The German mathematician David Hilbert was born in Konigsberg on January 23, 1862. He studied and taught at Konigsberg University until he transferred to the University of Gottingen in 1895, where he made an immense contribution to various fields of mathematics. For example, in 1900, he proposed 23 mathematical problems for investigation, most of which have since been solved.

Hilbert was described as a gay young man with a reputation as a snappy dancer and a charmer who flirted outrageously with a great number of women — traits that would not suggest Asperger Syndrome. However, this chapter will present evidence that he may in fact have displayed characteristics of this syndrome.

Life History

Richard Courant found Hilbert to be “a unique personality, profoundly immersed in his work and totally dedicated to his science, a teacher and leader of the very highest order, inspiring and most generous, tireless and persistent in all of his efforts” (Reid, 1970, p. 2). His mother Maria Therese was an unusual woman — she was interested in philosophy and astronomy, and fascinated by prime numbers. His father was a county judge, “rather narrow in his point of view with strict ideas about proper behavior, a man so set in his ways that he walked the same path every day and so rooted in Konigsberg that he left it only for his annual vacation on the Baltic” (Reid, 1970, p. 3).

As a boy, Hilbert had an intense desire for truth, but he described himself as a dull and silly youth. He found memorization exceedingly difficult, and language classes caused him more sorrow than joy. He was not particularly quick at comprehending new ideas. A member of the Hilbert family recalled, “all I know of uncle David is that his whole family considered him a bit off his head. His mother wrote his school essays for him. On the other hand, he could explain mathematics problems to his teachers. Nobody really understood him at home” (Reid, 1970, p. 6). Mathematics appealed to him, and he was delighted with it because it was easy and effortless. It required no memorization.

Hilbert found the perfect mate, married, and fathered a child in 1893. The boy, Franz Hilbert, was “disturbed.” Hilbert said “I must consider myself as not having a son” (Reid, 1970, p. 139; Einstein also ignored a son with mental illness). It is not clear whether or not Franz had schizophrenia, but he did announce that he wanted to save the family from evil spirits that were after them. It was said that he lacked tact and would speak of his views inappropriately.

Work

Hilbert did not grasp complicated ideas in a flash and took his time to get to the bottom of matters. He set high standards of simplicity and clarity for his talks to the mathematics club. After his death, Nature described Hilbert as a “mathematical Alexander.” This is typical of persons with Asperger Syndrome and genius; there is a parallel with Wittgenstein.

Hilbert’s conception of mathematical existence was freedom from contradiction. He divided his working life into periods during which he occupied himself almost exclusively with one particular problem. If he was engrossed in integral equations, integral equations seemed everything. When he dropped a subject, he dropped it for good and turned to something else. There were five periods in his working life:

1. theory of invariance (1885-1893)
2. theory of algebraic number fields (1893-1898)
3. foundations — (a) of geometry (1898-1902); (b) of mathematics
   in general (1922-1930)
4. integral equations (1902-1912)
5. physics (1910-1922).

Max Von Lau, a Nobel Prize winner, noted, “Pure mathematics … did not fail to impress me, especially in the brilliant courses of David Hilbert.” He went on to say that Hilbert was “the greatest genius I ever laid eyes on” (Reid, 1970, p. 68).

Hilbert’s lectures were in some ways like Wittgenstein’s, in that he prepared them only in the general sense and then tried to work out the details in the lecture. At times they were mathematics in the making. His lectures were a faithful reflection of his spirit (direct, intense).

Social Behavior

For Hilbert, comradeship and human solidarity were essential to scientific production (contrary to an Asperger trait). He complained about a lack of mathematical conversation. Students had to be careful about offering a lie or an empty phrase to him, and his directness could be something to be afraid of (Reid, 1970, p. 53). He was not good with children.

Hilbert was described as “a bit of an arrested juvenile” (Reid, 1970, p. 131). He would come to a lecture hall in short-sleeved opennecked shirt — inconceivably inappropriate attire for a professor in that day. He pedaled through the streets with bouquets from his garden for his “flames,” but was just as likely to bear as his gift a basket of compost balanced on the handlebars. At a concert or restaurant, no matter how elegant, if he felt a draught, he borrowed a fur or a feather boa from one of the ladies present. He liked pretty young ladies and delighted in explaining mathematical ideas to them. He fancied himself a dashing man of the world.

Hilbert thought the war was stupid, and said so (not unlike Bertrand Russell’s views). He refused to sign a declaration in favor of the war and was treated as a traitor.

