Podcasts about Umayyad Caliphate

In this episode of the Umayyad Caliphate, we continue our exploration of Caliph Hisham ibn Abdul Malik's reign as the Umayyad Caliphate faces mounting crises across its vast empire. The year is 110 AH (728 CE), and the empire's edges are on fire. In the Caucasus, Maslamah ibn Abdul Malik leads a grueling campaign against the Khazar Khaganate through the treacherous Darial Pass. Despite claiming victory, his retreat is chaotic, marked by ambushes, torrential rain, and widespread exhaustion. Meanwhile, cracks appear in the empire's eastern front. In Khurasan, a well-intentioned tax policy by Governor Ashras unleashes a wave of conversions among non-Arab Muslims—but when the policy is reversed, these new converts revolt. Their rebellion draws in the powerful Turgesh Khaganate, sparking a devastating loss for the Umayyads at the Battle of Baykand and the bloody Siege of Karmajah. We also examine the collapse of Muslim authority in India, the chaotic military campaigns in Anatolia led by Hisham's sons, and the shocking fall of Ardabil to the Khazars—a disaster that results in the death of a Muslim governor and the capture of tens of thousands of civilians. As we move through these events, we see a common theme: a once-dominant caliphate now overstretched, undermanned, and increasingly reactive. The Muslim armies are no longer conquering; they're fighting to survive. Strategic missteps, overreliance on loyalist Syrian troops, and a refusal to adapt military policy are setting the stage for further instability. This episode paints a grim but necessary portrait of an empire entering a period of sustained decline. From Armenia to Transoxiana, we witness the human cost of imperial overreach—and the resilience of those left to defend a collapsing frontier.

Enjoy this promotional episode from The Umayyad Caliphate Season 4. Subscribe via Patreon, Apple Podcasts, Podbean, or Spotify.

In episode 26 I explain how and why the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus fell, how that affected al-Andalus, and the establishment of the little-known Fihrid Emirate that preceded the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba. SUPPORT NEW HISTORY OF SPAIN: Patreon: https://patreon.com/newhistoryspain  Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/newhistoryspain  PayPal: https://paypal.me/lahistoriaespana  Bitcoin donation: bc1q64qs58s5c5kp5amhw5hn7vp9fvtekeq96sf4au Ethereum donation: 0xE3C423625953eCDAA8e57D34f5Ce027dd1902374 Join the DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jUvtdRKxUC  Follow the show for updates on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/newhistoryspain.com  Or Twitter/X:  https://x.com/newhistoryspain  YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@newhistoryspain  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-history-of-spain/id1749528700  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hstfgSYFfFPXhjps08IYi  Spotify (video version): https://open.spotify.com/show/2OFZ00DSgMAEle9vngg537 Spanish show 'La Historia de España-Memorias Hispánicas': https://www.youtube.com/@lahistoriaespana  TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Hook 00:23 Why Did the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus Fall? 06:23 The Outbreak of the Third Fitna 10:08 The Abbasid Revolution 17:37 The Qays-Yaman Civil War in al-Andalus 23:07 The Fihrid Emirate 26:51 The Verdict: The Fihrid Alternative 28:17 Outro

In episode 23 you will learn about the political history of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus and al-Andalus between 720 and 742, covering events like the Battle of Tours, the beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate's crisis with the Great Berber Revolt, and details about how many Arabs and Berbers settled in the Iberian Peninsula. SUPPORT NEW HISTORY OF SPAIN: Patreon: https://patreon.com/newhistoryspain  Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/newhistoryspain  PayPal: https://paypal.me/lahistoriaespana  Bitcoin donation: bc1q64qs58s5c5kp5amhw5hn7vp9fvtekeq96sf4au Ethereum donation: 0xE3C423625953eCDAA8e57D34f5Ce027dd1902374 Join the DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jUvtdRKxUC  Follow the show for updates on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/newhistoryspain.com  Or Twitter/X:  https://x.com/newhistoryspain  YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@newhistoryspain  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-history-of-spain/id1749528700  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hstfgSYFfFPXhjps08IYi  Spotify (video version): https://open.spotify.com/show/2OFZ00DSgMAEle9vngg537 Spanish show 'La Historia de España-Memorias Hispánicas': https://www.youtube.com/@lahistoriaespana  TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Hook 00:28 Important concepts of al-Andalus 05:47 The Governorate of al-Andalus in the 720s 08:31 Al-Gafiqi and the Battle of Tours 13:43 The Umayyad Caliphate of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik 18:36 The Great Berber Revolt and the Arrival of the Syrians 24:15 The Arab and Berber Colonization of al-Andalus 28:22 The Verdict: Muslim Spain 30:13 Outro

How did a group of desert tribes, divided for centuries, manage to build one of the largest empires in history in just a few decades? What were the origins of Islam? And what made the Arab conquests so transformative? In episode 21, I give an overview of the first century of Islamic history, leading up to the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. SUPPORT NEW HISTORY OF SPAIN: Patreon: https://patreon.com/newhistoryspain  Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/newhistoryspain  PayPal: https://paypal.me/lahistoriaespana  Bitcoin donation: bc1q64qs58s5c5kp5amhw5hn7vp9fvtekeq96sf4au Ethereum donation: 0xE3C423625953eCDAA8e57D34f5Ce027dd1902374 Join the DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jUvtdRKxUC  Follow the show for updates on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/newhistoryspain.com  Or Twitter/X:  https://x.com/newhistoryspain  YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@newhistoryspain  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-history-of-spain/id1749528700  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hstfgSYFfFPXhjps08IYi  Spotify (video version): https://open.spotify.com/show/2OFZ00DSgMAEle9vngg537 Spanish show 'La Historia de España-Memorias Hispánicas': https://www.youtube.com/@lahistoriaespana  TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Hook 00:30 The Beginning of the Middle Ages 04:19 Pre-Islamic Arabia 11:01 Muhammad, the Last Prophet 13:53 What is Islam? 18:12 The Hijrah and the Constitution of Medina 21:32 Toward the Unification of the Arabs 25:03 The Rashidun Caliphate and the Great Arab Conquests 34:16 The First Fitna in Islam 37:45 The Establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus 42:33 The Arab Conquest of the Maghreb 46:01 The Verdict: Barbarian Conquerors vs. Arabs 47:48 Outro

The second Arab siege of Constantinople should probably just be called the "real" Arab siege of Constantinople. In 717 the Umayyad Caliphate seriously threatened the continued existence of the Roman Empire by besieging the capital from both land and sea. The the army of the Caliphate vastly outnumbered the Roman defenders. But the Romans still had a few tricks up their sleeves. The formidable Theodosian walls, the horrifying flaming liquid known as Greek Fire, and one most slippery men to ever be called Roman Emperor all helped Constantinople weather the Umayyad storm. How did the Romans manage to survive this time? Tune-in and find out how tricky Greeks, unquenchable flames, and general who was just too darn honest all play a role in the story.

pWotD Episode 2778: Syria Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 546,113 views on Monday, 9 December 2024 our article of the day is Syria.Syria is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. It is under a transitional government and comprises 14 governorates. Damascus is the capital and largest city. With a population of 25 million across an area of 185,180 square kilometres (71,500 sq mi), it is the 57th most populous and 87th largest country.The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region, broadly synonymous with the Levant and known in Arabic as al-Sham. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Damascus and Aleppo are cities of great cultural significance. Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital for the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the French Mandate. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence.The post-independence period was tumultuous, with multiple military coup attempts shaking the country between 1949 and 1971. In 1958, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt, which was terminated in the 1961 coup d'état and was renamed as the Syrian Arab Republic in constitutional referendum. The 1963 coup d'état carried out by the military committee of the Ba'ath Party established a one-party state and ran Syria under emergency law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending constitutional protections for citizens. Internal power-struggles within Ba'athist factions caused further coups in 1966 and 1970, which eventually resulted in the seizure of power by Hafiz al-Assad. He effectively established an Alawite minority rule to consolidate power within his family. After Assad's death, his son Bashar al-Assad inherited the presidency in 2000.Since the Arab Spring in 2011, Syria has been embroiled in a multi-sided civil war with involvement of different countries, leading to a refugee crisis where more than 6 million refugees were displaced from the country. The Islamic State (IS) militant group captured many Syrian cities in 2014–15, in response to which the United States launched an international coalition that territorially defeated IS in Syria. Thereafter, three political entities – the Syrian Interim Government, Syrian Salvation Government, and Rojava – emerged in Syrian territory to challenge Assad's rule. In late 2024, a series of offensives from a coalition of opposition forces led to the capture of several major cities, including Damascus, and the fall of Assad's regime.A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Sunni Muslims are the largest religious group. Up until the capture of Damascus by rebel forces, it was the only country governed by neo-Ba'athists. The neo-Ba'athist government was a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family and attracted widespread criticism for its severe domestic repression and war crimes. Being ranked 4th worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, Syria is one of the most dangerous places for journalists. Freedom of the press is extremely limited, and the country is ranked 2nd worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. It is the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked the 2nd lowest globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. Syria has also become the epicentre of an Assad-sponsored Captagon industry, exporting billions of dollars worth of the illicit drug annually, making it one of the largest drug cartels in the world.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:44 UTC on Tuesday, 10 December 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Syria on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm generative Ruth.

fWotD Episode 2756: Siege of Constantinople (674–678) Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Wednesday, 20 November 2024 is Siege of Constantinople (674–678).The first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674–678 was a major conflict of the Arab–Byzantine wars, and the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy towards the Byzantine Empire, led by Caliph Mu'awiya I. Mu'awiya, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.As reported by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, the Arab attack was methodical: in 672–673 Arab fleets secured bases along the coasts of Asia Minor and then installed a loose blockade around Constantinople. They used the peninsula of Cyzicus near the city as a base to spend the winter and returned every spring to launch attacks against the city's fortifications. Finally the Byzantines, under Emperor Constantine IV, destroyed the Arab navy using a new invention, the liquid incendiary substance known as Greek fire. The Byzantines also defeated the Arab land army in Asia Minor, forcing them to lift the siege. The Byzantine victory was of major importance for the survival of the Byzantine state, as the Arab threat receded for a time. A peace treaty was signed soon after, and following the outbreak of another Muslim civil war, the Byzantines even experienced a brief period of ascendancy over the Caliphate. The siege was the first major Arab defeat in 50 years of expansion and temporarily stabilized the Byzantine Empire after decades of war and defeats. The siege left several traces in the legends of the nascent Muslim world, although it is conflated with accounts of another expedition against the city in 669, led by Mu'awiya's son, the future ruler Yazid. As a result, the veracity of Theophanes's account was questioned in 2010 by Oxford scholar James Howard-Johnston, and more recently by Marek Jankowiak. Their analyses have placed more emphasis on the Arabic and Syriac sources, but have drawn different conclusions about the dating and existence of the siege. News of a large-scale siege of Constantinople and a subsequent peace treaty reached China, where they were recorded in later histories of the Tang dynasty.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:20 UTC on Wednesday, 20 November 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Siege of Constantinople (674–678) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm long-form Danielle.

In this episode of *Dave Does History*, we journey back to October 10, 732 CE, when Charles Martel—"The Hammer"—faced off against the advancing Umayyad forces in one of the most pivotal battles of early medieval Europe. The Battle of Tours wasn't just a clash of swords and shields; it was a turning point that shaped the future of Western civilization. What if the outcome had been different? Join Dave as he breaks down the key players, tactics, and stakes in this crucial showdown between Martel's Frankish army and the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate. Could the battle really have saved Christian Europe? Listen in and find out as we explore how this moment of history helped to define a continent and solidify the legacy of "The Hammer." Perfect for history buffs, military enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the events that shaped the world we live in today.

If I wrote a scifi about a brewery, which outmaneuvered the old clergy, recruited brains of the scientific apparatus and requisitioned all PMs with power, as to institute a human breeding program inspired by pure lines in their GM yeast standardization. You'd say, get real man! Well as they say, reality is often stranger than fiction. Thus let me take you on the second last, Skull Boys, wild ride of 2024, for as Shakespeare knew, there is something rotten in the State of Denmark, as we make our way home to a fake urheimat. The oldest monarchy in the "western world", its birth contemporary with the Umayyad Caliphate's civilizing of Al-Andalus in the 8th century. Also happens to be that nation which received more money per capita from Rockefeller than any other. And what did they pay them for...? Why to become the first European country with a national sterilization law ofc. As Scandinavia embarked on a traitorous road, not revealed until the fall of the Soviet Union. When it became clear that Sweden had roughly eugenically sterilized as many as the whole of the US. Yet Social Democracy is seen by many all over the world as the best system beyond Communism and Capitalism, a third way different from Fascism. We will see today how they spun the threads of that veil. How the illusion of "voluntary choice" became essential to the Welfare State.

