| Secondary literature on the history of the Middle East usually depicts the ('c)Abbasid rise to power (in 133/750) as a turning point and revolution in Islamic history. This dissertation reexamines that traditional approach and seeks to prove that, as with other revolutions, the ('c)Abbasid is an example of a new political order emerging from gradual developments that had already been underway in the old regime.;Chapter Two studies the patterns of Caliphal succession. The Umayyads, representatives of the pre-Islamic aristocracy, established themselves as a dynasty.;Chapter Three deals with the Qad(')i (the Judge) as administrative tool.;Chapter Four deals with the responsibilities of the Am(')ir (the military governor in the provinces) particularly in Syria.;Chapter One examines the geopolitical dimensions of the transfer of power from Syria to Iraq. It establishes that the transition of the center of gravity eastward started under the Umayyads and was as much a cause as an effect of the ('c)Abbasid rise to power. The next four chapters examine four sectors of administration which each in its turn had the chief role in shaping the ('c)Abbasid governmental system.;Bureaucracy is the subject of Chapter Five. It establishes the continuation into the ('c)Abbasid era both of personnel and of methods of civil administration borrowed from the Umayyads.;Since ideologically the ('c)Abbasids were unable to find a rational for their tenure of power more convincing than that of their predecessors, the banner of the Umayyads became a convenient aegis for any party in opposition to ('c)Abbasid rule. The pro-Umayyad oppositional ideologies became a serious threat to the integrity of the ('c)Abbasid self-image, weakening their revolutionary intentions so that they were forced, both administratively and ideologically, to follow so closely in their predecessors' footsteps that their accession was more a matter of continuity than of a break with the past. |
