Jonathan Hagerman

Mrs. Nowotarski
CCOT Essay
AP World History Pd. 3
When an empire exists for over five hundred years, as is the case of the Islamic caliphates in
Arabia, it can be expected that it would undergo key changes to its structure. Still, fundamental values and
ideas of the society persisted throughout the period from 632 to 2158 C.E. when the Islamic empires ruled
much of the world. Over time, the Islamic empires became much more cosmopolitan, and eventually
began to interact much more with the subjects of their empires. But the violent struggle power, from
either inside the empire, outside, or both, was always present.
The Islamic empire was originally defined as an ethnically Arab realm, but gradually shifted into
a vast cosmopolitan empire. At first, the Islamic caliphate was a small empire. But under the second
caliph, Umar, conquests for land began, and over the course of a few decades, the Islamic caliphate had
taken massive swaths of land. Eventually controlling land from southern Spain to parts of India, the
Islamic Conquests added vast territories to the empire, resulting in a massively cosmopolitan society.
Before, the caliphates armies originally consisted almost entirely of Muslim Arabs. But later into the
period, this structure could not support the needs of such an immense land. Eventually, Muslim-Arab
centered armies were abandoned the armies that conquered Spain were almost entirely composed of
Berbers, only with Arab leadership.
The Islamic caliphate initially had very little to do with their conquered subjects, but shifted to
more interaction with the peasant class. Upon conquering its largely agricultural neighbors, the Islamic
caliphate simply taxed the peasants, as did the previous government that they had defeated. For peasants,

life went mostly unchanged, and the vast majority rarely even saw an Arab. In the Umayyad Caliphate,
the armies were almost completely composed of Muslim Arabs. Dissatisfied with their relative lack of
rights as compared to their Arab counterparts, conquered peoples began a series of uprisings that
eventually overthrew the Umayyad government. From that point onward, those not originally from the
core Arab regions were included to a fuller extent.
While many changes occurred, one theme that persisted throughout the empires reign was that of
a violent struggle for power. As is detailed above, unrest from with the empire was a threat, and more than
once overthrew caliphates. Turkish mamluks attacked the Abbasid Caliphate, and formed a powerful
nomadic empire that was threateningly close to the Caliphate. The pastoralist Turks raided the agricultural
surroundings of Abbasid cities, and pressured the Caliphate even more by driving out the Byzantines from
the area. By the 12th century, serious decline was evident, and after attempting to drive out the Crusaders,
they lost much land to the Turks. Their death knell was tolled with the invasion of the Caliphate by the
Mongols, who sacked Baghdad and effectively ended the Caliphate.
In conclusion, key societal changes occurred regarding the nature of the empires ethnic identity,
how citizens of other ethnicities were treated, and the interaction with the other cultures in the Empire,
although there was a persistent struggle for power within the region throughout the Caliphates existence.