PLATTSBURGH — Three caliphates emerged in early Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E. The first four caliphs or successors — Abu Bakr ibn Qhuafah, Umar ibn al-Khattab ...

However, in the 1250’s, Hulagu, brother of the Mongol Khan, demanded that the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mustasim, submit himself as a vassal to the Mongol Empire. The Caliph rejected this.

The apogee of the Abbasid caliphate coincides with the heydays of the Tang Dynasty in China (619-907). In the Accounts imperial China is painted as a highly organised and regulated society.

“We do a disservice to the Abbasid caliphate to judge it as an empire,” El-Hibri emphasises, “it may be more pertinent to view it as an Islamic political institution.” The moral imperative of being ...

The Ottoman Empire claimed to be a caliphate up until World War One, ... The Abbasid caliphate was centuries ahead of Mr. Baghdadi’s backward-looking cohorts.

Cue political strife and uprising and subsequently the Umayyads caliphate was taken over by the Abbasid dynasty, who made their capital Baghdad. This caliphate lasted nearly 500 years, sort of .

These novels blend the substantiated with the surreal, offering new ways to understand the past through magic, monsters and ...