Kat Cendana – Page 24 – Amazing Bible Timeline with World History

Posted on January 3, 2017December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Charlemagne

Background

The rise of the Mayors of the Palace pushed the do-nothing (Roi fainéant) Merovingian kings out of the power arena. And according to Charlemagne’s historian Einhard, the last Merovingian king Childeric III was a little more than a peasant by the end of his reign. Childeric’s standard of living had fallen so low that even when he had the title of King of the Franks, he had to be content with a “single country seat that brought him but a very small income. There was a dwelling house upon this, and a small number of servants attached to it, sufficient to perform the necessary offices.” This later led to the rise of Charlemagne to power. He is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History at the beginning of the 8th century AD.

On the other hand, Charles Martel, as well as his sons Pepin the Younger and Carloman continued to rule over the vast Frankish domain. Charles Martel divided the Frankish territories between his sons, with Neustria as the domain of Pepin the Short and Carloman as ruler of Austrasia. In 747 AD, Carloman abandoned the role of the Mayor of the Palace, traveled to Rome, and had himself consecrated as a monk. His abdication made Charlemagne’s father, Pepin the Short, the sole ruler of the Frankish lands after he deposed the last of the do-nothing Merovingian kings, Childeric III.

Pepin was not of Merovingian blood, and he needed to legitimize his rule, so he sent envoys to Pope Zachary as a way to request (subtlety) for a justification for the removal of the legitimate Merovingian king. Zachary happily complied with this request as he needed Pepin as an ally against the Lombard king Aistulf who had chipped away some lands previously owned by the Pope in Italy. Zachary sanctioned Pepin’s rule as king of the Franks while Pepin had Childeric tonsured (the shaving of the hair at the crown), had him consecrated as a monk, and sent him to a monastery where he died three or five years later.

Pope Zachary anointed Pepin as king of the Franks in the city of Soissons. When the pope died, his successor Pope Stephen II also appointed Pepin’s sons, Charles and Carloman, as heirs to the Frankish realm. Stephen’s approval of Pepin and his sons’ rule accomplished two purposes: first was to reinforce the Papal-Frankish alliance against the Lombards of Italy and second was to tie Pepin, as well as his descendants, to the idea that they were the rightful Christian kings. Pepin kept his end of the bargain and drove out Aistulf from the papal lands in Italy; in addition, he appointed a minor Lombard nobleman called Desiderius as a puppet ruler of the land. Pope Stephen II also presented a document to Pepin called the “Donation of Constantine” which claimed that Emperor Constantine donated the city of Rome and the surrounding lands to the papacy after Pope Sylvester cured the emperor of leprosy. (The document, in all likelihood, was a forgery, but Pepin conveniently ignored this possibility since both of them benefited from the arrangement.)

Accession as King

Charles (later Emperor Charlemagne) and his brother Carloman acceded the throne when their father died of dropsy in 768 AD. They got rid of the Neustrasian-Austrasian borders and divided their domain from north to south: Charles received the northern portion while his brother ruled the southern part of the Frankish territories. Charles married the daughter of Desiderius but cast her aside after a year of marriage which greatly angered her father. He then sought peace with the Franks’ eastern neighbors by marrying a Swabian lady, which for Desiderius, seemed like adding insult to injury. The Lombard king sought an alliance with Carloman to get rid of Charles, but the southern Frankish king died while they prepared for war against his brother.

Wars and European Expansion

Charlemagne doubled the Frankish territory during his 46-year reign. He and his brother Carloman picked up where their father had left off in the war against Aquitaine and defeated the Aquitanian rebel leader Hunald in 769 AD. The Franks acquired Aquitaine in the same year followed by a campaign against the Lombards—but this time, without his brother who died in 771 AD. The campaign against the Lombards was at the request of the newly-elected Pope Adrian (just like Pope Stephen before him). Charlemagne marched south past the Italian Alps to besiege his former father-in-law Desiderius. Charlemagne’s troops defeated the Lombards in 773 AD and drove the Lombard king’s heir, Adalgis, away from Italy in the same year. He restored the former Lombard lands to the Pope and installed his son, Pepin (formerly Carloman), as king of Italy.

Charlemagne and his troops also subdued the Saxons, their fierce neighbors in the northern frontier, who frequently raided the Frankish border towns. The Franks accused the Saxons of murder, theft, and arson (although the Franks also committed these crimes against the Saxons), but the fact that the Saxons practiced paganism made them the perfect heathen targets for hostilities and conversion by the Christian Franks. The border raids between the two people became a full-blown war in 772 AD. It went on for as long as thirty-two years before the Saxons submitted completely to Charlemagne, who then forced them to convert to Christianity. Like many kings before him, Charlemagne practiced a resettlement program to break the captives’ identity and resettled many Saxons between Gaul and Germany.

Charlemagne won the wars he waged against the Franks’ northern and eastern neighbors, but nothing could have prepared him for that one ill-advised expedition to Al-Andalus (Umayyad Spain) which stained his war record. In 778 AD, envoys sent by a rebel from the newly-formed Umayyad emirate named Sulayman al-Arabi approached Charlemagne and requested him to invade Al-Andalus to get rid of the Umayyad emir Abd al-Rahman. This emir was the sole survivor of a massacre staged by the new Abbasid caliph. He ousted the province’s governor after he arrived in Al-Andalus. Unbeknownst to Charlemagne, al-Arabi had changed his mind while the king and his troops crossed the Pyrenees, and refused to let the Frankish troops enter the city the minute they arrived outside the gates. Charlemagne and his army were forced to camp outside the city for some weeks until he decided that this expedition was useless and commanded his troops to return to Frankish land. He attacked the Vascones (Basques) who lived in the Pyrenees region in his anger and humiliation, but the survivors retaliated and massacred the tail of Charlemagne’s army in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD. Many of the Franks’ most important noblemen, such as the king’s steward Eggihard and Roland of Brittany (immortalized in the Song of Roland), marched in the rear and were killed by the Vascones. The Frankish king never ventured south again after the disastrous end of his Al-Andalus adventure.

