Approaching the West — Page 45
A pproaching the West—45 son, Yaz ī d I, became caliph in 688. The House of Umayyad ruled the Muslim world for almost a century. In 749, the Abbasid (descendents of Prophet’s uncle Ḥ a ḍ rat ‘Abb ā s ibn ‘Abd-ul-Mu ṭṭ alib) overthrew the Umayyad and retained power for next five centuries. However, they suffered a great tragic setback when the Mongols attacked Baghdad in 1258, and the then Caliph al-Musta‘ ṣ im was executed. Three years later, a surviving member of the Abbasid family was installed as Caliph at Cairo under the patronage of the Maml ū k Sultanate; but this remained a “shadow”/titular Caliphate, and mostly limited to only ceremonial and religious matters. Turkish Sultans Assume the Caliphate The Turkish Ottoman Muslim rulers used the title “Sultan” for themselves, but the seventh Sultan of Ottoman dynasty, Ma ḥ m ū d II (1432-1481) and his son Sal ī m I, claimed to be Caliphs to justify their conquest of Isl ā mic heartland. In the beginning, they used the title “Caliph” symbolically, but it took a kind of permanency when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Maml ū k Sultanate in 1517. The last Abbasid Caliph at Cairo, al-Mutawakkil III, was imprisoned and taken to Istanbul, where he reportedly surrendered the Caliphate to Sal ī m I. The Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman dynasties ruled in multifaceted forms of administrations. At times, multiple Caliphates were running parallel to each other. Internal conflicts, rebellions and rivalries leading to oppression and bloodshed were not uncommon. Thus, slowly and gradually, the institution of Caliphate lost much of its legitimacy in the