1. Abbasid Decline and the Spread of Islamic Civilization to South and Southeast Asia

2. By mid 9th century – Abbasids losing control over huge Muslim empire.
Distance hurt troop movements and control of local administrators.
Subjects retained local loyalties.
Shi'is often caused trouble.
Slave and peasant uprisings used up empire’s resources.
13th century Mongol invasions finally ended a painfully slow decline. Despite political decline, Islamic civilization reached new cultural heights. Islam expanded widely in the Afro-Asian world.

3. Long Abbsid Decline
The Abbasid Empire fell slowly between the 9th and 13th centuries.
Peasant and slave revolts increased.
Art and scholarship flourished but women’s status eroded.
Decline started under Caliph al-Mahdi (775‑785).
He failed to reconcile moderate Shi'i to Abbasid rule.
He also abandoned the frugal ways
He left no succession system

4. Extravagance and Succession Disputes
Al-Mahdi’s son, Harun al-Rashid, became a famous Abbasid caliph.
His decadent, scheming court was immortalized in The Thousand and One Nights (
He heavily depended on Persian advisors, a trend that would make later caliphs puppets in court struggles.
Al-Rashid's death led to the first of many civil wars over succession.
The sons of the civil war winner, al-Ma'mun, built personal armies, that included Turkic nomads to safeguard their power.
These armies became power brokers, removing and selecting caliphs; their uncontrolled power caused social unrest.

5. Imperial Breakdown and Agrarian Disorder
Ongoing civil violence drained the treasury.
Caliphs increased the debt by building newer and bigger imperial centers.
Peasants were severely taxed.
Farm villages were abandoned, irrigation systems fell apart.
Bandits were everywhere; they aided peasant rebellions instigated by dissident religious groups.

6. The Declining Position of Women.
Women’s freedom and influence maintained during the 1st centuries of Islam severely declined.
Male-dominated Abbasid society imagined women possessed incurable lust, and men must be segregated from all but their family women.
The harem and the veil symbolized subjugation to males. Seclusion of elite women, wives and concubines, continued. Veiling spread to all.
Abbasid class wealth created a large demand for concubines and male slaves.
Poor women remained economically active, the rich were kept at home.
Elite women married at puberty and spent their lives in domestic work and childbearing.

7. Nomadic Invasions and the Loss of Caliphal Power
The Buyids of Persia captured Baghdad in 945.
From then on, the caliphs became puppets controlled by sultans, the true rulers. The Abbasid Empire was in name only.
The Seljuk Turks defeated the Buyids in 1055 and ruled the deminished Abbasid Empire for two centuries.
The Seljuks were staunch Sunnis who purged the Shi’i.

8. The Impact of the Christian Crusades
West European Christian knights in 1096 invaded Muslim territory to capture the Holy Land.
They created small, Christian kingdoms around the Holy land. Most were recaptured near the close of the 12th century by Saladin. The last fell in 1291.
The Crusades intensified the borrowing by Europe of the more sophisticated technology, architecture, medicine, mathematics, science, and general culture of Muslim civilization.
Europeans recovered much Greek learning lost after the fall of Rome.
Italian merchants remained in Islamic centers after the Crusaders left and were the key carriers of Islamic advanced knowledge. Muslim peoples were little interested in European civilization.

10. Golden Age of Learning
The turmoil of late Abbasid times did not stop Muslim thinkers and craftsmen from Spain to Persia produce one of the great ages of human creativity.
Rapid urban growth and prosperity persisted. Jobs for skilled individuals were abundant.
Merchants amassed fortunes supplying urban needs and from long-distance trade to India, Southeast Asia, China, North Africa, and Europe. Artisans created mosques, palaces, tapestries, rugs, bronzes, and ceramics.

11. Persian Literature
Persian replaced Arabic as the primary written language of the Abbasid court.
Arabic remained the language of religion, law, and the natural sciences, but Persian became the language of "high culture,".
Calligraphy made literature a visual art form. Perhaps the greatest work was Firdawsi's epic poem, Shah-Nama, a history of Persia from creation to Islamic conquest.

12. Science
During the Abbasid Empire Muslim society surpassed all others in scientific and technological discoveries.
In mathematics thinkers corrected ancient Greek theories.
In chemistry they created the objective experiment.
Al-Razi classified all material substances into three categories: animal, vegetable, mineral.
Al-Biruni calculated the exact specific weight of 18 major minerals.
The astrolabe, mapped the heavens.
In medicine formal courses of studies accompanied important experimental work. Hospitals continued to improve.
Traders and craftsmen introduced Chinese paper making, silk weaving, and ceramic firing. Cartographers made the most accurate maps to date.

13. Religious Trends and Expansion
Sufis developed vibrant mysticism, but ulama (religious scholars) became more conservative and suspicious of non-Muslim influences.
Feared Greek rationalism and insisted that the Quran was the only required source of knowledge.
However, al-Ghazali struggled to fuse Greek and Quranic traditions.
The Sufis created the most innovative religious movement. They reacted against the arid teachings of the ulama and sought personal union with Allah through asceticism, meditation, songs, dancing, or drugs. Many Sufis gained reputations as healers and miracle workers; Sufism was key to the continuing expansion of Islam.