Narrow Interests/Obsessiveness

Hilbert had an extraordinarily focused attention on mathematics — he once described himself as a mathematical Eskimo. Richard Courant said that Hilbert had “a fantastic balance between intense concentration and complete relaxation” (Reid, 1970, p. 109).

Routines/Control

As we have seen, Hilbert imposed strict self-control in terms of work. He was also controlling of others; when he went to a restaurant after a lecture, the subject of conversation was “only algebraic number fields” (Reid, 1970, p. 51). His active influence on the mathematicians of his time was embodied in a statement that one of them made directly to him: “You have made us all think only that which you would have us think” (Reid, 1970, p. 214).

He absolutely denied the reality of his physical illness — pernicious anemia — which was more or less fatal at the time he got it. It seems that his wife was entirely devoted to him and looked after him. However, there is no sense of reciprocal social interaction with her. She simply provided for all his needs, while he was totally controlling, dominant, and he appears to have entirely imposed his will on her in the home situation. He would have been lost without her and could not have lived the life he lived.

An example of the importance of routines in Hilbert’s life appears in an anecdote told about him: One day, at a party in their house, his wife asked him to go upstairs and put on a clean shirt. After some time, when he had failed to reappear, she went upstairs and found him asleep in bed. For Hilbert, the natural sequence of things was to take off his coat, then his tie, then his shirt, and so on, and then go to sleep (Reid, 1970).

Language/Humor

Hilbert delivered his lectures with many repetitions to make sure that everyone understood him and repeated briefly what had been covered in a previous lecture. His sentences followed each other simply, naturally, and logically. We have no definite evidence of abnormalities in this area. What was very unusual about his language was its content, with an almost exclusive focus on mathematics.

Naivety/Childishness

Hilbert was said to have had “all the naivety and the freedom from bias and tradition which is characteristic only of true great investigators” (Reid, 1970, p. 53). His mathematical approach was to go back to questions in their original conceptual simplicity. George Polya said that Hilbert always “looked so innocent” (Reid, 1970, p. 132).

Hilbert demonstrated a “naive and imperative egoism” that was always “egoism in the interest of his mission, never of his own person.” He once made an interesting comment about Einstein: “Do you know why Einstein said the most original and profound things about space and time in our generation? Because he had learned nothing at all about the philosophy and mathematics of time and space” (clearly, he thought spending too much time reading others’ work was counterproductive) (Reid, 1970, pp. 141-142).

Lack of Empathy

Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “The leading characteristic of mathematics is that it deals with properties and ideas which are applicable to things just because they are things, and apart from any particular feelings, or emotions, or sensations, in any way connected with them. This is what is meant by calling mathematics an abstract science” (Whitehead, 1948, p. 2). It is perhaps one of the reasons why the study of mathematics has attracted many people with Asperger Syndrome.

Hilbert seemed to lack tact in his relationship with “the flames” he pursued. He basically denied the existence of his son when he got ill. He couldn’t really relate to children, as we have seen, and would spend just a minute or so with them. This is not unlike Bertrand Russell.

While he had very intense relationships with mathematicians, these were exclusively focused on discussing mathematics, which is typical of Asperger Syndrome. He could also relate in a social way to students, but again, even at dinner, mathematics was the focus. The brutality with which he could dispose of someone who did not meet his standards was well known. Hilbert once told Norbert Wiener, later a famous mathematician himself, that his lecture was “the worst there ever has been!” (Reid, 1970, p. 170).

Despite being married himself, Hilbert was against scientists marrying. When Wilhelm Ackerman married, Hilbert was very angry and refused to do anything more to further Ackerman’s career. Ackerman, a gifted young logician, had to teach in a high school.

Nonverbal Communication Problems

From photographs, Hilbert appears to have had a peculiar, stiff gaze.

Motor Clumsiness

He was probably not clumsy because he was a good dancer. In very high-IQ Asperger Syndrome, clumsiness does not come into the picture. It is possible that in cases where clumsiness does come in, a somewhat lower IQ exists and maybe more severe brain pathology. (True Asperger Syndrome probably does not include clumsiness, which should therefore be excluded as a criterion for it — this may be the one item that Asperger himself got wrong.)

Anxiety/Depression

In 1908, Hilbert became depressed and spent time at a sanatorium. The breakdown did not seem to be triggered by any specific experience. Courant, in the Foreword to Reid’s (1970) book, wrote that “almost every great scientist I have known has been subject to such deep depressions.” He felt that this might be due to periods in the life of a productive person when he appears to himself to be losing his powers, which can come as a great shock.

