The Court of the Caliphs The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty

by
Hugh Kennedy

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The Court Of The Caliphs The Rise And Fall Of Isla

Professor Hugh Kennedy makes no apology for the 'fair share of booze and sex' involved in The Court of the Caliphs. Every element of his story is drawn from the original Arabic texts: 'the writers of the ninth and tenth centuries knew their rulers had their fair share of human frailties and were quite happy to describe them. To produce a sanitized and whitewashed version of history does no service to our understanding of the caliphate.' In this fast-paced and colourful narrative, Professor Hugh Kennedy takes us back to Baghdad and Samarra and the glory days of the Caliphate.From a rebellion planned in a remote desert town to the founding of Baghdad in AD 762, the rule of the Abbasid dynasty was looked back on as the golden era of the Islamic Conquest. The muslim world was ruled by a single sovereign, who waged holy war against the Byzantines and protected the holy cites of Mecca and Medina. For what was to be the last time in history, a mighty empire was based on the ancient Mesopotamian heartland that had once supported the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.The Caliphs formed the model for succeeding muslim regimes. From military conquests to patronizing poetry, building palaces, and the formal structure of the court - harems, viziers, eunuchs and the tales of the Arabian Nights - the Abbasid Caliphate and offered a historical ideal for later empires and their rulers to aspire to.Yet the true story of this fascinating empire has been forgotten outside the academic world. And it deserves to be rescued: it is an epic story in every sense, with larger-than-life rulers, exotic slave girls, inventive tortures, and enough court intrigue to frighten a Borgia.

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Details of Book:

The Court Of The Caliphs The Rise And Fall Of Isla

Book:
The Court of the Caliphs The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty
Author:Hugh Kennedy
ISBN:0753817683
ISBN-13:9780297830009, 978-0297830009
Binding: Hardcover
Publishing Date: -
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group (Head)
Number of Pages: - pages
Language: English

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Book Reviews of The Court of the Caliphs The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty

Helpful but probably not the best book on the subject

Hugh Kennedy's The Court of the Caliphs: The rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty, is something of a mixed bag. While informative and illuminating in certain respects and filled with interesting historical anecdotes, it is probably not the best book on the subject, whether one is looking for an introductory book or a comprehensive account on the history of Islamic caliphates in general or of the Abbasid dynasty in particular. While fairly well researched and rich in anecdotal accounts, the book suffers primarily from two problems: (1) a lack of context of how the Abbasid dynasty fits in overall Islamic history, and (2) a lack of smoothness in how the historical narrative is laid out. In the first case, the book would've benefited enormously from a short chapter covering the period from the death of the prophet to the caliphs immediately preceding the Abbasids, to give the dynasty and the period some historical context and to show what led up to it. In the second case, the narrative is uneven and at times the flow is interrupted. The early Abbasid caliphs are covered in great detail while the latter ones are rushed through in a blur, and in between are long digressions into things like period poetry, the culture of the harem and such which, while interesting and worth of mention, should probably have been dealt with either in appendices or else in a completely seperate book.

Kennedy is strongest in sections where he gives vivid descriptions of Abbasid court life and culture, bringing to life the details visitors to the court would have observed as in this particular section:

"The other center of power in Baghdad was the Dar al-Wizara, or House of the Vizierate. This had belonged to Sulayman ibn Wahb, who had been vizier briefly in 877. After his disgrace, his palace became the official residence of the viziers, a sort of Abbasid 10 Downing Street, and it was no doubt extended and embellished. It is said to have covered an area of about 50,000 square metres (300,000 square cubits). It was in Mukharrim, on the east bank, a short way upriver from the caliph's palace, with which it enjoyed the advantage of easy communication by water. The House of the Vizierate was seen at its grandest in 917 during Ibn al-Furat's second term of office when two Byzantine envoys came to the capital. They stayed in a palace on the east bank which had belonged to a vizer of the calph Mutadid but which now seems to have been a sort of official guest house. Ibn al-Furat ordered that soldiers, dressed in brocade tunics with pointed caps, also in brocade, should line the way from the guest palace to the House of the Vizierate. Inside the palace, he arrayed his own ghulams along the route that led from the gate to the audience hall where the envoys were to be received.
--The two Byzantines entered through the public area of the palace (Dar al-amma), where members of the public could come on business. They found the court there full of soldiers and the vizier's chamberlain told them to sit down under the colonnade that ran around the edge. They he took them down a long corridor to the court of the Garden House and directed them towards the hall where the vizier sat. It was all a most impressive spectacle. Ibn al-Furat himself awaited them in the magnificent hall with its gilded ceiling. The walls were hung with curtains that looked like carpets, presumably being of the same pattern -- 30,000 dinars had been spent on furnishings, carpets and fabrics for the occasion. The vizier was seated on a splendid prayer rug with a high throne-back behind him. There were eunuchs in front of him and to his left and right while the court was filled with military commanders and prominent figures. The envoys were suitably overawed by all these troops."

Kennedy does give a good picture of the Abbasid dynastic intrigues, which easily rival the most twisted and vicious ones found in medieval European courts. And like the European courts, the Abbasids frequently had problems with dynastic succession, which more often than not ended up pitting brothers against brothers, fathers against sons, with mothers jockeying behind the scenes adding to the complications. Kennedy also provides fascinating little insights into Abbasid culture, lifestyle and attitudes through other anecdotes like this one about a famous grammarian and poet of the period:

"Always generous and improvident, he [Ibn Durayd] was frequently penniless and was well known for his love of wine. 'When we went to see him,' one of his contemporaries said in scandalized tones, 'we were shocked to see lutes hung up on the wall and wine unmixed with water.' He was once reproached for giving wine as alms to a beggar and was quite unrepentant, saying that he had nothing else to give. His lifestyle was not without its perils: when he was working in Fars, he fell off the roof of his house one night and broke his collar-bone, probably, though he does not say it, because he was drunk. This is not quite as bizarre or reckless as it sounds: many people slept on the flat roofs of their houses during the hot summer nights. As he lay in pain trying to sleep, he had a classic literary critic's nightmare in which he recited two of his verses in praise of wine. When he had done, Satan appeared and asked him whether he was trying to do better than the great Abu Nuwas. When Ibn Durayd admitted he was, Satan told him that his verses were not too bad but he had made one solecism, saying that the wine was narcissus yellow and then anemone red all at the same time; the poet woke up abruptly, mortified by this supernatural criticism."

The book does have a number of photographs of what remains of certain Abbasid historical sites, a few of which give the reader some idea of what the original structures may have been like. However the author should have added a glossary to explain the meaning of certain words or references not familiar to the average reader, like just what the "Mutazulite doctrine on the createdness of the Koran" involved or an illustration of what a "qalansuwa" actually looked like.

Overall, I would rate this book as a useful supplemental resource on the history of Islamic caliphates in general and on the Abbasid dynasty in particular, but not necessarily as the best introduction or the most comprehensive account. Still, I would recommend it for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Source - Amazon

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