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Description
Having covered the caliphate’s East last time, we must now do the same for its west. The anarchy left such a deep impact on the caliphate that we really need to take our time discovering its aftermath. The situation in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the North was very messy, but we’ll look at them through the lens of one remarkable soldier. His journey started in Egypt, but spanned the caliphate’s west, giving us a window into the entire region’s politics at the time.
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Considering the absurd levels of official mismanagement, it’s astounding how long the caliphate survived during al Muqtadir’s inept administration. Although it never collapsed, over the course of two dozen years the state’s power steadily declined in meaningful ways. It collected less taxes, had...
Published 06/16/24
Published 06/16/24
Having discussed the disorder in the caliphate’s civil bureaucracy we’ll turn our attention to the state of its military. The sharp contrast between the state of the two is in large part thanks to the figure of Mu’nis, the general who led Abbasid armies to one victory after another. His heroic...
Published 05/26/24