Week Four
January 29-31
Abbasid Revolution, Baghdad, Organization of the Caliphate

Samarra
Samarra (Iraq), the Great Mosque
  • There is no class on Thursday, January 31.
  • Read: Ochsenwald/Fisher, pp. 63-95.
  • Read 2 of the following, and answer one of the following questions: due Sunday January 27.

    1. What is the main thesis of this chapter from Hodges' book on the Abbasid caliphate?


    2. What is the evidence that historians have today about the nature of Abbasid Baghdad? How do we know what we know about this city at that
    time?

    3. What was the role of the "caliph" in the West, and how did one become chosen as caliph?

    4. How did the "concept of Dhimma in early Islam, as discussed by Bosworth, change in practice in Umayyad or Abbasid times?

  • Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse, "The Abbasid Caliphate" from their Mohammed, Charlemagne & The Origins of Europe.  Study Guide for Hodges and Whitehouse.
  • David J. Wasserstein.  "The Caliphal Institution in al-Andalus until 422/1031" from his The Caliphate in the West.  Study Buide for Wasserstein.
  • C. E. Bosworth, "The Concept of Dhimma in Early Islam," in Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (eds), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, vol. I.  Study Guide for Bosworth.