14. More Nomadic Invasions and the End of the Caliphate.
In the early 13th century central Asian nomads, the Mongols, threatened Islamic lands.
Chinggis Khan destroyed the spin-off Turkic-Persian kingdoms east of Baghdad.
His grandson, Hulegu, continued the assault. The last Abbasid ruler was killed when Baghdad fell in The once great Abbasid capital became a backwater in the Muslim world

15. Islam in South Asia.
7th century Muslim invasions made Indian civilization more complex.
Previous nomadic invaders had blended into India’s advanced civilization. Muslims, with their own advanced culture, were a new factor.
Comparing the two cultures, Hinduism is open, tolerant, and inclusive, but based in a rigid social caste system.. Islam was doctrinal, monotheistic, evangelical, egalitarian and often militaristic.
Initial contact brought conflict , but eventually, while tensions persisted, peaceful commercial and religious exchange occurred in a society where Muslim rulers in the north governed Hindu subjects.

16. The First Muslim Invasions.
Hindu culture flourished, but political divisions left north India open to Umayyad Caliphate invasions beginning in 711.
The Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered and annexed Sind, and , despite quarrels among successor Muslim dynasties, the occupation endured.
Many Hindus now "people of the book," welcomed the new rulers because they offered religious tolerance and lower taxes.
Most Hindu officials kept their positions, and brahmin castes were respected.

17. Indian Influences on Islam.
Although Islam's impact in India was minimal, Islamic civilization was enriched by Indian culture.
Indian achievements in science, mathematics,, medicine, music, and astronomy passed to the Arabs.
Indian numerals were accepted, later to pass to Europe as "Arabic" numerals.

18. The Second Wave of Muslim Invasions.
After initial Muslim conquests, internal divisions weakened Muslim rule and allowed limited Hindu reconquest.
In the 10th century a Turkish dynasty gained power in Afghanistan. Its third ruler, Mahmud of Ghazni, began two centuries of incursions into northern India.
In the 12th century the Persian Muhammad of Ghur created an extensive state in the Indus valley and north-central India.
Sultanates of Delhi, were military states; their authority was limited by factional strife and dependence upon Hindu subordinates. They ruled much of north-central India for the next 300 years.

19. Patterns of Conversion
Patterns of Conversion . While conquerors, Muslim interaction with Indians early was through peaceful exchanges. The main carriers of Islam were traders and Sufi mystics, the latter drawing followers because of similarities to Indian holy men. Their mosques and schools became centers of regional political power providing protection to local populations. Low and outcast Hindus were welcomed. Buddhists were the most numerous converts. Buddhist spiritual decline had debased its practices and turned interest to the vigorous new religion of Islam. Others converted to escape taxes or through intermarriage. Muslim migrants fleeing 13th and 14th century Mongol incursions also increased the Islamic community.

20. Patterns of Accommodation
Patterns of Accommodation. Islam initially had little impact on the general Hindu community. High-caste Hindus did not accept the invaders as their equals. Although serving as administrators or soldiers, they remained socially aloof, living in separate quarters and not intermarrying. Hindus thought the Muslims, as earlier invaders, would be absorbed by Hindu society. Muslim communities did adopt many Indian ways; they accepted Hindu social hierarchies, foods, and attitudes toward women.

21. Islamic Challenge and Hindu Revival.
Even under Hindu influence, Muslims did not change the basic principles of Islam.
Hindus, loosing followers, responded by opening up their faith to all individuals from all castes.
They increased emphasis on devotional cults of gods and goddesses (bhakti).

22. Stand-off: Muslim Presence at the End of the Sultanate Period
Similarities in style and message between Sufis and bhaktic devotees led to efforts to fuse Islam with Hinduism.
But, orthodox Brahmins denounced Muslims as temple destroyers and Muslim ulama saw the two faiths as incompatible.
By the close of the sultanate period there were two distinct religious communities.
majority remained Hindu.

23. The Spread of Islam to Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia was middle of global trade where Chinese products and culture met the Indian Ocean zone.
By the 7th and 8th centuries Southeast Asian sailors and ships were active in trade.
When Muslims, from the 8th century, gained control of Indian commerce, Islamic culture reached Southeast Asia.
The 13th century collapse of the trading empire of Shrivijaya, ruled by devout Buddhists and located on the Straits of Malacca and northern Sumatra, made possible large-scale, peaceful, Muslim entry.

24. Trading Contacts and Conversion
Voluntary conversion was more important to Islam’s spread in S.E> Asia than force.
Trading contacts prepared the way carried forward by Sufis.
The first conversions occurred in small northern Sumatran ports.
On the mainland the key was the city of Malacca, From Malacca Islam went to Malaya, Sumatra, and the state of Demak on Java's north coast. Islam spread into Java and moved on to Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
Coastal cities were the most receptive.
Their conversion linked them to a profitable Muslim global trade system and Indian Ocean ports.
Buddhist dynasties were present in many regions, but since Buddhist conversions were limited to the elite, the mass of the population was open to the message of the Sufis.

25. Sufi Mystics and the Nature of Southeast Asian Islam
The mystical quality of Islam in Southeast Asia was due to Sufis.
They were tolerant of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs and converts kept pre-Islamic practices, especially for regulating social interaction.
Islamic law ruled legal transactions.
Women held a stronger position than they had in the Middle East or India. They dominated local markets, while in some regions matrilineal descent persisted.
Many pre-Muslim beliefs were incorporated into Islamic ceremonies.

26. The Legacy of the Abbasid Age
Despite the political instability of the Abbasids, Islam's central position in global history was solidified.
The expanding Muslim world linked ancient civilizations through conquest and commerce.
Islam made nomadic peoples in Asia and Africa literate.
Its cultural contributions diffused widely from great cities and universities.
However, the growth of the ulama caused Muslims to become less receptive to new ideas and technologies at a time when Europe was being transformed into a global power of its own. This close-mindedness would make global Islam less competitive after 1500 CE.