highly recommend this book.