Art and politics have long been intertwined in Spain. From the early medieval Visigoths to the Umayyad Caliphate to the fall of Granada under Muhammad XII in 1492, political, cultural, and artistic landscapes were continually reshaped as successive groups took power. Ghadi Amer explores the relationship between politics and art movements in medieval Spain, focusing on the paintings of the Hall of Kings in Alhambra, Spain.For more about Ghadi's research and this topic, visit www.multiculturalmiddleages.com.

In this episode of History of Bangalore Ramjee Chandran delves into the complex political landscape following the reign of Ganga king Sripurusha. Witness the rise of Dantidurga, the ambitious leader of the Rashtrakutas, and a clash of empires as the Umayyad Caliphate attempts to expand into India. We explore the pivotal Battle of Navasari and the brutal realities of warfare through a chilling inscription. Discover how these events shaped the future of the Gangas and the path to the creation of Bangalore. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Prestige Group, that makes this podcast possible. Follow The History Of Bangalore on social, here: **Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyofbangalore/** **Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfBangalore** **Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryOfBLR** **YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HistoryOfBangalore?si=mnH3BsYfI4BUU234** iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-the-history-of-bangalore-163453722/ Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To know about sources for any specific information, we encourage you to correspond with Ramjee Chandran editor@explocity.com. We will pass it on and do our best to reply expeditiously to every mail we receive.

This episode of History 102 explores the fascinating rise of Islam, its Golden Age, and its decline, unpacking the cultural, political, and economic factors that shaped this pivotal period in history. WhatifAltHist creator Rudyard Lynch and Erik Torenberg talk about the cultural and scientific achievements of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliph - a period of unprecedented growth and innovation in the Islamic world. Then, uncover the reasons behind the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate, from internal conflicts and moral decay to the rise of the Turks and the shift from scientific progress to religious conservatism. – SPONSOR: BEEHIIV Head to Beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth, to power your own. Connect with premium brands, scale your audience, and deliver a beautiful UX that stands out in an inbox. 

The Abbasid Revolution gained momentum thanks to the leadership of Abu Muslim al-Khurasani, a Persian revolutionary who rallied support for the Abbasid cause in the eastern provinces of the ...

A portion of the first episode of the third season of the Umayyad Caliphate.

This week's journey back in time will take us to the iconic Crusader Battle of Arsuf, the apogees of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Roman Empire and to the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge.

“No city in the world will ever rival it for prosperity...“ Baghdad, originally a Christian village in Iraq, was chosen by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur as the site for the new capital of his empire, and it would become a cosmopolis to rival Rome or Babylon. Its foundations were built in a perfect circle, with walls 90 feet tall, and at its heart, the monumental Palace of the Golden Gate. Rejecting the Umayyad Caliphate's desire to conquer Constantinople, Al-Mansur founded his own “centre of the universe”. In the second part of our series on Baghdad, Tom and Dominic look at how the Abbasids solidified their rule after overthrowing the Umayyads, and the beginnings of Baghdad as their new capital. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A story of great myth and of huge historical significance, the foundation of Baghdad is a fundamental episode in the development of Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate, the first great Islamic empire, stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China; no dynasty had ever presided over a greater array of conquests. But amongst growing sectarian and internal divisions, discontent on the fringes of the caliphate, and the emergence of influential religious scholars, the Umayyads are challenged by a new power, which pretends to restore Muhammad's bloodline to rule over Islam. In the first part of our series on the history of Baghdad, Tom and Dominic tell the story of the founders of the city, the Abbasids, and delve into the roots of the revolution that saw them overthrow the Umayyad Caliphate… *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

伊斯蘭政權統治伊比利半島800年，留下的不只是考古遺址！從語言、建築、文化到藝術，阿拉伯與伊斯蘭元素早已深植於西班牙這個國家的DNA裡。這集我們從伊斯蘭的角度切入，聊聊安達魯西亞，特別著重在伊斯蘭時期的前半，以及當時伊比利半島甚至整個歐洲最重要的都市：哥多華。節目中我們會聊到以下這些問題—— 西班牙究竟受阿拉伯與伊斯蘭文化影響有多深？ 伊斯蘭教如何進入伊比利半島，讓一個已經被推翻的王朝續命300年？ 直布羅陀海峽最窄處不是才13公里寬嗎，為什麼不蓋一座橋或隧道把兩個大陸連起來？ 哈里發、酋長（埃米爾）、蘇丹到底有什麼不同？哈里發國時期的哥多華有多厲害？ 要真正認識西班牙，就不能不了解伊斯蘭教在它身上留下的印記。讓我們回到西元第七世紀的伊比利半島，發現來自阿拉伯半島的奧瑪雅王朝在此建立的輝煌過往吧！ 簡易年表 711 齊亞德帶領摩爾人軍隊跨過直布羅陀海峽，進攻伊比利半島 750 奧瑪雅王朝滅亡，王室後代退守至伊比利半島 756–929 哥多華酋長國 Emirate of Córdoba 929–1031 哥多華哈里發國 Caliphate of Córdoba 來自阿拉伯語的西班牙語單字舉例 hatta → hasta 直到 inshallah → ojala 但願如此 al-Qasr → Alcázar 堡壘、宮殿 al hamra → Alhambra 紅色（的宮殿），阿罕布拉宮 哈里發、埃米爾和蘇丹有什麼不同？ 哈里發（Caliph）意為「繼承者」，是先知穆罕默德的正統接班人、整個伊斯蘭世界宗教與政治的最高領導者，地位近似於皇帝、教宗。歷史上曾經統治大部分伊斯蘭世界、且稱領導人為哈里發的政權包括： 拉什敦哈里發國（Rashidun Caliphate，四大哈里發時期，632–661） 奧瑪雅哈里發國（Umayyad Caliphate，661–750） 阿拔斯哈里發國（Abbasid Caliphate，750–1258） 鄂圖曼帝國（1517-1924） 埃米爾（或稱酋長、大公，Emir）意為「指揮」，原本是由哈里發指派、管理特定地區的統治者，類似封建社會中親王、大公、分封王的概念，後來常被用來指地區性的伊斯蘭政權領導者。 蘇丹（Sultan）意為「權威」，指一個伊斯蘭國家政治性的統治者，目前也被用作許多伊斯蘭國家元首的頭銜。 白衣大食、黑衣大食與綠衣大食 中國古代典籍稱阿拉伯為大食，其中又按照衣著的顏色分為： 白衣大食：奧瑪雅王朝 Umayyad Dynasty 黑衣大食：阿拔斯王朝 Abbasid Dynasty 綠衣大食：法提馬王朝 Fatimad Dynasty ✅ 本集重點： (00:00:16) 前言：讓旅行超越踩點，以伊斯蘭文化串起安達魯西亞的旅程！ (00:04:35) 這些西班牙文單字全部都來自阿拉伯文！西班牙到底受伊斯蘭文化影響多大？ (00:10:10) 伊斯蘭政權如何進入伊比利半島，從穆罕默德說起，四大哈里發、奧瑪雅王朝與阿拔斯王朝 (00:15:51) 直布羅陀海峽，歐洲與非洲之間的跳板，才13公里蓋一座橋有那麼難嗎？奧瑪雅王朝如何開啟伊比利半島的伊斯蘭時代 (00:23:18) 哈里發國首都哥多華，穆斯林、基督教徒與猶太教徒相安無事，宗教多元學風鼎盛，甚至一度超越君士坦丁堡？ (00:26:51) 旅行推薦：哥多華清真寺，還是哥多華大教堂？一望無際的馬蹄型拱門與紅白相間的獨特結構 (00:32:11) 清真寺以外：Roman Bridge、​​Calahorra Tower、Alcazar、Medina Azahara (00:36:02) 結語，下集預告 Show note https://ltsoj.com/podcast-ep148 Facebook https://facebook.com/travel.wok Instagram https://instagram.com/travel.wok 意見回饋 https://forms.gle/4v9Xc5PJz4geQp7K7 寫信給主廚 travel.wok@ltsoj.com 旅行熱炒店官網 https://ltsoj.com/

Beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate Season 2. We recap Season 1, provide expectations for Season 2, and continue our discussion of Ibn al-Ash'ath's rebellion.  

Hajjaj ibn Yusuf sends his young cousin, Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, east to capture Sindh.  

The Umayyad forces complete the conquest of North Africa, then cross over into Iberia.  

Discussing the development of the Islamic Caliphate from the death of Prophet Muhammad to the death of Ibn Zubayr.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith discuss the book written by Daniel Janosik, John of Damascus; The First Apologists to the Muslims.  John of Damascus is a Christian monk and apologist whose father served in the Umayyad Caliphate  in Damascus.  John does not use the word Islam, but instead he calls it the heresy of the Ishmaelites. Al and Jay also talk about Emperor Leo the third correspondent letters with Omar the Second.  Both John and Leo indicate that the Quran we have today is different than the Quran in the 7th and 8th centuries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the Western GokTurk empire collapsed, the Khazars inherited the administration and quickly established their own Turkic Khanate. This tribe seems to not o Kay have converted to Judaism but also defeated the ever-expanding Umayyad Caliphate from spreading into the Eurasian Steppe. The History of Modern Greece Podcast covers the events of the Greek People from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Greek War of Independence in 1821-1832, through to the Greco-Turkish War from 1919 to 1922 to the present day.Website: www.moderngreecepodcast.comMusic by Mark Jungerman: www.marcjungermann.com

War A to Z▪️Abbasid Revolution▪️Date- 747 A.D. - 750 A.D.Location - Khorasan province IranParticipants - Umayyads vs AbbasidsKey Players - Caliph Marwan, Governor Nasir Ibn Sayyar, Muhammad Ali, Abu MuslimKey Battles - Merv, Nahavand, Isfahan, Mosul▪️The Issue - The powerful Umayyad Caliphate, the second of the original four in early Islamic history, had a rocky relationship with its many subjects. The Umayyads were an Arab dynasty but could prove no direct relationship or bloodline to the Prophet's family, and they had a willingness to tax all subjects at very high rates, Arab and non-Arab alike. Because they treated Arabs better than anyone, and should no preference for non-Arab muslims, the Umayyad's had few friends in their lands. Some of the more discriminatory policies led to unrest and two leaders started to form an opposition party; Muhammad Ibn Ali, who could boast a blood tie to the Prophet and Abu Muslim, an Iranian leader that gave voice to the over taxed non-Arab and non-muslims. Wearing black and touting a black flag, mirroring the Prophets own battle flag, the Abbasids began their revolution in 745.▪️The Result - The ensuing five years saw dozens of battles, from Merv to Nahavand, Isfahan to Mosul. The Abbasid forces crippled the Umayyad power structure and forced the governor of Khorasan to flee from city to city until at last he died in 748 A.D. The ignominious death of Governor Sayyar was to be repeated by the Caliph himself. As Abu Muslim's forces marched on Harrran, Caliph Marwan ran for safety making it all the way to Egypt. Unfortunately for him, Marwan didn't live long in the land of the pharaohs, he was murdered in 750 A.D. The resulting power vacuum caused by the Umayyad collapse allowed Abu Muslim to roll up Syria, Iraq, and Iran into the Abbasid Empire. A legitimate Islamic government was installed and tax laws and revenues regulated by the ruling Muslim dynasty. Abu al-Abbas was chosen as their first caliph and he ruled from the new capital of the Islamic world - Baghdad.▪️Rate/Review/Subscribe▪️Source - MacGill's Military History

One of the first Christian writers to write about Islam was the Orthodox monk, St. John of Damascus.  Writing from the center of the Umayyad Caliphate, he offered harsh warnings about Islam in his book of heresies.  It was the first of many attempts of Christian Europe to deal with the coming of Islam, but John is still quoted today as an authority.