Charlemagne led his troops to besiege Brittany and wrested the territory from the Bretons in 786 AD. He ordered his troops to march south into Italy and seized the Duchy of Benevento from its duke in 787 AD. He also commanded the Bretons and the Beneventans to send hostages for peace to Aachen (the Frankish capital), as well as a hefty annual tribute.

Liutperga, daughter of King Desiderius of Lombardy and wife of Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, convinced her husband to avenge her deposed father and challenge the authority of Charlemagne, his overlord. Tassilo made a treaty with the Avars and enlisted their help against the Frankish king. However, the Duke immediately surrendered when Charlemagne responded to this threat by leading his large army into Bavaria. Charlemagne also took some Bavarians, which included Tassilo’s son Theodo, to his court in Aachen as hostages for peace.

He also subdued the Veleti Slavs (Welatabians) who harassed the Frankish allies, the Obodrites, as well as campaigned against the Avars in Pannonia starting in 791 AD. Pepin of Italy led the campaigns against the Avars until the Franks subdued them after seven years of war. The Avars submitted to Charlemagne and converted to Christianity afterward. Charlemagne also subdued the Bohemians in 806 and the Linonians in 808. However, another formidable enemy, the Danes, started to become serious threats around this time. The Danes started out as pirates led by King Godfred. They sailed south and terrorized the Frankish coast for much of the 9th century. These marauders had planned to attack Frankish territories, but Godfred’s untimely death before they could reach Aachen in 810 AD postponed this raid.

Foreign Relations

Enemies surrounded the Frankish Empire during much of Charlemagne’s reign, but Alfonso II of Galicia and Asturias recognized him as an ally against the Muslim Emirate of Cordoba. Charlemagne and the Abbasid caliph Harun Al-Rashid—two of the richest and most powerful men at that time—also established an amicable diplomatic relationship. The diplomatic relationship between the two empires was so good that Harun sent Charlemagne exotic gifts through his ambassadors, including a water clock and an elephant. The Byzantine rulers Irene, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo eyed him with wariness and simmered with resentment for taking away the role of Holy Roman Emperor. This did not stop them from actively pursuing an alliance with the powerful Frankish king.

Carolingian Revival and Legacy

Charlemagne was a man of great ambition, and although his reign was far from peaceful, he restored relative stability to Europe. This allowed learning, culture, and religion to flourish in his court. The Carolingian revival did not start during Charlemagne’s rule, but his grandfather Charles Martel made contacts with surrounding kingdoms and exposed his court to the leading intellectuals of his time. This likely made an impression to the young prince. The presence of the intellectuals planted a seed in Charlemagne’s life. While he was a warrior at heart, he embraced the scholarly life by learning and reading Latin.

He had read and greatly admired St. Augustine’s the City of God, and invited Anglo-Saxon and Italian scholars to learn and work in his court. The revival spilled over to the Carolingian coinage, art (especially manuscript illustration), architecture, liturgical texts, and sermons. He also implemented educational reforms in grammar, reading, and training of scribes. One of his most important legacies to the Western world was the development of the Carolingian minuscule which was a script that became a standard in writing the Latin text. The development of the Carolingian minuscule revolutionized manuscript writing, and the standardization of the letters made it easy for priests, government officials, and scholars to read many Medieval texts.

Death

Charlemagne divided his kingdom between his three eldest sons in 806 AD. Two of them died between 810 and 811 AD which left only Louis the Pious of Aquitaine alive at this point. He crowned Louis as the next emperor in 813 AD, but the old emperor fell ill in the same year. He died of pleurisy on January, 814 AD and was buried on the same day in the Aachen Cathedral.

References:
Picture By Stolichanin – Europe_plain_rivers.pngThe map is made according to:”World Atlas”, part 3: Europe in Middle Ages, Larrouse, Paris, 2002, O. RenieAtlas “History of Bulgaria”, Sofia, 1988, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, V. Kamburova”World Atlas”, N. Ostrovski, Rome, 1992, p.55Атлас “История на средните векове”, Sofia, 1982, G. Gavrilov”History in maps”, Johannes Herder, Berlin, 1999, p. 20″European Historical Globus”, R. Rusev, 2006, p.117, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37384682
Bradbury, Jim. The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare. London: Routledge, 2004.
Einhard. “Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne.” Internet History Sourcebooks. Accessed August 30, 2016. http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/einhard.asp.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. New York: Viking, 2010.
Thatcher, Oliver J., and Edgar Holmes McNeal. “A Source Book for Mediæval History; Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age.” Internet Archive. Accessed August 30, 2016. https://archive.org/stream/asourcebookform03mcnegoog#page/n8/mode/2up.
Treadgold, Warren. Renaissances before the Renaissance: Cultural Revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.

Posted on January 2, 2017December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Toltec People Invade Chichen Itza

Perhaps the Toltec people arrived in Tula peacefully. However, the same could not be said of their departure from the city after less than a century nor of their arrival in the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza around the end of the 10th century AD which is where it is recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History.

