Forgive me, I just found this discussion, and thought I might be of some use, or more precisly, perhaps some valued info.
In 945 an Iranian shi'ite dynasty, the Buyids took control of Baghdad. Thus Baghdad went to them completely, the Caliphs of Baghdad were Persian and Shi'ite as of then.
The Abbasid Dynasty's demise was complete. Independant states were born from it's ashes: Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Buwahids, Ziyarids, and Ghaznavids in the east; Hamdanids in Syria; Tulunids followed by Fatimids in Egypt. Although this trend may have been regretable from the point of view of Baghdad, it was highly succesful ever more so for the spread of Islamic culture, faith, and way of life. Each of these dynasties emulated the court at Baghdad, attracting scholars, poets, musicians, architects, and craftsmen. Under the Samanids, in Kurasan, Persian, written in the Arabic alphabet, reached a level of a literary language.
The Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt was established in 903 under Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi as the first Fatimid Caliph. In 969, Jawhar, the general of al-Mu'izz, the fourth Fatimid Caliph, conquered Egypt with an army of 100,000 men and began the construction of a splendid new capital, in which today is referred to as Cairo (al-Qahira). From 975-996 under Caliph al-Aziz, Fatimid Egypt endured it's golden age. Egypt became the richest and most stable power in all the Islamic world. The Fatimid navy dominated the Med, and Alexandria was once again, the center of commerce and trade of the middle east, bringing in luxeries of spices, silk, and tea from far east nations, and selling them all over the prospering populace, and Islamic world. This was short lived however, when al-Aziz died, his son, al-Hakim came to power, and he began the fall of the Fatimid Dynasty as a whole. He was most acclaimed for his severe persecution of Jews and Christians, and stern ordiances of forbidding women to leave their homes. Some radical groups considered him semi-divine, and one of these has survived to this very day (present modern day 2002
), the Druze of Lebanon and Syria. Despite all of this, the Golden Age endured, but the decline had begun...The high point was reached in 1036-94, when the Caliphate of al-Munstansir took Baghdad breifly. This was the last of it's Golden Age however, as when he died in 1094, Fatimid power had decreased and overtaxation of the Egyptian populace, led to serious problems.
Meanwhile, the only survivor of the Abbasid massacre of the Umayyads, 'Abl al-Rahman (the Immigrant) reached Spain, and in 756 accepted by the various Arab factions as their ruler. Under the Umayyads Al-Andalus, as the Arabs called the Iberian peninsula, became the heaviest urbinized and richest country in Europe. They encouraged all the grand innovations they brought from the East. They also introduced a few "cash" crops; sugar, indigo, cotton, and saffron. In 929, 'Abd al-Rahman III took the title of Caliph, in act of all defiance against the dying Abbaysid enemies. During his reign, Cordoba was the capital of the Umayyad dynasty in modern-day Spain, and was the richest, most urbanized, and sophisticated in all of Europe, with it's population at the time around 500,000, where as Paris was still only a mere 38,000.
It was most famous for it's Mosques, palaces, and libraries, in which is believed one such library held over 500,000 manuscripts. In the 10th century, this chamberlain dude, called Mansur, led something like annual campaigns against the Christian northern Kingdoms. In 997, he sacked and destroyed, the shrine of Santiago de Compostela, the principal pilgram site for Christians at the time. Mansur died in 1002, and with him the Ummayads. Beber disaffected soilders, sacked and burnt the glorious city of Cordoba in 1018. It came to an end in 1030ish with a group of disgrunted Cordobadans, that simply abolosihed the Ummayad Caliphate. In it's place, came many disfactured small Kingdoms. Some Arab, some Berber, and one Slavic, go figure.
The Reconquista in Spain started around 1085, with Alfonso VI taking Toledo, the former capital of the Visigoths. This was in part due to the demise of the former Ummayads, and also, the failure to unite against the Christian rulers. Eventually this became serious to the former Ummayad kingdoms of Iberia, and they were forced to ask the Almorayids in Northern Africa for assistance.
The Almoravids' modern descendants are the Toureg, whom inhabit the Western Sahara in Morocco today. They were a puritan reforming movement dedicated to the ideal of "jihad" and had crossed into Spain as well as conquered large areas of Ghana. They were veils over their faces originally to keep the Sahara sand out, but more so during this time to instill fear among their foes, and succeeded. In 1086, the fearsome Yusuf ibn Tashufin founder of Marrakesh, led his armies to victory over the Christian armies in Spain. Then killed or exiled the various Islamic leaders of the area, the ones whom called upon them to help, and took their Kingdoms, and thus the start of Almoravid dynasty in Spain. But once more, in 1147, the Almoravid, like the Ummayad lost to the Berbers in the area, and then emerged the Almohads in Spain.
The Almohads by 1150 had an empire that streched from Spain to Egypt. In 1170, they chose Seville as their capital, where they built two of their finest works of architecture, the Torre del Oro and the Giralda (later transformed). Like their predecessors, and the ones before them, they did not last long however. In 1212, in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, their armies were annialated by a coalition of Christian kings, and the survivors fled Spain, whench, the Reconquista moved relentlessly forward.
And I guess I'll save Granada and others for another day perhaps.
BTW, I had my book with me for dates and names, so please, don't give me too much credit, I have a bad memory.