How Religion shapes and influences the trajectory of a country's development path is a subject I have long been curious about - and I found persuasive answers in the work of Economic Historian Jared Rubin. Jared's book is a tour de force on how rulers and elites use religious legitimacy to propagate their rule - and the developmental implications of such equilibrium. The first part of our conversation is to get him to explain some of the fundamental concepts of his book and analysis. It is impossible to capture his work in a single conversation, so curious listeners can check out his book - and his excellent blog posts here, here, and here. He also has a new book out with previous podcast guest, Mark Koyama (episode here).You can also get the podcast on all the popular platforms like Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, and the rest. The transcript of the conversation is available below. Thank you for listening and for your support.TRANSCRIPTTobi; Welcome to Ideas Untrapped podcast my guest today is Jared Rubin. Jared is an economics professor at Chapman University in California. He's an economic historian, and he has written a wonderful book titled Rulers, Religion and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not. Welcome to the show, Jared.Jared; Thank you. It's great to be here. It really is.Tobi; Kind of like [an] obvious first question is why religion, really? I mean, so religion has always been this largely accepted but not really systematically defined or studied aspect of the society, especially when it comes to its influence on institutions and economic development. So what motivated you along this line of research?Jared; Yeah, so this goes back a long way. Religion is something I've always been interested in. Not necessarily, for me, a personal conviction and I'll be fine if it were, but it's been something mainly because I've had a hard time understanding its impact. It's something that very obviously influences decision making. So from my undergraduate days, I was interested in economics, which I view as, kind of, how and why people make decisions. And I was also interested in religion for actually similar reasons because it clearly influenced the way that people made decisions. So I took a lot of courses on various religious topics in undergraduate, but it was something that when I went to get my PhD in economics I never really thought I would pursue. I didn't think that it was something that economists studied. And then in my second year of graduate school, I took a class from who would eventually become my advisor, [...] Wright, who has done work on religion in the past, particularly the role that Islamic and Christian cultural attributes fed into economic development in the medieval period and my mind was blown that you could do this, that some economists took religion seriously. So I went to him, this was probably 2003 and I told him that I wanted to do a dissertation on religion and economic development over time. And at the time, precisely the setup to your question, he told me - that's fine if that's what you want to do, and that's what you're interested in, but know that you're going to have a hard time getting a job?Because there were very few economists at the time that were interested in religion. I mean, you could probably count them on two hands, the economists seriously thought about religion... which in retrospect, is kind of mind-blowing.For me, especially, thinking about medieval Europe, say... I don't understand how you can think about European economic development in the medieval period without thinking of the role of the church. If you think about almost any aspect of Middle Eastern economic history since the spread of Islam, very hard to think through the mechanisms through which growth either happens or doesn't without thinking about the role of Islam, and particularly religious authorities. So I decided to go down this path anyway. I knew that it was something I wanted to do with my career. That's the type of thing that got me really excited about working. And my view on things in general is, you only live once. So if you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you can do what you want, do it! I did eventually find a job, which was fortunate. And as I dug more and more into the history, you know, history was also something that I didn't necessarily think I was going to do... I've always read a lot and it always interested me... start to realize that, you know, something I kind of knew anyway, especially Islam-Christianity comparison, there are way more similarities than there are differences between the religion and religious tenets. Now, clearly, there are differences. But when it comes to the things that impinge on economic development, there's a lot of similarities, especially in history. Now, the question is, has religion played a role at all in economic development and that's what I was trying to think through. And when you start really reading the history, I think one of the things you must immediately latch on to, whether it be medieval European history or medieval Middle Eastern history, is the role that religion played in politics really mattered. And when you start getting a [...] that well, maybe even if these religions are pretty similar, actually, (they're not nearly as different as I think a lot of people think they are) the role they played in politics has diverged a lot over time, and the divergence to some degree coincides with the divergence in economic fortunes in the region. So that was the observation that inspired me to write this book. And to really then think through not just the role that religion has played in politics, but why it might differ across societies, and then how it might evolve over time based on the somewhat initial differences, and then what that might mean for economic development. So I ended up writing a few papers on this. But I decided that the time had come to write a book because I had enough, at least, I saw how the connections were made in my mind and between my papers, and that's where that came from. It's kind of a brief background.Tobi; Yeah, just for the audience, your work on religion is not just limited to the book, you've written numerous papers, and publicly available essays, which I'm going to be putting up links to some of it in the show notes. So I'll start my exploration with the evolution of big gods in society, because religion has been with humanity for as long as we know. But tell me, how did big Gods, monotheistic religion become the most popular flavour of human religious practice? I know you've written about this.Jared; Yeah. So this is something that it's certainly more in the field of anthropology. So there's been some really good anthropological work recently done on this, and actually some work by some economists as well. And this is something that's also, you know, as I was just mentioning, it's intimately related with politics. So small gods, this is not a term that is meant to describe them or anything like that in any way, shape, or form. But it's just meant to say [that] we call small gods, like, gods that have a specific purpose. It might be a god that brings water to a population or heals sickness, things like that. That's a small god, you know, it's a god that has a specific purpose.Big gods are gods that has broader powers. So certainly, when we think about monotheistic gods, those are very big gods, it's the God in a sense, but polytheistic gods can be big gods as well. But what big gods can do is what this literature cites as a purpose of big gods is that it can be a way to legitimate rule. It can be a way that if a ruler has the support of a big god, whatever that means, right? And that can be based on some tenet of the society that whoever's ruling is God-ordained, there might be some clerical class in a society that ordains a ruler as God-ordained. But the idea is that big gods, especially centralized gods (and this is where you kind of get towards a more monotheistic faith) are much better at legitimating rule, at keeping rulers in power, and this is where we get autocracy from too. So a lot of these early societies that had big gods, these were the ones that ended up being a little less fair, that kind of really centralized power in a small group of people because gods like that could be used in that way. You know, when you have a variety of gods you can appeal to, when you have these ''smaller gods'', each group can have their own god. And in that way, it's really hard for any one political group to monopolize divine power. So the recent research on this has mainly connected the origin of these types of gods with political power. And this is something I haven't done my own original research on. But I've written a few things, especially online, we have a blog that I worked for that kind of summarizes this works. I think it's really interesting and not just interesting, but it's a really important precursor to my own work to think about where these gods come from in the first place. Because where my own work comes from is well into monotheism. We're talking about the origins of Christianity and Islam that's well past the point where big gods have formed originally. The real idea is big gods start coming about when humans settle down in society. So, around the Neolithic revolution 8,000-10,000 years ago, so...One other thing that really popped immediately in your book is the role of elites in society. And this is something that has been a bit elusive, at least, in my own experience to define. Tobi; I have a friend [and], I mean, when we talk about Nigeria, and how elites are not really doing enough or talking about the right things or doing the right things, the usual retort is, oh, yeah, well, who are the elites? And I find that it's a surprisingly harder question to answer than it sounds. Jared; Yeah. Tobi; So you describe elites as anyone who can influence how people whom they do not know, act. Can you explain that a bit? Who exactly are the elites in society? How do they emerge?Jared; Yeah, I think this is a really important question. And it's a question that I don't think there's one answer to in the sense, like, I wanted to define elites in a certain way, because I wanted to be able to kind of think through what I described as elites, and this was the commonality. But certainly, if you read other works, they'll define elites in a slightly different way. There are certain people we all know are elite, right, like presidents, or people on the highest courts, things like that. But then there are other people that might not be so obvious whether they're a leader or not, like a local priest or imam or something. Is that person an elite? You know, maybe some people would say yes, some people would say no. So yes, for my book and my work more generally, I use this definition, because it has practical value. So it's this idea that to be an elite, you need to be able to influence the actions of other people, particularly people you don't know. Now, you ask two questions, both of which are really good. One is, how do you become an elite? This is something I've been thinking about a lot for work I'm still doing now is, what is the source of power? Because elites have power, almost by the definition of what I described, if you really want to think about why this matters, it's [that] there's some sorts of power that they have.Now, this differs by the type of elite, some of the ones I'm concerned with in the book of religious elites. Now, the idea here tends to be that religious elites (have) either through their study or through their position or something have access to something people care about. Which is, you know, either the Word of God or some places and times actually begin to connect to the supernatural, something like this. And because they have privileged access to ''we'll just call it the supernatural''... something people really care about, that gives them power to do other things to influence the way people act. And it might be in a way that's consistent with religious tenets and might not. There's been plenty of instances where not. In other cases, there's access to coercive power that can make one elite. This is something where you can say warlords could be considered elite in the sense that at the top level, they have access to coercive power, that because people fear the use of coercive power, it allows them to make people act in a way that they don't want to act.You know, more generally, military elites. And there's a lot of grey area here, you know, so in the military, for instance, who's elite who's not? The lowest rank military person probably isn't, you know, they might be able to be on the street with a gun or something, trying to direct people to do something, but it's not really their actions that is causing this, it's the people above them.Then the very top people are elite. Somewhere in the middle, you just have to kind of make a decision if you're thinking about the social scientific definition. And then this other [group] who I describe as economic elite, who with their access to resources, gives them power. Whether through a formal political process or not, you know, oftentimes, especially in the modern world, it's often through formal political processes. But there's a lot of non-formal processes as well through which this happens, certainly through markets, for instance. You know, market power can be really [a] domineering force. So by this definition, my definition is much more broad than many definitions, especially, in the politicacience literature, because by my definition, there's a lot of elites in many societies. And a reason I think that it's important to consider this idea of there being many elites is that there's many people in general and in societies that can influence the political process. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that just because you're elite, you'll influence a political process. The way I've described it in my own work is I do use game theory, or at least is the idea of thinking about the interactions between these various people in societies. And when you go through a Game in Game Theory, you think about how they interact with each other, and what are their motivations? What are the outcomes of their interactions, that's really ultimately what you want to get at. And so I think about the game as being between elites. Now, certainly there are people in the background, right, that aren't elites. The non elites are the people that give elites power in a sense because it's those very non elite states that the elites can influence. And that's the very source of their power. So there is a bit of a tautology here, in a sense that elites power because they can influence people, and then non elites follow elites because they can be influenced. But it's also one of these things. We see it across societies. And I do think that there are many reasons why one can become an elite. And those also differ across societies as well.Tobi; In your book, you also describe a class of people who are still elites, as propagating agents of a ruler. But, one thing became very clear your argument that a ruler seeks to propagate their rule. That's what they desire, you know, isn't this a bit of a public choice assumption, some would question that to say that, Oh, well, just ruling for its sake is not the only desire of a ruler. Some rulers want to do good, some want to, you know, like there are diverse motivations and desires for a ruler. But your mechanism sort of relies on this propagation of rule. What is your argument for choosing to go in that direction?Jared; That's a good question, because this is something that, you know, books have been written on, you know, why do religion? What are the motivations? I mean, you're right, certainly, some have much more altruistic motives, i don't deny that. Some have the exact opposite. Essentially wanting to seek as many rents as possible. And then there are others in the middle. They might be altruistic towards their own ethnic group, and very much the opposite towards others. And this is more of a theoretical concept. Because when we need to think about the interactions between various people or groups in society, we do need to think about what they need, what they want. And what I was trying to do in this book was to think about the most general way of capturing this. And I actually agreed that you can think about it in other ways, and I don't think this captures 100% of motivations, but all of the stuff we've been talking about here, whether it be pure altruism, or you know, something like that, or really wanting to improve society. Or again, on the other hand, wanting to capture as many rents for you or your small group of people. In order to do that, you have to stay in power. And so at its base, I want to minimize the assumptions we make. Because once you make an assumption about, say, wanting to maximize tax revenue, or state revenue or something like that, you know, because certain types of rulers that would really benefit, well then you're you're no longer capturing the type of society where, you know, as you mentioned, maybe the ruler just wants to do best for their society. So what I was trying to do, I was trying to think through