Located in the Yucatan Peninsula, the powerful Maya city of Chichen Itza somehow escaped the civilization’s collapse in 800 AD and continued to dominate the region from its foundation in 800 until 1000 AD. Its rulers dominated the Maya lowland regions at the height of the city’s power. It was probably one of the largest Maya city-states at that time. The city covered an area of about 5 square kilometers which was dotted with magnificent Puuc style buildings of which the highlight was the massive Maya temple called El Castillo.

Just like other Mesoamerican peoples, religion played a great part in the life of the Maya people of Chichen Itza. They worshiped the god Kukulkan, the Maya version of the Central Mexican god Quetzalcoatl who was revered by the Toltec people. The Maya of Chichen Itza also considered a nearby sinkhole known as the Sacred Cenote as the home of the rain god Chaac. They threw jewelry, ceramics, and even captives as sacrifice to this deity. But Maya’s political and religious domination ended after the mysterious destruction of Tula and the Toltec migration into the Yucatan peninsula.

The Toltec flourished in Tula since their mysterious arrival less than a century before but around 1050 AD. The magnificent city burned down and most of the structures were destroyed. The Toltec refugees streamed out of the city, and some groups traveled south into the Valley of Mexico while others continued south to the Yucatan peninsula where they finally reached the frontiers of Chichen Itza. Toltec warriors besieged the city, descended on its population violently, and seized the throne from its Maya rulers. Some of the citizens were killed on the streets during the invasion, while others were captured and thrown into the water of the Sacred Cenote as sacrificial offerings. The Toltec constructed a tzompantli (a skull rack or platform which contained the heads of their enemies), a Chacmool (a reclining stone figure with raised knees and flat middle where they laid out sacrificial offerings), and a temple to honor the supreme Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl.

References:
Picture By Ekehnel (Emil Kehnel) – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3665953
Coggins, Clemency, and Orrin C. Shane, eds. Cenote of Sacrifice: Maya Treasures from the Sacred Well at Chichén Itzá. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
McKillop, Heather Irene. The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
Miller, Robert Ryal. Mexico: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Posted on January 1, 2017October 30, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Schism (Three Popes Claim Vicarship of God), The Great Western

The Great Western Schism (1378-1417) was the period when three different men all claimed to be the rightful pope. During the early years of the schism, only rival popes existed. The first one, Pope Urban VI, lived in Rome, while the second pope, Clement VII, lived in Avignon. It was not until 1409 that a third pope was elected in Pisa. The reign of the three popes only ended in 1417 after the Council of Constance elected Pope Martin V. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History during that time.

The Root of the Conflict: The Avignon Papacy

Pope Clement V was elected in 1305 amid great controversy. He was known as a puppet of Philip IV of France, and he was famous for settling the papal seat in Avignon rather than in Rome. All six popes who succeeded Clement V lived in Avignon. This period was marked by the decline of papal authority after the popes were accused of various sins, such as simony, abuse of indulgences, and scandalous behavior. The 14th-century popes lived in wealth and security in Avignon. Many Europeans, meanwhile, dealt with the Great Famine, the Black Death, and wars between their monarchs. Rome and its churches also crumbled during the Avignon Papacy.

Conflicts in Italy and the Domination of the House of Visconti

The Italian peninsula remained a hotbed of violence throughout the 1360s and 1370s. Pope Urban V lived in Rome briefly, but he got fed up with the violence that he was forced to return to Avignon. He died in 1370 and was succeeded by Pope Gregory XI in the same year. The new pope, just like Urban V, was not equipped to handle the partisan violence in Italy. His most formidable enemies were the notorious Visconti brothers who ruled Milan. Bernabo Visconti himself took the city of Bologna which was a part of the Papal States. Gregory knew he would lose the Papal States if he did not return to Rome.

The bloody war that flared up between the pope’s faction and the House of Visconti went on for several years. Pope Gregory XI finally went to Rome in 1377 to sue for peace, but he did not live to see the end of the war. He died in Rome on March 1378 which marked the end of the Avignon Papacy.

The Great Western Schism (1378-1417)

The announcement of the election of Pope Martin V at the Council of Constance.

The College of Cardinals in Italy immediately assembled to elect Gregory’s successor. The college was made up of French and Italian cardinals, but the Italians maneuvered one of their own to be elected. They succeeded in electing Pope Urban VI (Bartolomeo Prignano), but his election was disputed by the French cardinals. The disgruntled French cardinals left Rome and announced Pope Urban VI deposed. They also elected an equally notorious former papal legate named Robert of Geneva as Pope (antipope) Clement VII. Robert was the leader of the massacre in the city of Cesena during the reign of Pope Gregory XI. He went to France and lived in Avignon during his reign from 1378 to 1394.

European Christians now had two popes: one who lived in Rome and one in Avignon. Naturally, European monarchs also took sides in this issue. Clement VII was backed by France, Aragon, Castile, Scotland, and Naples. Urban VI, meanwhile, was supported by the Holy Roman Empire, England, Venice, and Flanders.

The new pope in Rome, however, was known to be petty and cruel. His relatives were accused of enriching themselves at the expense of the papal office. The pope suspected his cardinals of scheming to depose him, so he had them imprisoned and tortured. Urban VI died in 1389, while his rival, Clement VII reigned until his death in Avignon in 1394. Clement VII fared no better than Urban VI as his court in Avignon was also accused of simony.

Urban VI was succeeded by Boniface IX in 1389, while the Spanish cardinal Benedict XIII was elected as the new pope in Avignon in 1394. Proposals were made over the years to end the Western Schism. Some people suggested that both the Avignon and the Roman popes should resign so that a new pope would be elected. Others, meanwhile, wanted a higher general council to take over the decision-making from the popes. Both popes rejected these suggestions.