Conclusion

David Hilbert meets the criteria for Asperger Syndrome, according to Gillberg (1996), with the exception of an absence of speech and language problems and motor clumsiness. However, neither of these features is essential for such a diagnosis, while their absence would suggest a diagnosis of Asperger’s disorder under the American Psychiatric Association (1994) classification. It is likely that Asperger Syndrome/disorder helped Hilbert to become as creative as he was in mathematics because it gave him the kind of exclusive focus that is necessary for major creativity.

• Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

A Woman of the Iron People was published in two different formats: together as one book in most editions, and as a mass market duology with subtitles In the Light of Sigma Draconis and Changing Woman. The cover in the sidebar is for the former (the uglier cover of the two, and one that has no recognizable connection with the story); the other information is for both books combined. It’s really a single novel, however, and I recommend reading it in that form. If you’ve happened across the mass market edition, plan on reading it back-to-back.

The co-winner of the first Tiptree award and also the (rather surprising) winner of a Mythopoeic award, A Woman of the Iron People is an anthropological first-contact novel. It’s told primarily in the first person by the human researcher Lixia, who is one of eight specialists sent down onto an inhabited planet by a human exploration mission. The natives are humanoid but furred and are at (roughly) a bronze-age level of technology, divided into groups of villages that specialize in a particular technology. We meet a native named Nia, a blacksmith from the iron people, in the first chapter of the book, and Lixia then meets her in the second chapter and eventually forms a close friendship with her. She and Lixia are the focuses around which the story forms.

This is first contact as slow and deliberate anthropological exploration by humans who are deeply concerned about negatively influencing the native inhabitants. We slowly realize that the world from which Lixia comes is nearly as foreign to us as the world that she’s exploring: there’s been some type of ecological collapse and apparently a partial governmental collapse as well, capitalism is thoroughly discredited, and one of the factions on the ship seems to be partly Maoist (although a version of Maoism that leans towards the better characteristics of the philosophy). Lixia herself was apparently previously embedded in a group that sounds like back-to-nature primitives. And when we meet a second anthropologist, he’s from a culture in California that appears to combine a close relationship with nature with some aspects of California surfer, hippie, and drug cultures. While the anthropologists are understanding the native culture, the reader is piecing together a picture of what happened to Earth.

The most likely comparison here is to Le Guin, and Arnason has a similar slow pace and detailed examination of local culture as The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness. Anthropology and careful observation is strongly foregrounded. Lixia collects stories, music, and cultural observations and is always happy for people to explain customs or tell mythical or legendary stories. Her gatherings of story are mostly presented in the book as she finds them, which leads to a slow pace, a lot of conversation, and quite a few mythological digressions. The mythology is somewhat interesting; the songs and poetry much less so, at least for me, and I found most of them painful.

The native species is somewhat human-like in its social structures, but with a radically different experience of gender and a considerably sharper sexual dimorphism than humans. When they go through puberty, living in the company of others becomes actively uncomfortable for nearly all males and they, with only a few exceptions, leave their home villages to find and then hold territory against other males, living alone. The civilization is therefore strongly female-centric, since only females and children live in the villages. Both males and females have small crafts, and there’s an elaborate gift-giving culture, but larger industry is an exclusively female occupation due to male isolationism. Tied into and supporting that cultural organization is a defined yearly period of sexual heat, during which women from the village walk out into the wild lands claimed by men and mate with the first man they find, exchanging gifts and then returning after the week or two of sexual activity.

Most of this is laid out in the first chapter, told from Nia’s perspective, but additional complexity and depth are added over the course of the book. Different native cultures handle the biological limitations differently and form different roles for men and women. And Nia herself makes an unusual break with tradition between the first chapter and the point at which Lixia first meets her. One of the slow progressions throughout the book is a possible weakening of the strict gender boundaries of Nia’s people.

All this is occasionally interesting, but it does not constitute a plot, and for me that’s the primary weakness of A Woman of the Iron People. There is an overarching problem (learning the natives and then deciding what sort of contact humans should have with them) that is slowly explored over the course of the book, and there are some intermediate goals to give the book structure, but it’s mostly a meander across an alien civilization as seen through the eyes of an anthropologist. It usually lacks urgency or much momentum, and parts are filled with wilderness survival. (I once again find it remarkable how much of science fiction is filled with wilderness survival stories, often with quite primitive technology.) For a while, it looked like the tension would increase towards the conclusion, but despite some relatively dramatic events the book stubbornly maintained a leisurely and introspective pace. It’s an interesting statement about both anthropology and about first-contact scenarios, and it feels realistic, but it doesn’t make for compelling reading.