a way that we might discuss leadership, rulership in a way that is going to be true of all types of societies. So even in democracies, you have rulers at many levels wanting to be reelected. So they're constrained in ways to do that.Clearly in very autocratic governments, no matter what the autocrat wants to do, they can't do it if they don't stay in power. But yeah, I certainly agree that if you wanted to study, especially, a certain type of rulers or a type of ruler of certain motivation, you could think about this a little different, for sure. Good point.Tobi; Going with your mechanism now, so for a ruler to propagate it's rule, you identify two types of agents. One is legitimizing agents and the other coercive agents. But you see cases, and that transverses many societies... you see cases where there is a sort of overlap between the two where the faction of a ruler has some legitimacy, but also uses force to entrench that legitimacy. So disentangle both types of agents for me slightly.Jared; Yeah, so this is good. Maybe for the sake of listeners, that's a word I use that is not really too common in the literature - this term, propagating agents. To your previous question, I find propagating rulers as staying in power. So a propagating agent is somebody in society that can help you stay in power.If it's a religious agent, they might have access to the Word of God or something like that. A military agent, as you mentioned, is a type of coercive agent - one that has power. And to your question, you're absolutely right and I think nearly every society in human history has had some combination of legitimacy and coercive power. In fact, you know, you really can't have rulership without some degree of coercive power. If a ruler has zero access to coercive power, they will be overthrown quite easily. You can, in theory, have a society that has zero legitimacy, and you know, it's run completely by coercive power. We would say that there have been a few societies that have, at least, come close to that. But again, that ruler is very tenuous in their rule, because there's gonna be a lot of people in society that don't think that they're the rightful ruler. I should also just note quickly that legitimacy is a very complex concept, but we can think about it in a simplistic way, as just that one has political legitimacy when people view that person's having the right to rule. And that can come from a lot of sources. It can come from, certainly, religious elites. It can come from economic elites. It can even come from military elites, depending on, you know, the cultural attributes of the society. So I think, say, certainly, Genghis Khan had this type of legitimacy. And then this was true, at least, in my reading of Mongol societies, that those who could fight have political legitimacy as well as the right to rule. One of the ideas put in my book, to get directly to your question here, is that you can think about it as not necessarily disentangling the two, but what weight do you put on the two. Does the ruler use 95% coercive power, 5% legitimacy or the reverse? Now, one thing that I argue is that there are many types of legitimacy that are relatively inexpensive, from the rulers perspective, you know. So, of course, coercive power is often pretty expensive, for two reasons. One, it's just often expensive in terms of resources, you know, either be outfitting a military or police forces or things like this. And the other thing is that it's expensive in the sense of giving too much coercive power to groups in society is also a threat to your own rule. Because those are the people that are most likely to overthrow you.Now, legitimacy... to gain legitimacy, I think of it as kind of interaction between rulers - I should say, rulers here doesn't necessarily have to be a person, maybe a small group of people [or] something like that... just the ruling elite - and those in society that can provide legitimacy. Again, whether they be religious elites, economic elites, something like that.And we can think about this as a trade-off. There's going to be some types of maybe policies, sometimes it's just pure payments. Like it's certainly in both Christian and Muslim societies that much of their history, religious authorities will say tax-exempt, things like that, you know, as a part of the payoff. They also might want some types of policies. Oftentimes, the religious elite maybe wants suppression of rival religions, things like that. In the grand scheme of things that tends to be relatively inexpensive, relative to other forms of legitimacy. So then it's attractive. And that's one of the outcomes or the way that I'm thinking about it in the interactions between different groups. You know, some kind of basic economic comparison. There's going to be benefits from using different forms of legitimacy or coercion, there are also costs. So we think about what's the cost-benefit trade-offs, and rulers are going to use some types and not others. And that's going to differ by society, it's also going to differ over time. One thing my book tries to do is look at the evolution of these trade-offs over time and why they diverge between the regions.Tobi; You also explained and described something called the rules of the game, as institutions - be it culture, norms and the practices of the society which sort of set the boundaries of what a ruler and the elites can sort of do in a society. So, I mean, describe that to me a bit. How is that a limiting factor? Because a lot of people kind of assume that once you achieve some legitimacy, maybe through religious legitimacy by, say, converting to the most popular religion of population, you can do what you want. But you made it clear that there are some limiting factors in different societies to what rulers and their agents can do. Describe this process.Jared; Yeah, so that term ''the rules of the game'' is a very famous one used by the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Douglass North. And that's, again, even for him, you know... that's like a very simplistic way to think about institutions. And North goes well beyond this. And then they [other economists] have gone even further beyond this. But the way that these work do not mean that actors, or even rulers, can act unilaterally and do whatever they want. They're constrained by various things. And one of the real things that I focus on here is this degree to which religious elites can really legitimate rule and how effective they are at doing this.So in some societies, religious elites are extremely effective at doing this; and this is not just to do with their effort or something like that, it's based on history. It's something that historically, in some societies, religious elites have been very good, so they continue to be very good, at least for the short run. What I do in the book, of course, is you know, look at certain parts of the Middle East. Religious elites can be extremely effective at either propping up rule or the opposite, or challenging rule. Look at the 1979 Iranian Revolution - that's exactly what happened there. On the other hand, religious elites may no longer be powerful where they once were powerful. I mean, Western Europe is like that today. Religious elites tend to not have much power in Western Europe today, in large part because society is not very religious, whereas they used to. So again, that's kind of a constraint that's faced by a ruler at any one given point in time. So maybe a medieval European ruler would have desired to have religious legitimacy because in the medieval period religions are still very effective at legitimating rule. In the modern-day, certainly Prime Ministers, Presidents are going to look elsewhere as they tend to. So when we talk about, you know, the rules of the game, we can think about this as a rule. It kind of sets the stage for how this game as I described it between those who rule and those who can keep them in power, how they interact with each other.So let's get right into the meat of your argument proper, which is how Christianity and Islam emerged when they did, and how the relationship between both religions and their societies and the institutions they propagated, sort of lead to economic divergence, so to speak. Tobi; And so I'm going to ask you two questions. I'm trying not to assume too much knowledge for the audience here. So I'm going to ask you two related questions. So describe for us briefly how the emergence of Islam [happened] when it did, and the emergence of Christianity when and where it did [and] how that came to influence the divergence that was to come later in the society where they sort of propagated these influences. And my second question, just to note, is that you made very clear - which also I should state for the sake of the audience - that you're not arguing that there is something inherently wrong with any religion. Though, some might argue that, well, you kind of have to say that, right? So...Jared; Yeah, no, I think the second question follows from the first question, though, too, because this is actually really important to clarify if the audience hasn't picked up on that yet is, this book doesn't really look at the tenets of religion. In fact, Islam and Christianity are much closer on most fronts than they are apart. So to the extent that religion might have played a role in what ended up becoming a larger economic divergence, it's hard to look at the tenets of religion as the core cause. And moreover, something the book also notes is that a good explanation of any type of divergence...you know, economic divergence in the long run, but especially between Europe and the Middle East has to also account for the fact that the Middle East was far ahead of Europe for a long time. Minimum, 400 years, probably 700 years.[It] doesn't really matter exactly how long in a sense that, you know, it was a while and eventually Europe pulled ahead. But that fact in and of itself suggests that a simplistic argument about there being something about Islam that holds economies back is a foolhardy one. I mean, how do you explain that the Middle East for the first, say, 600 years after the spread of Islam was so far ahead of Western Europe, on every front - economically, scientifically, culturally, technologically, everything? So specifically, your first question, though the book looks at and draws out the implications of one very important difference between not so much the theology or the tenets of the religion but a historical difference between the two that did get involved institutionally into the two regions.This stems from the way that the religions were born and it has to do with their role in legitimating role. And the book argues that, for historical reasons, Islam is more effective at legitimating rule. And it cites numerous passages not just in the Quran, but also the Hadith, which are the kind of the second most important set of religious sayings that's associated with teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. And the reason that the book argues... and I'm not the first person by any means to note this... that Islam is better, or is more effective at legitimating rule is the conditions under which these religions were born. So Christianity was born in the Roman Empire. And for its first 300 years, it was a minority religion, which was essentially trying to survive in the Roman Empire. And for this reason, we see the writings in early Christianity when the real doctrine in the corpus of Christian doctrine is really being formed are not about legitimating rule. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You know, there's the famous quote attributed, at least, to Jesus, you know, ''render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God, what is God's''. The idea of being these two separate spheres, and the religious sphere is not part of that of the Caesar, the secular ruler. And then there are plenty of others who at the time, you know, Augustine and numerous Popes that had similar ideas. On the other hand, Islam formed at the same time, what was at the time the world's largest ever empire was formed. Muhammad himself was a political figure, as well as a religious figure.Then, in the first 30 years, the first caliphate, then under the Umayyad Caliphate, within a 100 years of the spread of Islam you have it going from the Atlantic Ocean, you know, in terms of the Iberian Peninsula, all the way to South Asia.This is the largest empire the world has ever seen. And as this empire is expanding, this is the same time that the corpus of Islamic thought is being formed. It's being formed differently in different contexts. But because it's forming alongside a growing empire, there is need for Islamic justification for political rule. So from a very early period, you get Islamic doctrine and this being kind of ingrained institutionally that a rightful ruler is one who follows islam, however that is defined. And again, what this ends up doing is, eventually, after the Islamic clerical classes eventually come about in the ninth and 10th century, this ends up giving them a lot of power because they're the ones who can define whether a ruler is acting like a good Muslim or not. And because of the principles, you know, the kind of what we might call a cultural principle of what makes legitimate rule, it gives religious authorities a lot of power on the one hand, because they can be the ones that describe it. But then, when a ruler has this legitimacy, it gives the ruler a lot of power to act however they like because they're viewed as legitimate and they might not necessarily need as much coercive powers as they otherwise would.Tobi; You sort of answered my second question. I agree with you, by the way. But what I've noticed with people who get defensive about this kind of argument is to insist on the tenets argument and say, Oh, no, one of these two religions, Islam, in particular, is quite politically prescriptive. And because of that you cannot just separate the tenets of each religion from its institutional or social or political influence, right. But you are saying that, because there was a divergence in the rules of the game, so to speak, when these two religions started growing, influenced the text, the tenants, the practices, and how much legitimacy each can command, you know? So I guess my next question would be, at what point... because like you said, the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was a pretty successful Empire for hundreds of years. Jared; Yes. Tobi; When did it change? When did religious legitimacy and the way it worked in the Middle East become a sort of economic albatross?Jared; So this is the great question. And I think this is the important question to answer because I would actually argue, and I do argue in the book, that initially, this was something that actually was economically beneficial relative to what, say, post-Roman Europe was going through at the time; and even relative to what, you know, societies, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, but even throughout the Middle East North Africa look like, you know, there were empires at the time. But one thing early Islam did was it helped unite these various regions under one rule, which meant fairly consistent rule of law, even though you know, we don't think of these as pure rule of law societies, but there was consistent rule, they use the same currencies, they could expect similar protections. One thing that religion does do, you know, this isn't unique to Islam, but because Islam at least, was mainly initially spread amongst merchants, so this was something that [for] the broader populations of these regions, it took a while for them to more broadly Islamise, but merchants were among the first to convert. And this is something that, at least, brought them into similar social circles, it improved their networks. And I think this helps explain - it's not the only thing, but it helps explain the economic growth of what we might think of as a broader Islamic world for its first 400 years.This is known in the historical literature as the golden age of Islam from the mid-seventh century till about 1000 or so. And I think you can make the case that the fact that these rulers were in fact strong, for the most part, was a reason for this. And certainly, at least up until like the late 9th century, when the Abbasid Empire which was the large empire, beginning the mid 8th century was kind of at its peak. This is a reason I think that Islam plays its role. And again, I mentioned a few minutes ago that I think an explanation that focuses on religion also does need to explain why Islam was associated for so long with a relatively economic successful region. Whereas, you know, this is the same period - that period mid-seventh century to 1000 or so where Europe is not nearly as successful, you know, it's still kind of in its post-Roman doldrums. Even when you get some type of unification like under Charlemagne, the Carolingian Empire, there's no real capacity to rule in most of those places. And I think, in part at least, that's due to differences in the way that these rulers - to use my term of propagating rule. Now to get at your big question, what we really need to explain then is actually a reversal. So the