From Two to Three Popes

Pope Boniface IX died in 1404, and he was succeeded by Innocent VII in Rome. He ruled for nearly two years until he died in 1406. Gregory XII succeeded him in the same year, but the cardinals were tired of the divisions within the church. In 1409, a group of cardinals from Avignon and Rome went to Pisa and elected another pope. He took the name Alexander V, and he ruled until his death in 1410. Three popes now claimed the vicarship of God in Avignon, Rome, and Pisa.

The Pisan pope Alexander V was succeeded by John XXIII. The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg was anxious to end the division. In 1414, he compelled John XXIII to assemble an ecumenical council at Lake Constance to resolve the issue once and for all. Cardinals, abbots, bishops and other church leaders attended the council in 1414. Scholars, envoys, merchants, and everyone in between also attended the crowded Council of Constance.

The council tackled two problems: the heresies of John Wycliffe and the Great Western Schism. Although John Wycliffe died in 1384, his ideas still lived on in the influential Bohemian priest Jan Hus. The priest was summoned to Constance after the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund promised that he would not be harmed. Jan Hus arrived in Constance, but he was soon thrown into prison by the College of Cardinals. The council declared Jan Hus a heretic after he languished in prison, and he was executed in 1415.

Meanwhile, John XXIII saw that his situation was hopeless and that he would not remain as pope any longer. He left the council and was immediately deposed by the cardinals. Gregory XII offered to resign if the council would depose the Avignon pope Benedict XIII. The Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Aragon supported the deposition of Benedict XIII to put an end to the Western Schism. The 39-year division of the Catholic Church officially ended in 1417 when Martin V was enthroned as the new pope.

References:

Picture by: Public Domain, Link

Izbicki, Thomas M., and Joelle Rollo-Koster. Companion to the Great Western Schism (1378-1417) (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, v. 17). Brill Academic Publishers, 2009.

Kidner, Frank L., Maria Bucur, Ralph Mathisen, Sally McKee, and Theodore R. Weeks. Making Europe: The Story of the West. Independence, KY: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2014.

Locke, Clinton. The Age of the Great Western Schism. New York: Christian Literature Co., 1896.

McCabe, Joseph. A history of the popes. London: Watts & Co., 1939.

Procter, George. The History of Italy, From the Fall of the Western Empire to the Commencement of the Wars of the French Revolution. London: Whittaker & Co., 1844.

Posted on December 30, 2016December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Fatimid Domain, Addition of Egypt and Syria to

The Fatimid Dynasty of Maghreb in North Africa rose to prominence during the waning years of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. The name Fatimid came from Muhammad’s favorite daughter, Fatima. The Fatimids were members of the militant Ismaili faction of Shi’a sect who believed that the true and rightful imams should descend only from Ismail (a descendant of Ali). Dissatisfied with the weakness of the Abbasid caliphate, the Ismaili Shi’i elected Ubaydallah al-Mahdi as caliph in 909 AD. Al-Mahdi claimed to be a direct descendant of Ismail and Fatima (therefore, fit to rule the ummah) and declared himself the caliph in Maghreb. The addition of Egypt of Syria to the Fatimid Domain is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during 969 AD.

The new caliph established Mahdia (in present-day Tunisia) as the Fatimid capital and rallied his Berber troops west to attack Libya and Egypt. Al-Mahdi installed his son, al-Qaim, as the commander of the Fatimid army that would wrest away the cities of Ifriqiya (province of North Africa) from the Abbasid caliph. Al-Qaim, his generals, and their troops marched from Mahdia to Tripoli and besieged the city for six months. They captured Tripoli in 913 AD, while Cyrenaica (Libya) and Alexandria in Egypt followed in the same year.

News of North Africa’s fall into Fatimid hands reached the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir in Baghdad. He dispatched troops in 915 AD to reclaim Egypt when he realized that the al-Qaim might push into Asia soon after his victory in North Africa. The Abbasid caliph’s troops led by the soldier Munis defeated the Fatimid army. Al-Qaim was forced to surrender Egypt temporarily. The Abbasids returned to Egypt in 920 AD but were defeated this time by the Fatimids who became a formidable force in North Africa during the middle of the 10th century. By 969 AD, the Fatimids had established Cairo as its capital, and completely dominated Egypt, Syria, Sicily, and Sudan for many years.

References:
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=228250
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
Sonn, Tamara. Islam: A Brief History. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

Posted on December 28, 2016December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Caliphate Becomes Only a Clerical Head, The

The long and slow decline of the Abbasid caliphate based in the city of Baghdad started right after the death of Harun al-Rashid and the succession of his sons. The civil war between his sons ended with Harun’s appointed successor, al-Amin, dead by 813 AD at the hands of his brother, al-Mamun. Large chunks of the empire managed to slip away from al-Mamun’s grasp as Egypt was beset with revolts. The new caliph had mistakenly entrusted Khorasan to the man who helped him wrest the caliphate away from his brother, general Tahir, who then claimed the province as his own. Tahir died before he could make his mark as an independent ruler of Khorasan, but his son, Talhah, declared himself his father’s successor and started the Tahirid Dynasty. Because of this, the Caliphate later became only a Clerical Head during 935 AD according to the Bible Timeline Poster with World History.

