10th Century Islam Mid-10th Century

10th Century Islam Mid-10th Century Islamic Issues Armstrong writes, "Muslims had accepted the caliphate because it guaranteed the unity of the ummah, but once the caliphs showed that they could not integrate the empire any longer, they were content to relegate them to symbolic status" (2000, p. 84). She is referring to the Abbasids. This caliphate claimed theocratic power, tracing their authority directly to the Prophet, and relied on narrative and interpretive hadith for their influence.

Having destroyed the Ummayids and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, they alienated Arabs by this integration of non-Arabs into the ruling sector. Despite the incredible society of cultured scholars and scientists, eventually the imperial community felt this tension. In the tenth century, the Turks and their Mamluk generals became more powerful than the Abbasids. As a result, their brand of piety was no longer rooted in politics that responded to current events.

They made other mistakes as well, according to Endress, such as trying to submit judges to inquisitions and forcing religious institutions to embrace their rationalist theology (2002, p. 116). Its administration and traditions, founded on Iranian agrarian society, failed to keep pace with urban realities. The time of unrest was ripe for social reform and resistance to Abbasid power. Thus, with the weakened caliphate, the great empire split up as more regions gained autonomy.

Endress writes, "In place of the Islamic empire as a political institution there remained an Islamic cultural sphere" (2002, p. 116). Taking advantage of this disintegration of centralized power, the Iranian Buyids stepped in. These were hardy mountain men who in 945 conquered Iraq, where there was already fighting between Turks and Arabs over control. According to Endress, "While they 'rescued' the caliph they made him entirely their puppet and took over political power with the office of chief amir" (2002, p. 116).

They relied on exploitation of land ownership through military land tenure to become the major Eastern power. Believing in the restoration of the old Persian empire, they rekindled the practices and images of the Sassanid dynasty to build their authority (Goldschmidt & Davidson, 2005, p. 87). They governed even while the Abbasids retained their nominal power. During this time, a clear separation between Sunni and Shiite became evident. What was most significant, however, was that local power came to dominate.

The Buyids believed in the formation of native states, rather than external control by non-natives. Their legitimacy was traced to local geneaologies. This move was significant in grounding the notion of national, rather than imperial, rule. They were a model for the establishment of local control of the community without sight set on total domination over the larger community. The Mahdists were Shiites who wished for the abolition of Shariah law and its morality (Brett, 2001, p. 77). By contrast, the Abbasids endorsed it.

Hodgson (1972) writes, "The Abbasids professed to acknowledge the Shariah as the rules of life which formed the basis for the Muslim community, the Muslim Ummah" (p. 34). Aware of Abbasid arbitrariness, the Mahdists instead based their power on the authority of the Imam and on the true restoration of the law (Brett, 2001, p. 153). Unlike the Buyids, the Mahdists believed in world conquest. They attempted several times to conquer Egypt and Sicily, among other places. In Yemen, Brett describes a situation of internecine warfare between various sectors of Yemeni society.

He writes, "Mahdism thus proved unable to transform the society of the Yemen into an enduring new state, as it did the society of Bahrayn" (p. 78). Al-Fadl could not make headway with the southern tribesmen and nobility. In the end, Yemen proved too introverted a place to become a unifying imperial power as the community was fragmenting. To make matters worse, the twelfth imam has just disappeared (Mohammad Al-Mahdi in 941). What were they to do? No one knew, they believed, when he would come out of hiding.

So there must be waiting and vigilance, and a strict adherence to the imam's religious and judicial authority in the community. Another Shiite group expecting the Messiah's return was the Fatimids, who traced their legitimacy from Ali and Fatima. Originating in Tunisia, they opposed the northern Abbasids and Buyids not only by conflicting with Sunni beliefs, but in terms of conceiving of the role of the community. The Fatimids believed unquestionably in the spread of empire, not just in local rule.

Since the Caliphate had been reduced to Baghdad, the Fatimids took up the imperial mantle and ran their own caliphate out of Cairo. Endress says, "After the political fragmentation of the Islamic empire, the Fatimid anti-caliphate also threatened to disrupt the religious unity of the Islamic community" (Endress, 2002, p. 117). They rested their authority on Ismaili Shiite credentials. As rulers they exercised religious tolerance.

Endress says, "The Fatimids indeed never attempted to make Egypt Shi'ite; the esoteric teaching agreed only too well with their political requirements; but they gave the non-Muslims more freedom than they had ever possessed since the Arab conquest." (p. 115). They were thus not repressive intellectually, but their commitment to the political and religious advance of.