A Critical Historiographical Study of State Formation, Intellectual Flourishing, and Political Fragmentation in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE)

Abstract

Abstract

A large amount of scholarship exists on the Abbasid period, but there is still a strong tendency to split the study of history into two fields: political and cultural/ intellectual. Although there is much scholarship on the Abbasid era, the argument for systematic links between administrative centralization, economic integration, scholarly patronage and, ultimately, political fragmentation, is still fraught with reluctance. It is a crucial synthesis of classical Arabic historical writing and contemporary studies of the Abbasid Caliphate from its establishment in 750 CE to the fall of Baghdad in the Mongol invasion of 1258 CE. The narrative analytical review method was used in the article, which was based on selected primary sources, peer-reviewed studies and academic monographs, and discussed the emergent legitimacy of the Abbasid caliphate, the rise of bureaucracy, the movement for translation, agricultural and commercial growth, urbanization, religious authority and the historiographical debate on the Abbasid decline. The review contests the idea of a development from the rise to the golden age of the Abbasid experience and its eventual collapse. The article advances Abbasid research by bringing together political, cultural, economic and historiographical approaches in a unified analytical approach and by highlighting the ongoing symbolic power of the caliphate in times of military decentralization.