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... As early as 718 AD, during the reign of Umar II, Muhammad ibn Ali, a great-grandson of al-Abbas, began to proselytize in Persia to rally support for returning the caliphate to the family of the Prophet, the Hashimites. ...
The dynasty was started when Abul-Abbass assumed the caliphate from 750-754 AD / 132-136 AH. ... As the Arab chronicles put it, Harun al-Rashid ruled when the world was young, a felicitous description of what in later times has come to be called the “Golden Age of Islam”.
The Golden Age was a period of unrivaled intellectual activity in all fields: science, technology, and literature - particularly biography, history, and linguistics. ...
During the Golden Age Muslim scholars made important and original contributions to mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. ...
Important advances in agriculture were also made in the Golden Age. ... The Golden Age also, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots, cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and sugarcane.
Despite all the advances in science, literature, and trade which took place during the Golden Age, the Abbasid caliphate still had negative effects in other ways.The heavy reliance of the Abbasid caliphate on the client Muslims (muwali) is what made the Abassid seizure of the caliphate unique. Personally, the mawali should be considered as losers of the golden age. They were foreigners who had converted to Islam; because, however, they were foreigners they could not be incorporated into the kinship-based society of Arabs. ...
On the other hand, after the death of Harun ar Rashid, his sons, Amin and Al Mamun, quarreled over the succession to the caliphate. ... The Sunni-Shia split had weakened the effectiveness of Islam as a single unifying force and as a sanction for a single political authority.
Approximate Word count = 1558
Approximate Pages = 6.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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