The character of the
Khalifeh, however, was still essentially sacred. He was of the Koreysh
and of the blood of the Prophet, and so was distinct from the other
princes of the world. As their political power decayed, the Abbasides
fell indeed into the hands of adventurers who even occasionally used
them as puppets for their own ambitious ends; but the office was
respected, and neither the Kurdish Saladdin, nor Togral Bey, nor Malek
Shah, nor any of the Seljukian Emirs el Amara dared meddle personally
with the title of Caliph.
The Ommiad dynasty, founded by Mawiyeh, reigned at Damascus eighty-five
years, and was then succeeded on a new appeal to the sword in A.D. 750
by the descendants of another branch of the Koreysh--the Beni Abbas--who
transferred the capital of Islam to Bagdad, and survived as temporal
sovereigns there for five hundred years.
This second period of Islam, though containing her greatest glories and
her highest worldly prosperity, is held to be less complete by divines
than the first thirty years which had preceded it. Islam was no longer
one. To say nothing of the Persian and Arabian schisms, the orthodox
world itself was divided, and rival Caliphs had established themselves
independently in Spain and Egypt.
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