Emirate of Cordoba

Fifty years ago in al-Andalus (modern-day Spain), the survivor of the Umayyad massacre in Damascus, Abd al-Rahman I, deposed the former governor of the province. He then set up the Emirate of Cordoba in 756 AD. It was a domain independent from the rule and whims of the Abbasid caliphate. Al-Rahman recognized the caliph in Baghdad as the spiritual head of the ummah (Muslim community) in Cordoba. The Abbasid caliph made an attempt to recover the province from Abd al-Rahman, but the Umayyad forces were too strong for them to handle. The caliph was forced to recall them from the other side of the Mediterranean.

caliphate_becomes_clerial_head — Abd al-Rahman I

The Rise of the Turks

Back in Baghdad, the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun had died and was succeeded by his brother, al-Mutasim. Fearful that the numerous revolts would finally oust him as caliph, he surrounded himself with elite Turkish warriors who served as his bodyguards and became the Muslim equivalent of the Praetorian Guards. A few years before that, the Arabs kidnapped these Turks beyond the river Oxus and turned them into slaves. The same men converted to Islam later on, enlisted in the military, and rose to power during the time of caliph al-Mutasim. The Turks gained prominence in the Abbasid court which pushed the Persian and Arab allies away .Their resentment intensified when the caliph moved the capital from Baghdad to Samarra. This isolated him from the general population. The Turks had their own quarters in Samarra and there, they became the most powerful and influential forces within the Abbasid court.

Al-Mu’tasim died in 842 AD, and he was succeeded by his sons al-Wathiq and al-Mutawakkil. The younger son, al-Mutawakkil, was deposed when his son, al-Muntasir, conspired against him with the support of the Turkish troops. The same Turkish troops who helped him topple his father later turned on al-Muntasir. He was forced to choose his own successor under the threat of death. The Abbasid caliphs who followed al-Muntasir’s successor became mere figureheads under the Turkish elite, while the fringes of the empire steadily disintegrated into the hands of various ruling families in Persia, North Africa, and Spain.

A Divided Empire

The Tahirid Dynasty in Khorasan lasted only seventy years before they, too, were ousted by the troops led by a coppersmith-turned-warlord named Ya’qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar in 873 AD. He and the Saffarid troops marched toward Baghdad to gain the recognition of the Abbasid caliph. The Turkish-backed caliph al-Mutamid saw this as a threat and scouted for a possible ally in Samarkand to counter the Saffarid rebellion. A Persian official named Nasr of the Samanid family answered the caliph’s call and fought al-Saffar’s forces. They only succeeded in containing his power in Southern Iran.

The Samanid’s ruled Transoxiana after their victory against al-Saffar’s rebel troops, while the Abbasid caliphs continued to rule from Baghdad (although with less power than before). As the caliphs faded into obscurity and became nothing more than ceremonial heads, the viziers accumulated more power over the years. It also did not help that Maghreb in North Africa had broken away from the Abbasid caliphate after the rise of the Shi’a Fatimid Dynasty (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima). The Fatimids were different in a sense that while the renegade emirates of Cordoba, Khorasan, and Sistan recognized the authority of the caliph, the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa was completely independent of the Abbasids in Baghdad. By the early years of the 10th century, the Fatimids had conquered Tripoli, Cyrenaica, and Alexandria.

Back in Asia, the domination of the Samanid Dynasty in Transoxiana fell apart after the rise of Mardaviz al-Ziyar who took away a small portion of land south of the Caspian Sea and formed his own Ziyarid Dynasty. Al-Ziyar’s own official, Ali ibn Buya, rebelled against him in 932 AD and wrested the city of Karaj away from the Ziyarids. Ibn Buya later extended his dominion up to the province of Fars in the south, while the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir was deposed in the same year by his Turkish puppeteers. He died on the streets of Baghdad and was succeeded by his equally powerless son, al-Radi. By 935 AD, the Abbasid caliphs were nothing more than clerical heads and would remain as such until the domination of the Buyid Dynasty in Baghdad in 945 AD.

References:
Picture By Unknown – http://www.kalipedia.com/kalipediamedia/historia/media/200909/03/hisuniversal/20090903klphisuni_2_Ies_SCO.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16079529
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
Sonn, Tamara. Islam: A Brief History. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Wollaston, Arthur N. “The Sword Of Islam.” Internet Archive. Accessed August 24, 2016. https://archive.org/stream/swordofislam030787mbp#page/n0/mode/1up.

Posted on December 27, 2016December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Huari Empire Fades in Peru

The Huari (also spelled as Wari) Empire rose to prominence around 600 AD, during what historians of Peru’s Pre-Columbian civilizations call the Middle Horizon Period (600-1000 AD). The Huari were the cultural heirs of the Tiwanaku of Bolivia, and the Inca consider and revere them as their ancestors. These ancient Peruvians founded a city in the central Andean highlands (also named Huari) which became their capital. From which they governed their colonies that spanned from Pikillacta in the east to the Wiracuchapampa region in the north and finally, to the Moquegua Valley in the south. The fading of the Huari Empire is recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during 890 AD.

huari-fades — “Location of Huari Culture”

Historians theorized that in order for the Huari to dominate their neighbors in a such a short period of time, they needed to conquer them through violent means. Scenes that depict warriors clutching trophy heads of captured enemies and migrants were colorfully illustrated on their ceramics, while actual trophy heads were discovered in Huari sites in present-day Peru.

On the other hand, it was also possible that the Huari peacefully established distant trade networks and loosely administered neighboring cities as colonies. Some of the Huari empire’s major settlements were Ayacucho, Lima, Cuzco, and Mantaro. They also built or administered walled settlements in Pikillacta and Cajamarquilla. They constructed massive irrigation projects and terraced the mountainsides for farming until a series of droughts that started in 800 AD brought a hasty end to their empire. The population of the Huari cities had dwindled by 1000 AD until only the walled settlement of Pikillacta remained of the Huari’s great cities. The few remaining Huari people finally abandoned Pikillacta in 1100 AD until they were replaced by the Chimu civilization in the domination of Peru.