year 800, ironically enough, is often a year that's pinpointed, because on the one hand, in Western Europe, it's kind of a famous year because it's the year that the Pope crowned Charlemagne. But it's also right at the height of the Abbasid Empire in terms of its economic power, in particular. And this is a year that, you know, around this time, early ninth century, that economic divergence between the two regions was probably at its greatest. So we then say, well, what was the source of reversal? Now, I want to make it clear that I'm pinpointing one source, this is by no means the only source. There are many different reasons, I mean, nothing as big as 1000 years of economic history is going to be mono-causal. But one thing I look at is, we can start with the Middle East and North Africa and say, because religion was so effective at propagating rule, there was very little incentive for political authorities to change this. They stayed in power, by ceding relatively little to religious authorities, they certainly had to have access to coercive powers, which they did. There's been a lot of good work that has looked at what access to coercive powers meant for the stability of Muslim empires as well as their economic strength. But it meant that religious authorities remained powerful and, importantly, what I then got to argue is that it meant that economic elites were kept out of the ruling coalition. Before I go too deeply into this, I want to also make it clear that, you know, having a society run by economic elites is generally not a good thing. You know, purely economic elites. Because economic elites, you know, people that are engaged in commerce, maybe merchants, things like that, we should be thinking about them just like we think about all actors as being somewhat selfish.They have their own desires that they want satisfied. And in this case, it may benefit them at the expense of society. One thing I note, though, is that the big things that economic elites want from the political bargain are things that tend to benefit society more broadly.And the two big ones I point out in the book because these come up again and again in our history are some types of protections often for their property. But you know, more broadly for especially commercial interactions, you know, so you have some type of means to appeal when you're being cheated, or certainly when your rights are being infringed in any way. And there's a very large literature in economics that suggests these types of rights are really important for economic development. And the other thing is investment in large scale public goods. Things like transport networks, roads, bridges, canals, things like that. And a whole host of other public goods, eventually education becomes something, even though that's actually quite a bit later. There's a long, long history of economics that suggests that those things are typically most efficiently provided by government. Again, the economic elites want these types of things, because they benefit themselves. They do benefit themselves, but they also happen to benefit society more broadly. So on this front, you could say, Well, if the economic elite really don't have a seat at the bargaining table, in this case they don't have a seat because rulers don't need them. They have plenty of legitimacy, say, through religion and giving up stuff like property rights is among the most expensive things that can be asked for. So rulers really don't want to give that up if they don't have to. On the other hand, in Europe, what ends up happening around the year 1000 or so... it starts in northern Italy, in the low countries, is you start to get some seeds of commercial development. Trade, actually, a lot of the trade at least begins with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslims. And with this, as trade starts to expand, some of the things that the religious authorities might impinge upon, while we look at say like moneyed interest or stuff like that. But that's actually I think less important in the broader scheme of things.What's probably more important is that economic elites gain more power. And, you know, to go back to the broader narrative in the book, because Christian religious authorities actually have less legitimating power, they're less effective at legitimating rule. [And] once there are these other sources of power that come up in a society that can provide rulers with things like tax revenue, rulers seek them out. So this is precisely the period where Europe goes through a major kind of overhaul in its Church-State relations. So the most famous episode and this is called the investiture crisis, where it essentially pits the papacy versus various secular rulers. And this is a period, a medieval period where religious legitimacy remains important, but it loses some of its value and where it loses its power, it's economic elites that gain. I fast forward a little bit to the Reformation, which where it takes place kind of permanently undermines the role of, certainly, the Catholic Church, but just more generally, [the role of] religion in legitimating rule. And in those places, that's where you really start to see economic elites, mainly in the form of Parliaments becoming much more powerful. And there again, that's where you start to see these economic elites bargaining for various things that improve the economic development in the region. Again, they're doing it for their own personal reasons. it's not to say that economic elites are altruistic, kind-hearted people that want what's best for society. Oftentimes, it's quite the opposite, they just want things that benefit themselves. But some of the things they want are the types of things that we think of that portend broader economic success. So in a nutshell, that's kind of the very broad scope of the argument. Certainly, there's historical detail that the book goes into. But yeah...Tobi; Some of the implications of your work are so deep, that I'm not quite sure I can do it enough justice. But one thing I want to now get at is the issue of persistence. I mean, the period you called in the book, and also your research, they are pretty long enough, some will say, for us to see maybe some convergence. I mean, there has been the Industrial Revolution, the first one, the second one, and I mean, now we live in an age of globalization. And some of this divergence can still be observed. So specifically, speaking of religious legitimacy and how growth retarding it can be in certain conditions, how persistent is that effect? And secondly, how does legitimacy wither?Jared; I think that this is kind of a key question in terms of thinking about these long-run processes. And I think one answer to this is that, in part, at least, it comes down to incentives.It comes down to incentives of the ruling elite to continue to use religious legitimacy. And to kind of go back to what we're talking about initially, we can think about this in terms of cost benefits. And what we might think about as the costs here are what economists think about costs as - it includes opportunity cost, the foregone cost of using something, a different form of legitimacy in this case.As long as the costs are relatively low, which we might think of that as broadly being the case with religious legitimacy, then it's likely to persist. This doesn't necessarily entail anything deterministic about... you know, just because a religion is good at legitimating rule, it's definitely going to persist, there might be other things in societies that come about. In fact, you know, we have seen this here and there, you know, so say, after World War One, Turkey became a fairly secular society, at least in terms of its politics. So there's nothing absolute at all here in terms of it persisting, but what we can say, and I think this is where if you do economics correctly enough is strong. But if you use economics in a good way, you never want to say something's definitely going to happen. But you can say things are more likely to happen because people are incentivized to do something in a certain way. And that's what I think I would describe here in terms of persistence. And I think this same logic also helps us understand why in this case, things don't persist. Why the use of religious legitimacy doesn't persist. And these might be things outside of what we might think of as the ruling elite or the religious elite's control. When, you know, what I was just describing... when you have a reemergence of commerce in Europe, for instance, in what is known in the historical literature as the commercial revolution, happening approximately between 1000 - 1300, that changes the cost-benefit calculation. And because the benefits of religious legitimacy were lower, and now the costs are higher, because you're essentially keeping this increasingly powerful economically outside the political circle if you continue to rely on religious legitimacy, that changes the calculation. And maybe you do want to start offering these economic elites political rights, but it would come at the expense of political power for the religious elite. But that's precisely what ends up happening in the medieval period in Europe, is that these economic elites increasingly get rights throughout central Europe and actually in other parts of Europe as well.They start forming communes, which are like the city-states, which are mainly made for merchants by merchants to trade with each other, but they gain a lot of rights and these rights come at the expense of the religious elite. The religious elites have relatively little power in these areas, and these areas become the economic workhorses of medieval Europe. And they benefit the rulers, in some cases, immensely and this becomes one of the primary sources of tax revenue and a whole host of things. So again, you know, I think if we think about it in terms of this cost-benefit framework, we have to know the history, certainly, to know why these costs and benefits might change. But I think it does give us a framework for thinking about why things persist as well.Tobi; Thinking about incentives the way you just described it, especially of the elites, and this is not just about religion, you see some societies that may be too reliant on rent from resource revenue and their struggles to diversify also struggle with this incentive problem. So I guess my point would be, is it fair or, should I say, reasonable to conclude that a lot of modernization projects that we are seeing whether in terms of foreign aid or interventions or setting up democracies in, perhaps, states that have no history of that form of governance, are they all efforts that are doomed to fail if the incentives of local elites remain the same?Jared; Oftentimes, yes. And this is where I think that this question is extraordinarily deep in that this gets at so many different things in human history. And I think, you know, we can broadly say that transporting something that worked, whether it be institutional design, whether it be just funding for certain types of things that worked in one society, it doesn't necessarily work in another society if, in this case, the institutions... and you could even say that there are cultural incentives too that, you know, when people are imbued with a certain view of the world, then they're not just going to be able to adopt new things in a whole host of ways. So yes, I would argue pretty strongly that certainly elites that govern the political process, when incentives don't change, you're unlikely to get a change in political behaviour. So if you really want to think about what might be a driver of societal change, at some point, the incentives of the elites have to change. So this can come from a variety of ways. This can come from certainly international, either pressure or incentives, or, you know, it can be financial incentives. It can come from the ground up. What I just described in Europe was more of a ground up thing, in that the incentive of political elites only changed after commerce really started to reemerge. And on the other hand, talking about commerce reemerging in Europe, it still wasn't flowing, as far as we can tell, nearly as much as it was in the Middle East at the time. So what that indicates is that... at least to me, is that the incentives for Middle Eastern rulers or North African rulers at the time to employ religious legitimacy was just so much stronger that it was going to take a lot more to undermine those incentives. So again, that's where I think to your question, really understanding the incentives that authorities face, [that] the various parts of the ruling coalition face is really important to even begin to understand what is possible in terms of change.Tobi; My final question to you, which is also a bit of a tradition on the show, is what's the one big idea that you would like to see spread everywhere? It may be something you're working on new [or] old, it may be something that you find interesting. So what is it?Jared; By spread everywhere, you mean [the] broader population? Tobi; Yes.Jared; I think it's [the] implications of my work. It's not my work in particular, but it's the type of stuff that got me interested in this in the first place. It is that if you really want to take a grand, grand, grand view, I think with both myself and I think a large fraction of people who go into economics, why we get in the field is to understand both wealth and poverty. Because for me understanding poverty, you have to understand wealth as well, you have to understand how it's created. Because I think what most of us, I would hope one, at least one of the main reasons we're interested in this is because understanding the way economies work as a source to help people.You know, the people that need it the most. And, you know, something I've long been interested in is the role that religion has played in this because I think it's one of many factors. And again, I want to be very clear, I have a book coming out early next year with Mark Koyama. He's been a guest on your show in the past about how the world became rich, and we look at a lot of different reasons in that book. So this is one of the reasons but I do think that there are massive misconceptions in the role that religion has played and can play in the future. And I think that if we want to say think about the broader Muslim world, for instance... you know, what worked to raise the economic profile and improve the economic development of, say Western Europe initially, my argument was that it was in part getting religion out of politics. I don't think that's going to work, though, in large parts of the Muslim world for reasons we just discussed. So an implication of both my work but also something that is long interested me is this idea that tenets of religion themselves are not things that have a massively damaging impact on economic development. And I think that oftentimes, that's something that is easy to pinpoint, especially for people who want to blame religion for something. But when we think about the role that religion plays in politics, and this is not unique to religion, it can be the role that the military plays in politics, can be the role that actually, frankly, certain types of economic elites play in politics. And if we really want to improve the lot of... there's still a billion or so people in the world that live on $3 a day or less...the role of local politics plays a role in depressing the capacity for those people to just get to a point where thinking about what they're going to eat is not dominating their lives.And it differs by society. But I do think that attempts to improve the lots of those people that aren't as concerned with the political are not going to get far. And that's a lot of, you know, especially Western NGO types. And this is not to say, I mean, many of them do extremely good and important work. But if we really want to get at the source of lifting, you know, at least the most dire of poverty out of the world, I think it's the political that we really need to address. And we need to address it in different ways in different societies. This is not by any means to say that all we need to do is impose democracy. It's exactly the opposite in many cases because democracy when it's imposed, and does not arise organically often does not work that well. So it's thinking about local context, it's thinking about how rulers stay in power, it's all of these things, and including religion. This is in part to say, there's no panacea. There's no silver bullet that's going to affect the politics in various places in the same way. But I do think that if we can pull on generality out which, much more importantly, can help alleviate the most dire of poverty, it's to really try to affect the political. That's the thing that I'm frankly hoping to continue to work on for the next 40 or so years to thinking about the historical determinants of this and what that can teach us for the present.Tobi; Thank you so much. My guest today has been Jared Rubin, economic historian and professor of economics at Chapman University. Thank you very much, Jared, for joining me.Jared; Thank you so much. This has been really fun. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ideasuntrapped.com/subscribe