The grounding for the Tiptree award is obvious from the detailed examination of a culture and society with different sexual biology and drastically different resulting gender roles. And that examination is neither static nor concerned only with the typical case; Arnason populates her alien race with dissenters, outcasts, and people who flaunt social norms, and tests those norms in part by looking at their boundaries. Despite the fact that none of it is particularly exciting, it’s a thoughtful and deep look at the way gender interacts with society and the consequences and impact of partial rejection of social rules.

The Mythopoeic award, given to the work most in the spirit of the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and friends), is much less obvious and puzzled me a bit. I suspect the connection is to C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, particularly Out of the Silent Planet, which featured a similar human first-contact situation and exploration of an alien culture (although not by an anthropologist). There are some ways in which Arnason’s culture is also innocent: large-scale warfare, for example, is unknown, due presumably to a combination of biology rejecting male raiding parties and a culture of small bands in a resource-rich environment. Arnason’s concern with innocence is cultural rather than spiritual, but it’s a significant theme in the book.

A Woman of the Iron People is not without merits, and I can see why it won the Tiptree. Parts of it I quite enjoyed; Nia and Lixia are both interesting, deep, and enjoyable characters, and I liked the radical changes in human culture that meant I had to figure out the humans at the same time as the aliens. But it’s just too slow and too aimless for me to recommend as entertainment. Still, consider giving it a try if you want to see what a full anthropological treatment of first contact might look like.

American professor Grover Furr talks about his book The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre: The Evidence, The Solution.

Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University, best known for writing on Joseph Stalin. Born in Washington, D.C., Grover Furr graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1965 with a BA in English. He received a Ph.D in Comparative literature from Princeton University in 1978. Since February 1970, he has been on the faculty at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where he specializes in medieval English literature.

A healthy environment has become a major topic for public debate globally, particularly in the context of climate change, and Russia is no exception. The authorities clearly understand that. In November the state-owned public opinion polling center published results of a survey conducted specifically to assess the “protest potential” of environmental issues ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.

It revealed that as public concerns about the environment grow, so do expectations that the authorities will address them. The catastrophic fuel spill in Norilsk, ravaging forest fires in Siberia, severe “black skies” pollution warnings in several Siberian towns, and a mysterious marine life disaster on the Kamchatka coast in Russia’s Far East are just a few of the destructive environmental emergencies in Russia that made international and local headlines this year alone.

One might think this would lead the government to increase its engagement with environmental activists and experts. Yet we seem to be witnessing the opposite. In November, the authorities raided one of Russia’s most prominent environmental groups. In December a member of the Russian parliament ratcheted up his campaign against Greenpeace.

On December 14, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on natural resources, Nikolay Nikolayev, announced his proposal to list Greenpeace as an “undesirable organization” in Russia, because it “interferes in the legislative processes.” He listed as an example the organization’s successful advocacy to allow landowners to grow forest on lands listed as agricultural. Previously, this was deemed illegal and could result in hefty fines and land confiscation. Even though President Putin ordered the government last January to develop measures to make this legal, Nikolayev apparently sees this change, and the campaign that promoted it, as hostile and contrary to Russia’s interests.

If Nikolayev succeeds, Greenpeace would be forced to cease all operations on Russian territory, and any Russian resident deemed to be affiliated with it could be targeted for criminal prosecution. This is already happening in other ongoing “undesirable” cases.

This is not the first time that Nikolayev has lashed out at Greenpeace.

During a summer 2020 podcast, he called the group a “pseudo-environmental organization calling on the Russian authorities to inspect them.

In the past few years, Nikolayev has repeatedly asked the authorities to run an inquiry to determine whether Greenpeace could be listed as “foreign agents.” Under Russian law, any Russian group that engages in “political activity” and receives even a dollar of foreign financing must register as a “foreign agent.” The authorities target groups with the highly toxic “foreign agents” label to stigmatize them—in Russia the term is akin to “spy” or “enemy of the state”— as well as to impose burdensome auditing, reporting and labelling requirements.

By 2017, Russia’s “Year of Ecology”, at least 29 environmental groups had been tagged as “foreign agents” and 14 were either shut down or had suspended their work as a result. Greenpeace’s partners have also been targeted. In October 2019, authorities added the “Civic Initiative Against Environmental Crimes” nongovernmental group to the list of foreign agents specifically because they were receiving grants and assistance from Greenpeace. In December that year, a local court slapped them with a hefty fine in connection with their ‘foreign agent’ status.