References:
Picture by: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30489
Bulliet, Richard W., Pamela Kyle. Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Steven W. Hirsch, L. A. Johnson, and David Northrup. The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015.
Chacon, Richard J., and David H. Dye, eds. The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians. New York: Springer, 2007.
Dartmouth College. “Wari, predecessors of the Inca, used restraint to reshape human landscape.” ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131016123036.htm (accessed September 7, 2016).
“The Wari Culture.” The Wari Culture, Tampere Art Museum. Accessed September 07, 2016. http://www.tampere.fi/ekstrat/taidemuseo/arkisto/peru/800/wari_en.htm.

Posted on December 26, 2016February 18, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Abbasid Dynasty: Architecture and Science Flourish

The collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate ushered in the golden age of the Abbasid Dynasty. This era produced greater advancements in arts, science, and architecture. Damascus was the political, commercial, and cultural center of the Umayyad Dynasty. However, when the Umayyad family was ousted from power and the Abbasids rose to prominence, the center of the Muslim world shifted from Damascus to Baghdad. The city of Samarra briefly rose to prominence between 836-892 AD when it was made the capital of the Abbasid Empire by Caliph Al-Mu’tasim. Only to be abandoned during the waning years of the Abbasids in the 10th century. The rise of architecture and science is recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History around 900 AD.

Architecture

The Abbasid legacy in architecture was showcased in different structures built during this period. However, the magnificent mosques and palaces (qasr) reflected more of the Abbasid touch than any other structures. The Abbasid workmen in Mesopotamia and the Levant made use of materials widely available in the area. Such as cheap mud-bricks (air-dried) or more expensive baked bricks for walls, which were then finished with gypsum plaster or stucco revetments to protect the surface. Beveled geometric or vegetal patterns on glazed tile mosaics (later known as “Arabesque” pattern) decorated the walls of the mosques and palaces. Intricate calligraphy and image representations painted on walls were also common during this era.

Mosques came to define Islamic architecture. The construction of these structures was in full swing during the Abbasid era. The most important architectural elements present in mosques are the courtyard (sahn), the niche constructed in the direction of Mecca (mihrab), the tower (minaret), the dome (qubba), and the pulpit (minbar). The hypostyle and four-iwan were two of the most popular mosque architectural styles during the Abbasid period. The centrally-planned mosques came later during the Ottoman period. Mosques were more than places of worship, and prayer as the structures also served as learning centers (madrasa) for the Muslims, as well as soup kitchens for the poor.

Secular structures such as palaces, tombs, caravanserais, warehouses, bridges, and markets were also built during the Abbasid period. Only a few of these would survive into the modern times. Unlike mosques, these structures were not as heavily maintained throughout the years and some, including the city of Samarra, were simply abandoned.

Abbasid_dynasty_architecture — “Great Mosque of Kairouan”

Structures Built During the Abbasid Period

The Great Mosque of Kairouan – Kairouan, Tunisia, 836 AD

The Great Mosque of Cordoba – C贸rdoba, Spain, 785 AD

Jawsaq al-Khaqani Palace – Samarra, Iraq, 836 AD

Al-Mutawakkil Mosque and Malwiya Tower (Spiral Minaret) – Samarra, Iraq, 851 AD

Al-Rafiqa (City Walls of Ar-Raqqa and Baghdad Gate) – Ar-Raqqa, Syria, 908 AD

Bab al-Amma or Dar al-Khalifa – Samarra, Iraq, 836-837 AD

Hirakla, Qasr al-Salam, and Al-Qadisiya – Ar-Raqqa, Syria, between 796 to 808 AD

Ibn Tulun Mosque – Cairo, Egypt, 884 AD

Nine-Domed Mosque (Masjid i-Tarikh) – Balkh, Afghanistan, 9th century

Niyariz (Neyriz) Mosque – Neyriz County, Iran, 973 AD

Mosque of Bab Mardum – Toledo, Spain, 999 AD

Mosque of Bu Fatata – Sousse, Tunisia, 838-841 AD

Science

The economic prosperity and political stability during the early years of the Abbasid Caliphate brought about a golden age not just for architecture, but also for science. Mathematics, engineering, astronomy, chemistry, and technology all flourished during the Abbasid era. One of the most important legacies of the Islamic Golden Age was in the field of medicine. Prominent Greek physicians such as Galen, Hippocrates, and others greatly influenced the Abbasids who came across Greek texts and had them translated into Arabic. Some of the most prominent physicians and medical writers who rose during this period were Yuhanna ibn Masawaiyh who performed some of the first dissections on human corpses (then prohibited in medieval Europe because of religious reasons) and al-Razi who identified the differences between measles and smallpox.

Al-Zahrawi conducted the first known surgeries on the human body, while the Central Asian ibn Sina (Avicenna) went on to become the leading authority in medicine for hundreds of years. The first known hospital in the Muslim world was established in Damascus during the Umayyad era. The Abbasids continued the medical tradition and built another in Baghdad when they came to power. Other groundbreaking discoveries were also made in surgery, ophthalmology, hygiene, bacteriology, and other branches of medicine during the Abbasid period.

