Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each feature by whether it belongs to the UMAYYAD caliphate or to the ABBASID caliphate.
Groups: Umayyad · Abbasid
- Power monopolised by an Arab military caste
- A new purpose-built capital on the Tigris
- Capital at Damascus, in a formerly Roman province
- The great translation movement from Greek into Arabic
- Persian administrative practice and a mixed elite
Hints
- One dynasty conquered and the other consolidated and elaborated.
- The translation movement needs a settled, wealthy, cosmopolitan capital.
Show the answer
Umayyad: Capital at Damascus, in a formerly Roman province, Power monopolised by an Arab military caste
Abbasid: A new purpose-built capital on the Tigris, Persian administrative practice and a mixed elite, The great translation movement from Greek into Arabic
Why
The pairing explains why the intellectual flowering comes second. Conquest is done by a narrow military elite; the systematic translation and extension of Greek science requires patronage, a bureaucracy, paper, and a court that regards Persian and Christian and Jewish scholars as usable. That is the Abbasid settlement, not the Umayyad one.
Practise The Making of an Islamic World
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History II is free to start.
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