Caliph

Within a caliphate or khilāfa, caliph was the title given to individuals who, in the role of steward, are considered a political and religious successor to Muhammad, a prophet and the founder of Islam. In this capacity, caliphs function as a head-of-state, ruling polities which later evolved into multi-ethnic trans-national empires.

History

Abbasid Caliphate

In 750, al-Saffah founded the Abbasid Caliphate after deposing the Umayyad dynasty, becoming the empire's first caliph. As steward, al-Saffah conducted campaigns eastwards to the Western Regions, entering into conflict against the Tang dynasty.

Al-Saffah died in 754 after ruling for a few years and was succeeded by his brother al-Mansur. In 762, al-Mansur conducted a reconnaissance of a region in what is now central Iraq and chose a fertile plain by the Tigris river, founding a new city called Baghdad, expanding the nearby the village, and making it the new capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Al-Mansur named the city core as al-Mansur after himself, while the city also came to be known as Madinat al-Salam (English: "the city of peace"), or the Round City.

The third Abbasid caliph was al-Mansur's son al-Mahdi, who reigned for a decade from 775 to 785. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his son, al-Hadi, who was assassinated by his own mother, al-Khayzuran, after attempting to curtail her power over the Abbasid court. Al-Khayzuran then placed al-Hadi's younger brother, Harun al-Rashid, on the throne. During his reign, Harun married Zubaydah bint Ja'far, the granddaughter of al-Mansur, and sent several diplomatic envoys to Emperor Charlemagne's court in Francia, who brought with them gifts, including an elaborate water clock and the elephant Abul-Abbas.

Harun's death in 809 led to a civil war between two of his sons, al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, which the latter won, executing his brother and taking the caliphate's throne. After his victory, al-Ma'mun had al-Amin's head publicly displayed at the Iron Gate in Baghdad, exiled his mother, and created the ghilman, a military force loyal only to the caliph which was made up of enslaved boys and men from Turkic-speaking tribes in Central Asia. In 832, al-Ma'mun led his army into Egypt to put down the last great Bashmurian revolt, and pillaged the Great Pyramid of Giza, hoping to find knowledge and treasure. Al-Ma'mun's successor, al-Mu'tasim, continued his strategy of strengthening the Caliphate's military and the ghilman, and moved the imperial court to the newly-built city of Samarra, located 130 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The tenth Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil, was responsible for expanding the empire to its maximum extent, and ordered the construction of several monuments, such as the famous Great Mosque of Samarra. However, he fell under the sway of the Order of the Ancients, who sought to control the Caliphate and exploit its resources to search for ancient Isu technology in and around Baghdad. Al-Mutawakkil's sudden death in 861 at the hands of a young thief, Basim ibn Ishaq, led to a succession crisis that destabilized the Caliphate, beginning the decade-long Anarchy at Samarra.

Although al-Mutawakkil was initially succeeded by his eldest son al-Muntasir, the latter died without an heir just six months into his reign. The Turkic military leaders soon appointed his cousin, al-Musta'in, as caliph instead of al-Mutawakkil's other son, Abu 'Abdallah. Abu 'Abdallah, having already chosen his own regnal name in anticipation of being crowned, decried this as usurpation, leading to al-Musta'in placing him under house arrest to prevent him from gaining civilian support. However, this had the inverse effect, and eventually another civil war for the throne began, echoing the Fourth Fitna from a generation earlier between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun. By 866, al-Musta'in was deposed and exiled from Baghdad, and Abu 'Abdallah became the thirteenth caliph, reigning under the name al-Mu'tazz.

The reign of the Abbasid caliphs continued for another four centuries, until the Mongol Empire invaded the Caliphate and sacked Baghdad in 1258. The Caliphate survived for a time in Egypt under the protection of the Mamluk Sultanate, although with little-to-none of their former spiritual authority and largely relegated to crowning the new Sultan. When the Mamluk Sultanate fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1517, the age of the Caliphate also came to an end.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (first mentioned) (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Echoes of History (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Mirage (first appearance)