References:
Picture By MAREK SZAREJKO from CLONMEL, IRELAND – POLAND – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11070328
Blair, Sheila. “Islamic Architecture – Abbasid Period 芦 Islamic Arts and Architecture.” Islamic Arts and Architecture. March 12, 2011. Accessed August 24, 2016. http://islamic-arts.org/2011/architecture-of-the-abbasids-iraq-iran-and-egypt/.
Bloom, Jonathan, and Sheila Blair, eds. The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Falagas, M. E. “Arab Science in the Golden Age (750-1258 C.E.) and Today.” The FASEB Journal 20, no. 10 (2006): 1581-586. Accessed August 24, 2016. doi:10.1096/fj.06-0803ufm.

Posted on December 23, 2016December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Toltec People Build their Capital at Tula, Mexico

Background

The origin of the Toltec people is still shrouded in mystery, but archaeological records show that they first appeared around the time when the Maya civilization in Mexico had collapsed between 800 and 900/1100 AD. These mysterious people spoke an Uto-Aztecan language called Nahuatl. They were probably the descendants of the Chichimecas. A nomadic Nahua people from the north and the Nonoalcas, the Mesoamerican people who migrated from the Teotihuacan area. The Toltec people had a reputation as highly-skilled artisans, doctors, merchants, and astronomers. They made great innovations in agriculture and writing during the peak of the Toltec civilization. The building of the Tolec’s capital in Tula, Mexico is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History around 900 AD.

The origin of the Toltec capital of Tula was just as mysterious as the people who lived there. Its story was entwined with the wind god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl and the ruler-priest Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. The Toltec, just like other Mesoamerican people, considered the god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl as the most powerful in their pantheon and the creator of the world. He was the supreme god of the city of Tula. The Toltec decorated every corner of the city with statues of the Plumed Serpent, the representation of this deity. Apart from his role as the creator of the world, the Toltec also revered him as the creator of civilization and identified him with the legendary Toltec hero Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl.

Topiltzin and the Foundation of Tula

Topiltzin was the city’s supreme god, priest, warrior, and ruler all rolled into one. His father was the demigod and conqueror Mixcoatl (Serpent of the Clouds) while his mother was Chimalman, the goddess of fertility. In his youth, Topiltzin became a mighty warrior and accompanied his father in various conquests. He rose to political and priestly greatness after his father’s death, then peacefully led the Toltec people to the city of Tula and established it as their capital. In another version of this myth, Topiltzin and the Toltec people conquered Tula which was already a civilized city-state.

toltec_tula — “Toltec warriors represented by the famous Atlantean figures in Tula.”

He commissioned the construction of temples in the city and turned it into a center for worship of Quetzalcoatl. Topiltzin and the Toltec enriched the city with innovations in agriculture and the arts, which made it a gem in the Mesoamerican world. But the glory days of Tula did not last when the god Tezcatlipoca arrived and lured Topiltzin to abandon his priestly responsibilities. The people he ruled died from plagues, starvation, and wars because of Topiltzin’s fall from grace. So he decided to go into exile with his followers to the underworld where he set himself on fire and was later reborn as the Morning Star.

In another version of the story, Topiltzin was a compassionate ruler who did not favor the Mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice. He decreed that only snakes and butterflies should be sacrificed instead. The god Tezcatlipoca did not want human sacrifice to end, so he tricked Topiltzin and his sister out of their priestly duty of penance and lured them to get drunk all night long. Topiltzin was so ashamed the morning after that he decided to go away from Tula into exile with his followers. Before he left the city, he burned his home and all his possessions. Then he traveled to the Gulf of Mexico where cremated himself and turned into the Morning Star.

Another ending was that upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico, Topiltzin rode a serpent-shaped raft which traveled to the east with a promise that he would return to Tula someday to reclaim his kingdom.

Tula continued to exist after the rule and exile of the legendary Topiltzin, but its golden age only lasted less than a century until the Toltec people were just as mysteriously driven out of the city around 1050 AD.

References:
Picture by: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41726
Florescano, Enrique. The Myth of Quetzalcoatl. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Werner, Michael S. Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001.

Posted on December 22, 2016December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Maya Civilization in Southern Mexico Collapses

The Maya civilization in Southern Mexico centered around the present-day states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, and Chiapas. The Preclassic and Classic Periods marked the Maya civilization’s golden age in Southern Mexico when cities such as Calakmul and Palenque rose to prominence. Towns and villages that surrounded these major urban areas increased to accommodate the rapidly growing population during the Maya golden age. While divine rulers commissioned the construction of great palaces, monuments, and temples. The collapse of the Maya civilization in Southern Mexico is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History during 850 AD.

By 800 AD, the Maya civilization in Southern Mexico was on the brink of collapse which continued until the 12th century. The construction of massive palaces and stone monuments stopped during this period, while fewer hieroglyphic texts were inscribed in temples and palaces. Records of Kings the Maya considered divine disappeared while most of the people abandoned the major cities in the southern lowland region. The Postclassic Period marked the continued decline of the other Maya cities that somehow escaped the fate of their once-great neighbors.

Possible Reasons for the Collapse

Several events that occurred hundreds of years before the actual decline contributed to the eventual collapse of the Maya civilization in Southern Mexico. One of these long-term events was climate change, specifically the atmospheric shifts which caused a series of droughts in 760, 810, 860, and 910 AD. The southern lowland region was vulnerable to these droughts because:

* The areas on which they lived had fewer groundwater sources which made the Maya people more dependent on rainfall.
* The Maya used agricultural practices that needed more water to irrigate the fields.
* The conversion of land to farms which led to widespread deforestation and increase in temperature in the region (it made the weather warmer).
* The rapid growth of the Maya population.

maya_south_mexico — “Southern Maya area sites”

Internal conflicts and rebellions also contributed to the collapse of the Maya civilization in Southern Mexico. Archaeologists found evidence of mutilation of the rulers’ stone monuments. The mutilators spared the representations of peasants which led to the theory that a rebellion led by the peasants exploded within their communities. The series of droughts and the elite’s exploitation of the peasants who were displaced from their land probably lit the fuse of this rebellion. In addition, the Maya kings instilled in their people a belief in their rulers’ divinity, and that they could alter the weather conditions whenever they wanted to bring rain on their parched lands. However, the droughts continued, and this failure became a sign that the gods had withdrawn their favor from their kings or that they were mere mortals after all.

