Abbasid Caliphate

The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic caliphates, which took power in 750 when a revolution overthrew the Umayyad dynasty, which had ruled from Damascus. The first Abbasid caliph, Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah, was followed by al-Mansur, who founded a new capital at Baghdad in 762. Under caliphs such as Harun al-Rashid and al-Mamun the city became a centre of trade, science and scholarship, and the House of Wisdom helped translate and extend Greek, Persian and Indian works. From the ninth century the caliphs lost real power to regional rulers, and in the tenth the Buyids controlled Baghdad. In 1258 the Mongols under Hulagu captured and sacked the city and killed the caliph, ending the dynasty's rule in Iraq, though a line of Abbasid caliphs survived in Cairo under the Mamluks.

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