Once the Arabs grew into one of the biggest Empires to date, they suffered a rebellion as one of the tribes related to Mohammed rose up and banished the Umayyad Dynasty. A new age of Islam saw the dawning of the Islamic Golden period.The History of Modern Greece covers the events of the Greek People from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Greek War of Independence in 1821-1832, all the way through to the Greco-Turkish War from 1919 to 1922.Website: www.moderngreecepodcast.comMusic by Mark Jungerman: www.marcjungermann.comIf you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more about the decline of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Rise of the Abbasids, I recommend two podcasts for you. The first is Robin Pierson's The History of Byzantium, specifically episode 83, and the second show is the History of Islam. The history of Islam doesn't take you right up to the civil war, but it will fill in a lot of what happened right before.https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/https://history-podcasts.com/the-history-of-islam

661 - 750 - The Umayyad Caliphate grew to become the largest land empire that the world had ever seen, but such were the challenges of keeping the Islamic world united that constant civil wars would underpin this dynasty's rule of the caliphate.

In this episode, we learn about the control of Cordoba under caliphate rule.

In this episode, we continue to learn about the Islamic reign over the Iberian Peninsula.

After spending a number of episodes tucked away in a monastery, it's time for Daniel to come out and take the spotlight ... with mixed results! He is largely overshadowed by the epic showdown between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid.Also in the third and final of our "news segments", we are going to take a peak at what's going on in the Byzantine Empire, as they face the rising threat of the Umayyad Caliphate which will soon also strike the Franks...

The Battle of the Baggage saw the defeat of an army from the powerful Umayyad Caliphate by Turgesh ...

Islam has been at war since the earliest days of the faith. The Prophet and his followers first made war with the tribes of Arabia, uniting them around himself and his new monotheistic faith, but when he died a succession crises developed and Islam has been at was with Islam ever since. Despite waring with itself and creating many divisions and factions within Islam, they also have a long history of making war with non-muslims and conquering them in the name of Islam. In less than two decades after the death of Mohammad the caliphate had conquered the Persians and the mighty Sasanian Empire, expanding as for east as present-day Pakistan. They also defeated the Roman Empire and conquered Byzantine land in the Levant and North Africa. By the end of the Umayyad Caliphate just 120 years after the death of Mohammad, Islam had expanded to India in the east and to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. They had even pushed the caliphate into Europe. During this time a philosophy emerged in the caliphate that is known as the 'House of Islam and the House of War'. The House of Islam is all of the land under control of the caliphate, and the House of War was all of the world yet to be conquered. How was this philosophy used to justify the conquests of Islam, and how did war within the House of Islam prevent them from conquering much more than they did? Join the conversation and get answers to these questions and more on According2Sam episode #95.

This week, we're going to take a look at the end of Charles Martel, the naming of his two legitimate sons as heirs, and consider just how different the world is now from the world we started with in 451. I mean, think of how much has changed: the Franks adopted Nicene Christianity and converted most of their people and the surrounding groups to that faith, breaking them from either the Roman- or Germanic-style paganism that most had practiced when we began this show. Those who were not yet converted were faced with missionaries such as Boniface, who operated in the name of the Pope and under the protection of the Franks. On top of that, the Franks had become such a force in the world that they now had the Pope sending envoys asking for help and protection of himself and Rome in addition to the Church's missionaries in Germania. Staying along these lines, we've seen the people pressuring Rome transition from the Ostrogoths to the Lombards; while they're a different group, they present the same general problems for the Catholic institutions of Italy. And we've also seen a dramatic weakening of the power structures of the Eastern Roman Empire; compare where we're at now, with the Pope asking Charles Martel for assistance in the face of the threats from both the Lombards and Constantinople, to where we were in 507 when Clovis I won the Battle of Vouillé and was invited to be a consul of Rome by the East. In that earlier case, the recognition from Constantinople was a sign of respect; now, over 230 years later, the Franks are on a more even footing with the Emperor. Finally, moving past all of the groups we've traditionally seen the Merovingians and Franks have to deal with, we have seen a new group of people sally forth with a religion that is, at first glance, far different than anything Christianity has to offer. The Umayyad Caliphate successfully ran through every part of what had once been a part of Rome in North Africa and destroyed or appropriated entire groups - and for the Franks, this was encapsulated most notably in the Visigoths. The Ummayads had to have looked unlike anything the Franks had ever known, and when they started coming into Francia around 720, they would have changed the way the Franks viewed their southern border. One can only imagine if this interaction made Charles Martel and his subordinates wonder about any other groups out there that they hadn't yet met. It's possible that the knowledge of that first Danish raid in 516 into Francia was remembered within the realm, as Gregory of Tours had written about it in his _History of the Franks_, but how much a story from over 200 years earlier would have concerned the current Franks about the possibility of an invasion by the Northmen is questionable. So this is the world of 741 that Carloman and Pépin are about to inherit. Christianity is growing exponentially and Frankish power is aligning with that growth; the Byzantines are weakening, but new groups are still available in the world to surprise and destabilize the known order. Charles Martel fought one of these back in 732 in the form of the Caliphate, but that doesn't mean other groups wouldn't come along looking for a soft underbelly to strike. And with all of this going on, the matter of leadership - king-wise - is still an issue. Since 737, we've not had a Merovingian king, and while no one seems any worse for the wear for this being the case in the past four years, that was all under the firm hand of Charles. It was all but an inevitability that someone would come along and challenge the brothers, on this issue if on no other. * * * Links to social media and the website: Academia.edu: Life After Rome Site: https://www.thugsandmiracles.com/ Email: thugsandmiracles@gmail.com Twitter: @thugsandmiracle (with no “s” on the end) Facebook: @ThugsAndMiracles Instagram: @ThugsAndMiracles YouTube: Thugs and Miracles Listenable: History of the Merovingians, 451-613

The Umayyad Caliphate not only held substantial land holdings in the Mediterranean Basin, but they situated their capital in the Basin—in Damascus. Dr Marie Legendre, The University of Edinburgh, joins the show to speak about the caliphate's administration policies and practices.

Beau and Carl chat about the life and times of Charles Martel - Charles The Hammer - the Frankish warlord of the eight century who successfully repulsed the Islamic hordes of the Umayyad Caliphate who had pushed across the Pyrenees and into central France. https://www.lotuseaters.com/preview-epochs-of-the-lotus-eaters-10-or-charles-martel-11-07-21

The Rashidun Caliphate is a term used to describe the period of the caliphs in the Muslim community following Muhammad and preceding the Umayyad Caliphate. Dr Harry Munt, University of York, joins the show to share the caliphate's hegemony in the Mediterranean Basin.

For nearly a century, the Umayyad Caliphate controlled a vast amount of territory in the Mediterranean, stretching from the Levant, through northern Africa, and even most of the Iberian Peninsula. Emeritus Professor at SOAS, University of London, Dr Gerald R. Hawting, joins the show to discuss the caliphate's hegemony in the basin.

In the eighth century, a surviving member of the Umayyad Caliphate arrived in the Iberian Peninsula and founded the Emirate of Córdoba. Dr Alejandro García-Sanjuán, University of Huelva, comes on the show to discuss the emirate.

An Islamic dynasty, the Umayyad Caliphate, began to settle in the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century—a reign that would last over 700 years, and remarkably influence culture and architecture in Spain. Dr. Brian Catlos joins the show to discuss how the hegemony started.

With Peter Bayes

After beating back opposition for about 90 years, the Umayyad Caliphate finally perished in the aftermath of the Third Fitna and Abbasid Revolution.

The Umayyad Caliphate stands as a united Islamic monolith in the midst of an uncertain world. But cracks are forming between different Muslim factions, and national divisions are beginning to rear their head.Music courtesy of https://www.bensound.com

The rising tide of the Umayyad Caliphate threatens to engulf all of Europe. Their only obstacle is a Frankish king named Charles Martel.Music courtesy of https://www.bensound.com

The Umayyad Caliphate struggled to hold onto its possessions during the reigns of Sulayman, Umar II, Yazid II, and Hisham.  The Umayyads lost north Africa to the Berbers, began losing to the Byzantines, were holding steady against the Khazars, defeated Coptic revolts in Egypt, faced an Alid rebellion in Iraq, and were desperate to maintain their holdings in Transoxania.

In this episode, I provide a general but brief overview of the Umayyad Caliphate's geography, art and architecture, and society and religions.

Under the newly-established Umayyad Caliphate, the caliphs Mu'awiya I and Yazid I would take the Islamic world in an entirely new direction - for better or for worse.

Three centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, most of Western Europe was divided into small Kingdoms frequently at war with each other. They were threatened by the Umayyad Caliphate from the South, subject to the influence of the Byzantine Empire from the East and prone to the interference of the papacy. Cultural and economic development languished, marred by a lack of strategic vision and the loss of centuries’ worth of classical knowledge.

THERE are a few rulers in the world who have left indelible impressions in history. Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz tops that list. He is considered one of the finest rulers in Muslim history, second only to the four rightly guided caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali (RA). In fact, in some circles, he is affectionately referred to as the fifth and the last caliph of Islam. Umar bin Abdul Aziz ruled as a caliph for only 30 months but during this short period, he changed the world. His tenure was the brightest period in the 92-year history of the Umayyad Caliphate. He was the son of Abdul Aziz bin Marwan, the governor of Egypt while his mother, Umm-i-Aasim was the granddaughter of Caliph Umar Ibn Al Khattab. Umar died in Rajab 101 AH at the age of 38 in a rented house at the place called Dair Sim’aan near Homs. He was buried in Dair Sim’aan on a piece of land he had purchased from a Christian. He reportedly left behind only 17 dinars with a will that out of this amount the rent of the house in which he died and the price of the land in which he was buried would be paid. And thus departed the great soul from the world. May Almighty Allah rest his soul in peace and award him the best place in Paradise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/islamic/message

This is episode 23 called Fall of the Umayyad Caliphate and in this episode you will learn: SHOW NOTES - Important announcement regarding the new website that has now a store and the start of monetization of the podcast, through Patreon, donations, ads and the store - The military failures of wali Anbasa and the rise of taxes, leading to increasing internal strife, as it was happening in the rest of the Caliphate - The reappointment of Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi as wali of al-Andalus and the last major expedition of the Umayyad Caliphate in the West, devastating Aquitaine but ending as a disaster with the Battle of Tours - After the death of al-Ghafiqi, factionalist Arab conflicts and ethnic struggles between Arabs and Berbers became uncontrollable - The start of the Great Berber Revolt in Maghreb due to the second-class treatment that Muslim Berbers received - Permanent political division of Islam after the success of the Great Berber Revolt in the Battle of the Nobles and the Battle of Bagdoura - First steps towards the self-government of al-Andalus - Rebellion of the Berbers of al-Andalus, who abandoned their garrisons of the north and allowed Alfonso I of Asturias to take them - The coming of the Syrians who survived the Battle of Bagdoura under Balj ibn Bishr - The suppression of the Berber revolt in al-Andalus and the seizure of power by the Syrians - Last attempt to restore Umayyad caliphal rule in al-Andalus, by agreeing to a governor to reestablish peace and order and stop the civil war - Restart of the civil war and coup d'état led by the Syrians al-Sumayl and Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman, who became the last wali of al-Andalus although he was de facto independent from Umayyad central authority - Success of the Abbasid Revolution in 750 and fall of the Umayyad Caliphate - The arrival in al-Andalus of an exiled survivor of the Umayyad dynasty, Abd al-Rahman, who would establish the Emirate of Córdoba in 756 - Reflection on the consequences of the Abbasid Revolution for the Islamic world

This is episode 21 called Formation and Society of al-Andalus and in this episode you will learn: SHOW NOTES - Why Musa ibn Nusayr and Tariq, the conquerors of the Visigothic Kingdom, fell into disgrace - How Musa's son Abd al-Aziz, wali (governor) of al-Andalus, pretended to establish his own dynasty in al-Andalus, and how he failed in attempting so - The objectives of wali al-Hurr, among them develop the administration of the Umayyad Caliphate in al-Andalus - How were lands distributed among the Muslim conquerors and settlers, and the different treatment that Arab and Berber settlers received - The mission of governor al-Sahm to develop the fiscal system of al-Andalus and how he finished the conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom, that was still present in Septimania - How realpolitik made religious divisions and identities vague - The key Battle of Toulouse, which proved that the Umayyad Caliphate was overestreched and why the Umayyad Caliphate didn't have the short-term aim to conquer Europe - What do dar al-Islam and dar al-harb mean and how it affected Muslim expansionism - The interim government of Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, future Arab leader in the Battle of Tours/Poitiers, and the appointment of wali Anbasa - Key concepts and vocabulary of the society of al-Andalus, such as the religious or ethnic division, or combination of both while differentiating Hispano-Goths who converted (Muladi) and those who didn't (Mozarabs) - The dhimmi status that the Peoples of the Book (Christians and Jews) received in Muslim states, and how that affected taxation with taxes such as jizya - The discrimination that the Peoples of the Book faced in Muslim Spain - The different legal and economic status that the nobility, middle classes, common people, slaves, and women received in al-Andalus - Long discussion on the origins and truth behind the convivencia, the theory that claims that Muslims, Christians and Jews coexisted peacefully in Islamic Spain