The outbreak of yellow fever among the Maya people and their death from this disease could also be a factor for their decline between 800 and 1000 AD. The onset of this disease was linked to deforestation which drove out the animals from the forest who were the main carriers of the virus (monkeys and mosquitoes) and into the Maya communities. Other possible factors include foreign invasions and the changes in trade network which saw the rise of sea trade and the decline of inland trade routes. This favored the communities that lived near the coast, while the lowland Maya declined in importance after this shift in trade networks.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preclassic_Maya#/media/File:Formative_Period_southern_Mesoamerica_2.svg
Demarest, Arthur Andrew. Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Sharer, Robert J., and Sylvanus Griswold Morley. The Ancient Maya. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Suck, Christine (2008) “The Classic Maya Collapse,” Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: Vol. 16: Iss. 1, Article 4. Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol16/iss1/4

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Mathematics, Philosophy, and Geometry in Use

The reign of the Abbasid caliphs (although far from peaceful) was considered to be Islam’s golden age with its great advancement in science, mathematics, philosophy, and literature. The openness, flexibility, and economic stability that brought about these advancements were a sharp contrast to the stagnation of Europe’s Medieval Period. The use of mathematics, philosophy, and geometry are recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History during the 8th century AD.

The factors that led to the Islamic golden age during the Abbasid era were:
*           A Hadith (reported sayings) of the Prophet Muhammad which states that, “The scholar’s ink is more sacred than the martyr’s blood.”
*           The vast East-West trade network which made the transmission of knowledge easier throughout the Abbasid empire.
*           The use of Arabic as common language (lingua franca) of the people which allowed for the easy exchange of ideas.
*           The arrival of paper from China and its widespread use in the Abbasid empire. Many Greek, Syriac and Latin texts were translated into Arabic and written on cost-effective and lightweight paper (compared to papyrus and parchment), which made the transmission of knowledge easier.
*           The establishment of the House of Wisdom sponsored by the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Mamun which made Abbasid Baghdad a haven for intellectual, artistic, and cultural pursuits.

mathematics — “Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle would become highly revered in the medieval Islamic world.”

Renowned Philosophers, Scientists, and Mathematicians of the Abbasid Period:

Philosophers

Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi – first Arab Islamic philosopher.
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Latin, Rhazes) – Platonist and writer of philosophical books.
Abu Nasr al-Farabi – Neo-Aristotelian and writer of philosophical books.
Rabiah Basri – Sufi ascetic.
Abu Yazid al-Bistami – Persian Sufi.
Mansur al-Hallaj – Persian mystic and teacher of Sufism.
Junayd of Baghdad – Persian mystic and teacher of Sufism.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna) – wrote on metaphysics, ethics, and logic.
Abu Al-Walid Ahmad ibn Rushd (Averroes) – leading Islamic philosopher who wrote commentaries on the works of Aristotle and Plato.
Ibn Arabi – considered as the greatest Arabic philosopher; wrote commentaries on the Quran, Hadith, theology, and jurisprudence.
Rumi – most popular Islamic philosopher and mystic

Mathematicians

Abu Ali ibn Sina – wrote Kitab al-Shifa (The Book of Healing), an encyclopedia on different topics which included mathematics (divided into four subjects: geometry, music, arithmetic, and astronomy).
Al-Khwarizmi – one of the directors of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and considered as the father of modern algorithm (taken from his name) and Algebra (taken from his book Ilm al-jabr wa’l-muḳābala).
Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi – developed spherical geometry and commented on the theory of parallels.
Abu Bakr al-Karaji – Persian mathematician who freed algebra from geometric diagrams. Also wrote about algebra, computation of fractions, integers, and square roots.
Al-Battani (Albategnius) – a leader of geometry, trigonometry, and astronomy in the Abbasid caliphate.
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi – inventor of the Tusi-couple.

Astronomers

Ibrahim al-Fazari (father) and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari (son) – translated the Indian astronomical text called The Sindhind and built the first astrolabe of the Abbasid era.
Yaqub ibn Tariq – Persian mathematician and astronomer who wrote several books on astronomy.
Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi – developed astronomical tables and wrote books on astronomy.
Al-Farghani – one of the earliest Islamic astronomers and wrote the Compendium of the Science of the Stars.
Al-Nayrizi – Persian astronomer who wrote a treatise on the spherical astrolabe.
Thabit ibn Qurra – Syriac astronomer and mathematician who developed the trepidation of the equinoxes

References:
Picture by: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=564696
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
Falagas, M. E. “Arab Science in the Golden Age (750-1258 C.E.) and Today.” The FASEB Journal 20, no. 10 (2006): 1581-586. Accessed August 24, 2016. doi:10.1096/fj.06-0803ufm.
Islam, Arshad. “The Contribution of Muslims to Science during the Middle Abbasid Period (750-945).” Revelation and Science 01, no. 01 (2011): 39-56. http://irep.iium.edu.my/2471/1/Abbasids.pdf.