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The story of the Reconquista continues in the aftermath of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. Castile is united with Leon, creating the largest Kingdom since the time of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. Under her new king, Ferdinand III, a massive assault is unleashed on Al Andalus!    Contribute on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FPHx Leave some feedback: flashpointhistory@gmail.com Follow along on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FLASHPOINTHX/ Engage on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlashpointHx YouTube Video Accompaniment: COMING SOON!   Thanks to Lantern Jack & his podcast Ancient Greece Declassified  http://greecepodcast.com   Hugh Thanks to Multi for creating music for this episode: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRl6-nb4iOnsij-vnpAjp0Q   MUSIC Multi - Grand Flamenco - Metus Claudie Mackula El Castillo De Santiago Derek & Brandon Fiechter  - Sahara Desert - Epic Dwarf Music Purple Planet Music - Meditation Impromptu     Doug Maxwell (YouTube Archive) - Pink Flamenco Joss Edwards - Sand and Sunburn Filmstro - Nanshan Omri Lahav - Peak of Atlas World Music Official - Epic Middle Eastern War Music Ugonna Onyekwe (YouTube Archive) - Turning Slowly Aakash Gandhi - Water Fall   Musopen.org - Asturias - Suite Espanola  

After the Muslims exploded onto the scene in the 7th century, they learned that anyone can take a empire, but holding an empire is another matter entirely.  We go to Syria, where Damascus served as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate.  The Umayyads were the family who eventually took control following the turmoil of finding successors to Muhammad.   Ali A Olomi, historian and host of Head on History, rejoins us to take us into the next phase of Muslim history, in which the rich and connected Banu Umayya demonstrate the durability of hegemony: after every revolution, the elite and connected always come back in the end.   The Umayyads may get a bad rap in places, but they left an enduring empire in their wake, best shown in the remarkable mosque in their capital.    While we discuss the splendor and tragedy of Damascus, try some tabbouleh, my all-time favorite salad.   Sources: Armstrong, Karen.  Islam: a Short History. Donner, Fred McGraw.  Muhammad and the Believers: at the Origin of Islam Ingraham, Christopher. “How rising inequality hurts everyone, even the rich” in Washington Post Keenan, Brigid. Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City Kennedy, Hugh. Caliphate: the History of an Idea Bradt guide to Syria Footprint Syria handbook   Photograph by wikipedia user Aladdin

While Europe lay in the Dark Ages, the Umayyad Caliphate established the largest empire the world had yet seen, the political, military, economic and cultural superpower of its day.  It also set the standards for what a great Muslim empire would be and set in motion trends that would dominate the world for the next 500 years and continue to influence the world today.  Yet its division of the world into a realm of peace and a realm of war continues to worry some oberservers.  In this episode, we look at the transformation of the growing Muslim community into a great world empire which laid the foundations for one of History's Golden Ages.

After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, one of its few surviving members escapes from Syria and arrives in Spain. His name is Abd Al-Rahman I and through his resourcefulness, establishes a Dynasty that leaves its mark on world history.  Contribute on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FPHx Leave some feedback: flashpointhistory@gmail.com Follow along on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FLASHPOINTHX/ Engage on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlashpointHx YouTube Video Accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZgA_WLxkzk&feature=youtu.be   Thank you to those who contributed music !! Paul Avgerinos http://www.roundskymusic.com Andy from https://www.shutupandplay.ca and from http://www.purple-planet.com  

There are many contenders for the strongest fortress in history (Malumat in Iran or the island fortifications of Malta to name a few). But nothing can compare to the Theodosian City Walls of Constantinople. Built in 440 AD, they repelled over a dozen invasions, from Atilla the Hun to the Umayyad Caliphate to the Avars to the Russians. And they allowed Constantinople to develop into one of the richest cities of the ancient world.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

In this episode we talk about the end of the Umayyads with the Abbasid revolt, focusing not only on the major battles, but why the Abbasids were successful in overthrowing the Umayyad Caliphate. We discuss how the caliphate changes over time and how the historical circumstances of the Abbasids, geography, and technology shape the new...

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia by Manan Ahmed The question of how Islam arrived in India remains markedly contentious in South Asian politics. Standard accounts center on the Umayyad Caliphate’s incursions into Sind and littoral western India in the eighth century CE. In this telling, Muslims were a foreign presence among native Hindus, sowing the seeds of a mutual animosity that presaged the subcontinent’s partition into Pakistan and India many centuries later. Anne discusses Professor Ahmed's book with Columbia University's George Sansom Professor of History Carol Gluck.

The armies of the Far West Anxi Protectorate of the Tang face down a force commanded by the ascendant Abbasid Islamic Caliphate, fresh off its victorious insurgency over the Umayyad Caliphate. But in this one and only clash between Chinese and Arab might, the ramifications for both will be felt long after the blood dries on the battlefield along the Talas River. Time Period Covered: May- September, 751 Major Historical Figures: Tang Dynasty – Protectorate of Western Pacification Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (Li Longji) Governor-General Fumeng Lingcha Governor-General Gao Xianzhi (Go Seonji) Bian Lingchen, Court Eunuch on Assignment to Anxi Lieutenant Li Siye Officer Duan Xiushi Transoxiana: Lesser Bolü Kingdom (Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan) Shi Kingdom (Tashkent, Uzbekistan) Turgesh Khannate Karluk (Qarluq) Turks Tibetan Empire Abbasid Islamic Caliphate: Governor Ziyad ibn Salih Major Works Cited: Bartold, Vasily (1928). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (Trans. T. Minorsky & C.E. Bosworth). Chen...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The armies of the Far West Anxi Protectorate of the Tang face down a force commanded by the ascendant Abbasid Islamic Caliphate, fresh off its victorious insurgency over the Umayyad Caliphate. But in this one and only clash between Chinese and Arab might, the ramifications for both will be felt long after the blood dries on the battlefield along the Talas River. Time Period Covered: May- September, 751 Major Historical Figures: Tang Dynasty – Protectorate of Western Pacification Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (Li Longji) Governor-General Fumeng Lingcha Governor-General Gao Xianzhi (Go Seonji) Bian Lingchen, Court Eunuch on Assignment to Anxi Lieutenant Li Siye Officer Duan Xiushi Transoxiana: Lesser Bolü Kingdom (Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan) Shi Kingdom (Tashkent, Uzbekistan) Turgesh Khannate Karluk (Qarluq) Turks Tibetan Empire Abbasid Islamic Caliphate: Governor Ziyad ibn Salih Major Works Cited: Bartold, Vasily (1928). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (Trans. T. Minorsky & C.E. Bosworth). Chen, Sanping (2012). Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages. Golden, Peter B. (1990). “The Kharakhanids and early Islam” in The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, vol. 1 (ed. Denis Sinor). Hoberman, Barry (Sept/Oct. 1982). “The Battle of Talas” in Aramco World, vol. 33 no. 5. Ibn al-Athir, Ali (ca. 1231) The Complete History. Sima, Guang (1084). Zizhi Tongjian. Soucek, Svak (2000). A History of Inner Asia. Starr, S. Frederick (2004). Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland. Szczepanski, Susan (2015). “Battle of Talas River” in About.com: http://asianhistory.about.com/od/centralasia/a/BattleofTalas.htm Tsien Tsuen-hsuin (1985). “Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1: Paper and Printing.” In Science and Civilization in China: Vol. 5. Twitchett, Denis (ed.) (1979).“Hsuang-Tsüng: Li-Lin Fu's Regime” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3.

The golden age of Muslim Spain, the military dictatorship of Almanzor, the collapse of the caliphate into petty kingdoms (taifas), Sancho III El Mayor of Navarre, and the rise of Castile and Aragon www.historyeurope.net See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From the Saxons and Danes warring in the British Isles, this month’s interview skews dramatically eastward and dives back two centuries in time, although the circumstances of war and unrest will seem remarkably familiar. Nanidat, head of the Maniakh trading house, has just returned from two years in Chang’an, the capital of Tang Dynasty China–three months’ away along the Silk Road from his home in Samarkand. It is 749 CE. The House of Maniakh–like Samarkand and the surrounding lands–is slowly recovering from a recent invasion by the Arabs, who have striven to impose their rule and their religion on the Zoroastrian and Buddhist Sogdians. Nanidat looks forward to a relaxing visit filled with wine, women, and poetry before he again mounts his camel to return to his beloved Chang’an. Instead, he is less than halfway through the opening reception before a pair of strangers try to murder him. The next morning, his knife wound still raw, Nanidat finds himself bundled out of his house, on the road west to Bukhara, in search of a young woman whom he has loved as a sister–and perhaps a little more. A reluctant traveler, Nanidat soon finds himself enmeshed in a web of conspiracy and intrigue that threatens his beliefs about his family and its place in the larger world. Dmitry Chen‘s The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas, translated by Liv Bliss (Edward and Dee, 2013) explores the events surrounding the decline of the Umayyad Caliphate, the rise to power of its successor state under the House of Abbas, the founding of Baghdad, and the conflict that underlies the current division between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, now playing out in Iraq. Follow Nanidat as he struggles, never quite certain where the next betrayal will come from, to puzzle out a path to safety before his would-be murderers succeed in their mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the Saxons and Danes warring in the British Isles, this month’s interview skews dramatically eastward and dives back two centuries in time, although the circumstances of war and unrest will seem remarkably familiar. Nanidat, head of the Maniakh trading house, has just returned from two years in Chang’an, the capital of Tang Dynasty China–three months’ away along the Silk Road from his home in Samarkand. It is 749 CE. The House of Maniakh–like Samarkand and the surrounding lands–is slowly recovering from a recent invasion by the Arabs, who have striven to impose their rule and their religion on the Zoroastrian and Buddhist Sogdians. Nanidat looks forward to a relaxing visit filled with wine, women, and poetry before he again mounts his camel to return to his beloved Chang’an. Instead, he is less than halfway through the opening reception before a pair of strangers try to murder him. The next morning, his knife wound still raw, Nanidat finds himself bundled out of his house, on the road west to Bukhara, in search of a young woman whom he has loved as a sister–and perhaps a little more. A reluctant traveler, Nanidat soon finds himself enmeshed in a web of conspiracy and intrigue that threatens his beliefs about his family and its place in the larger world. Dmitry Chen‘s The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas, translated by Liv Bliss (Edward and Dee, 2013) explores the events surrounding the decline of the Umayyad Caliphate, the rise to power of its successor state under the House of Abbas, the founding of Baghdad, and the conflict that underlies the current division between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, now playing out in Iraq. Follow Nanidat as he struggles, never quite certain where the next betrayal will come from, to puzzle out a path to safety before his would-be murderers succeed in their mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 54 – The Crusades – Part 1In the first episode of Communio Sanctorum, we took a look at the various ways history has been studied over time. In the Ancient world, history was more often than not, propaganda. The old adage that “History is written by the winners” was certainly true for the ancients. With the implementation of the Scientific Method in the Modern Era, the researching and recording of history became more unbiased and accurate. It was far from a pure report, but it could no longer be considered blatant propaganda. The Post-Modern Era has seen a return to bias; this time an almost knee-jerk suspicion of ALL previous attempts at recording history. Even attempts of Modernity to document history are suspect and assumed guilty of recording little more than the bias of the authors, though their works were footnoted and peer-reviewed. Post-modern critics adopt a presupposition all recorded history is fabrication, especially if there's anything heroic or virtuous. If it's a dark tale of hopelessness and tragedy, well, then, maybe it can be accepted. It's almost as though Post-moderns want to make up for the ancient historians' penchant for propaganda. Post-Moderns cast history as “neg-paganda” if I can coin a word.Let's attempt a shedding of our bias, even though we can't fully do that, as we look at the Crusades. Instead of layering onto the Christians of Europe in the 11th and 12th Cs the sensibilities of people who live a thousand years later, let's attempt to understand the reasoning behind the idea of taking up a pitchfork or sword and making a life-altering trip over hundreds of miles, through strange lands, to risk one's life for è What? Oh yeah, to rid the Holy Land of pagan infidels.Wait; Mr. Crusader-person; have you ever been to the Holy Land? Do you own land there that's been stolen? Do you have relatives or friends there you need to protect?  Have you ever met one of these infidels? Do you know what they believe or why they invaded?No? Then why are you so amped about marching half-way around the world to liberate a land you've not been all that interested in before from a people you know nothing about?See? There must have been some powerful forces at work in the minds and hearts of the people of Europe that they'd go in such large numbers on a Crusade. We may find their reasons for crusading to be horribly ill-conceived, but they were totally sold out to them.The Crusades reflected a new dynamism in the Christianity of Medieval Europe. People were driven by religious fervor, a yearning for adventure, and of course if some personal wealth could be thrown in, all the better. For 200 years, Crusaders tried to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. It seems all the colorful figures of this era were caught up in the cause, from Peter the Hermit in the 1st Crusade, to the godly Louis IX, King of France, who inspired the 6th and 7th.Many Europeans of the medieval period viewed a pilgrimage as a form of especially poignant penance. These pilgrimages were usually trips to a local holy place or shrine erected to commemorate a miracle or to cathedrals where the relics of some saint were kept in a reliquary. But there was one pilgrimage that was thought to gain a special dose of grace – a trip to the Holy City of Jerusalem. The merchants of Jerusalem did a good business in keeping the constant flood of Christian pilgrims supplied with food, lodging and of course sacred mementos. Some pilgrims went by themselves; others in a group—ancient versions of the modern day Holy Land Tour. When pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem they'd make the rounds of all the traditional points of interest. They walked the Via Dolorosa to Calvary then sat for hours praying. When these pilgrims returned home, they were esteemed by their community as real saints; towering figures of spirituality.For centuries, peaceful pilgrims traveled from Europe to Palestine. The arrival of Islam in the Middle East in the 7th C didn't interfere. By the 10th C European bishops organized mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The largest we know of set out from Germany in 1065, with some 7,000 ! That's a lot of buses.To impede a pilgrim's journey was considered by the medieval Church as a serious breach of protocol because you endangered the pilgrim's salvation. If his pilgrimage was penance for some sin, you might deny him pardon by your altering his course. The mind-set of European Christians became one of extreme care to not interfere with Pilgrims once they'd set out.All of this faced a major problem in the 11th C when a new Muslim force took control of the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks, new and fanatical converts to Islam, came sweeping in to plunder the region. They seized Jerusalem from their fellow Muslims, then moved north into Asia Minor.The Byzantine Empire tried desperately to stop their advance, but at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Turks captured the eastern emperor and scattered his army. Within a few years nearly all Asia Minor, the chief source of Byzantine wealth and troops, was lost, and the new Byzantine emperor sent frantic appeals to the West for help. He pleaded with Europe's nobility and the Pope, seeking mercenaries to aid in the rescue of lost territory.Then, reports began to trickle back about the abuse of Christian pilgrims on the Turkish controlled roads to Jerusalem. The trickle turned to a stream, the a river. Even when pilgrims weren't mistreated, they were subject to heavy fees to travel thru Muslim lands.The standard, brief description of the inception of the First Crusade goes like this ... In 1095, the Eastern Emperor Alexius I sent an urgent appeal for help against the Muslims to Pope Urban II. The Pope responded by preaching one of history's most influential sermons. In a field near Clermont, France he said to the huge crowd that had gathered, “Your Eastern brothers have asked for your help. Turks and Arabs have conquered their territories.  I, or rather, the Lord begs you, destroy that vile race from their lands!”But there was more to Urban's appeal than just liberating the East from infidel hordes. He also mentioned the European need for more land. He said, "For this land which you inhabit is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.”Popes and bishops were accustomed to making such bold proclamations and issuing stirring appeals. They were nearly always met by loud “Amens!” and affirmations of the rightness of their call. Then people went home to lunch and promptly forgot all about what they'd just heard.  So the response to Urban's sermon that day was astonishing. The crowd began to chant, “Deus vult = God wills it!” But they did more than chant. People across the entire socio-economic spectrum of Europe began preparations to do precisely what the Pope had said è Go to Jerusalem and liberate it from the Muslims. They sewed crosses onto their tunics, painted them on their shields, fired up the smithies and made swords, spears and maces. Commoners who couldn't afford armor or real weapons, made clubs and sharpened sticks.They were going to go on a new kind of pilgrimage. Not as humble worshippers but as armed warriors. Their enemy wasn't the world, the flesh and the devil; it was the Muslim infidel defiling the Holy Places.As the Pope ended his impassioned appeal to the loud affirmation of the crowd, he declared their slogan Deus Vult! would be the crusader battle cry in the coming campaign.The pilgrims agreed to make their way east any way they could, gathering at Constantinople. Then they'd form into armies and march south toward the enemy.The First Crusade was underway.As word spread across France and Germany of the holy mission, people from across all social levels were caught up in Crusader fervor. A similar excitement was seen in the California and Yukon Gold Rushes. It's not difficult to understand why. We need to be careful here because removed by a thousand years we can't presume to know the motivations that shaped every Crusader's actions, even though there are not a few historians who claim to be able to do so. Surely motives were mixed and diverse. Some, out of simple obedience to the Church and Pope, believed it was God's will to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. Being illiterate peasants, they couldn't read the Bible or know God's will on the matter. They believed it was the Pope's duty to tell them what God willed and trusted him to do it. When the Pope declared anyone who died in the holy cause would bypass purgatory and enter directly into heaven, all the incentive needed to go was provided for thousands who lived in the constant fear of ever being good enough to merit heaven.Another powerful incentive was the opportunity for wealth. Medieval Europe was locked in a rigid feudalism that kept the poor in perpetual poverty. There was simply no rising above the social level one was born into. A Crusade offered a chance at the unthinkable. The loot of a successful campaign could bring great wealth, even to a peasant. And those who returned gained a reputation as a warrior that could see them and their sons raised into positions of relative honor in a noble's army.The risks were great; but the benefits both tangible and significant. So thousands took up the crusader cause.The problem for the thousands of peasants who wanted to go was that no noble would lead them. On the contrary, the nobles wanted their serfs to stay home and tend their fields and farms. But the Pope's appeal had gone out to all and no noble wanted to be seen as contradicting the Church. So they just hoped no one would rise to lead them. It was one of those moments of profound leadership vacuum that just begged to be filled; who filled it was a man known as Peter the Hermit.Of all the Crusaders, Peter surely had the strongest scent. The monk had not bathed in decades. He rode a donkey that, eyewitnesses said, bore a remarkable resemblance to its owner. Peter's preaching was even more powerful than his odor. In 9 months, he gathered 20,000 peasants under his banner, then began the long and difficult trek east to Constantinople.They created chaos as soon as they arrived. Complaints of robbery poured into the Emperor's office. He knew these Western European peasants were no match for the Muslims, but he couldn't let them camp out in his city. They were ferried across the river where they immediately began pillaging the homes of Eastern Christians. Many of these poor, uneducated and illiterate peasants had come for loot and saw plenty of it right there. They'd already travelled a long way from home and were now among a people who spoke a different language, wore different styles and ate different foods. “Why, they don't look like Christians at all! And what's that you say? These people don't follow the Pope? Well, then maybe they aren't Christians. Didn't we set out to fight unbelievers? Here are some. Let's get to work.”“But these aren't Muslims!”“Okay. We'll compromise. We won't kill them; we'll just take their stuff.”Peter's peasant army put additional strain on the already poor relations between the Eastern and Roman churches. Two months later, the peasants marched straight into a Muslim ambush and were wiped out. Peter, who was in Constantinople rounding up supplies—was the lone survivor. He then joined another army, this one led by European nobility who arrived well after the peasants. These Crusaders defeated the Muslims at Antioch then continued on to Jerusalem.The Muslims failed to take this second movement of the Crusade seriously. It's not difficult to understand why. They'd just defeated a huge force of Europeans easily. They assumed they'd do the same to the smaller force that came against them now. What they didn't realize was that this force, while indeed smaller, was the cream of Europe's warrior class; mounted and armored knights who grew up on battle.On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. It was a brutal massacre. Around the Temple Mount, blood flowed ankle-deep. Newborn infants were thrown against walls. It wasn't just Muslims who knew the Crusaders' wrath. A synagogue was torched, killing the Jews trapped inside. Some of the native Christians were also put to the sword. To this day, the wholesale slaughter of the First Crusade affects how Jews and Muslims perceive the Christian faith.But -- and this in no wise is meant to be a justification for the brutality of the Crusades; it seems just a tad hypocritical for Muslims to decry the atrocities of the Crusades when it was by the very same means they'd laid claim to the holy land in the 7th C. In truth, while crusading under the Christian cross is a horrible violation of the morality of Biblical Christianity—Jihad, Holy War is one of the main tenets of Islam. Long before the Pope erroneously offered absolution to Crusaders and the promise of heaven to those who died in the campaign, Islam promised paradise to Muslims who died in Jihad. Historically, while the Christian faith has spread by the work of humanitarian missionaries, Islam has spread by the sword. Or we might say, while true Christianity expands by the sword of the Spirit, Islam spreads by a sword of steel.Following the conquest of Jerusalem, the Crusaders carved out four states in the Middle East; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.This First crusade was followed by eight more, none of them really able to accomplish the success of the first, if we can call it success. All told, the gains of the Crusades lasted less than 200 years. But one major accomplishment was the reopening of international trade between Europe and the Far East, something that had languished for a few hundred years.The Crusades have proven to be the focus of much historical study and debate. They're usually linked to the political and social situation in 11th C Europe, the rise of a reform movement within the papacy, and the political and religious confrontation of Christianity and Islam in the Middle East. The Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Spain from the Arian Christian Visigoths. When the Ummayads collapsed in North Africa, several smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged and attacked Italy in the 9th C. Pisa, Genoa, and Catalonia battled various Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean.The Crusaders were emboldened in their prospects for success in the Holy Land because of the successes they'd had in the Reconquista, the conquest of the Muslom Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. Earlier in the 11th C, French knights joined the Spanish in their campaign to retake their homeland. Shortly before the First Crusade, Pope Urban II encouraged the Spanish Christians to reconquer Tarragona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric he later used to preach Crusade to the people of Europe.Western Europe stabilized after the Saxons, Vikings, and Hungarians were brought into the Church by the end of the 10th C. But the demise of the Carolingian Empire gave rise to an entire class of warriors who had little to do but fight among themselves. The incessant warfare sapped Europe of its strength and wealth. Europe needed an external enemy they could turn their wrath on. As we saw in a previous episode, while the violence of knights was regularly condemned by the Church, and there was the attempt to regulate them in the treaties known as the Peace and Truce of God, the knights largely ignored these attempts at pacification. The Church needed an external threat they could direct the knights lust for battle toward.It was also at this time that the Popes were in constant competition with the Western emperors over the issue of investiture - the question of who had the authority to appoint bishops; the Church or the nobility. In some of the squabbles between Church and State, the popes weren't above calling out knights and nobles loyal to them to back down the power of the Emperor and recalcitrant nobles. So the Pope's mobilizing an armed force wasn't that far out of context.Another reason Pope Urban called for the First Crusade may have been his desire to assert control over the East. Remember that the Great Schism had occurred 40 years before and the churches had been rent ever since. While historians suggest this as one of several reasons driving Pope Urban's decision to start the Crusade, there's no evidence from any of his letters this factored into his plans.Until the crusaders' arrival, the Byzantines had continually fought the Muslim Turks for control of Asia Minor and Syria. The Seljuks, Sunni Muslims, had at one time ruled the Great Seljuk Empire, but by the First Crusade it had divided into several smaller states at odds with each other. If the First Crusade and been waged just a decade before it would probably have been crushed by a united Seljuk force. But by the time they arrived in the Middle East, the Seljuks were at odds with each other.Egypt and most of Palestine was controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, which was far smaller since the arrival of the Seljuks. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and western pilgrims. The Fatimids lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073, then recaptured it in 1098 just before the arrival of the Crusaders.As I said at the outset of this episode, this is just a summary of the First Crusade. Because this is such a crucial moment in Church History, we'll come back to it in our next episode.As we end, I want to once again say, “Thanks” to all the kind comments and those who've given the CS Facebook page a like.Every so often I mention that CS is supporter solely by a few subscribers. You can probably tell the podcast is your typical sole-author, “guy, a mic, and a computer” arrangement. I'm so thankful for those who occasionally send in a donation to keep CS going.