The authorities had to explain to the lawmaker that this label cannot be applied to Greenpeace, as it’s reserved for Russian organizations, whereas Greenpeace is an international group. But if the new, oppressive amendments to the ‘foreign agents’ bill, is adopted, their staff members, volunteers, and potentially even supporters could be listed as such.

During the parliamentary debate over this new bill, a parliament member behind many of the latest oppressive bills, Vassiliy Piskariov, stated that if Greenpeace wants Russian laws changed, those who use [their] money should be marked as foreign agents. Following that debate, Nikolayev accused Greenpeace of involvement in “subversive activities” aimed at “harming [Russia]”

Greenpeace’s representative told me that he cannot comment on these lawmakers’ actions or logic, but firmly stated that theirs is a non-political organization, and this is one of their key principles.

Meanwhile, at least one reporter has suggested that the attack on Greenpeace could be the result of the organization’s objections to various expensive infrastructure investment projects in Siberia that could have devastating environmental impacts.

Russian officials have had a grudge against Greenpeace for years. In 2015 Greenpeace filed a defamation suit against NTV—a government-affiliated broadcaster that has regularly conducted smear campaigns against human rights activists and the political opposition— in relation to a 2013 piece, that among other things alleged that Greenpeace was funded by the US government in the interest of American energy companies. Unsurprisingly, Greenpeace lost in the Russian courts.

A few years later, the special envoy for environmental protection, Sergey Ivanov, called them an “extremist organization.” Greenpeace was also among environmental groups named in a 2018 report by pro-government political analysts. The report features a list of 47 actions by environmental activists that it considers “environmental extremism”; some of them were Greenpeace campaigns.

The report also referred to environmental groups and activists involved as “pseudo-environmentalists” and insinuated that they are serving Western interests to sabotage Russia’s economic development and destabilize the political situation with a view to overthrowing the government. The report was widely covered by state-controlled media. In a media interview in 2017 one expert with Greenpeace Russia said that the had noticed increased attempts to demonize the organization, and environmentalists more widely, in the public eye.

Greenpeace and their supporters continue to resort to hard work, creativity, and perseverance to try to reduce if not prevent further environmental degradation and to ensure the right to a healthy environment for people across Russia. With the Russian public ever more concerned about environmental issues, groups like Greenpeace should not be in the government’s crosshairs because they choose to fight for a clean and healthy environment.

Abbasid (Arabic: العبّاسدين al-ʿAbbāsidīn) was the dynastic name generally given to the caliphs of Baghdad, the second of the two great Sunni dynasties of the Muslim empire, that overthrew the Umayyad caliphs. It seized power in 750, when it finally defeated the Umayyads in battle, and flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army they had created, the Mamluks. Their claim to power was finally ended in 1258, when Hulagu Khan, the Mongol general, sacked Baghdad. They continued to claim authority in religious matters from their base in Egypt where the Mamluk Sultans maintained them as titular Caliph. In 1517, the last Abbasid is said to have ceded the title to the Ottoman Sultan. Traces of the Abbasid dynasty can still be found in modern day Iraq, Kuwait, and in northern areas of Pakistan.

From the eighth until the thirteenth century and in some form until the sixteenth century, the Abbasid dynasty represented the unity and preservation of Islam as a religious faith and as a social and political system. During this period, the ascendancy of what Muslims consider to be divine law over and above all human forms of government was firmly established and that legal tradition was itself codified. There was often, in practice, a struggle for power between the temporal leader and the religious scholars who claimed the right to interpret the law but essentially a sense of unity and a common code of conduct stretched across a vast territory. Muslims wherever they lived shared a worldview in common and understood the purpose of life as to please and serve God. The early Abbasids placed Islam back at the center of their administration, in contrast to their predecessors who had treated the Caliphate as a personal empire. Thus, the Abbasids played an invaluable role in reinvigorating the Islamic ideal that the whole of human life stands under divine guidance and that spiritual and temporal aspects must be integrated, not separated. Although towards the end of their Caliphate, use of reason in Islamic discourse had become suspect, the earlier flowering of learning Muslim scholars imbued all areas of knowledge with religious values, arguing that knowledge must always serve a higher purpose.

Revolt against the Umayyads

The Abbasid caliphs officially based their claim to the Caliphate on their descent from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566-652), one of the youngest uncles of the Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H., by virtue of which descent they regarded themselves as the rightful heirs of the Prophet as opposed to the Umayyads. The Umayyads were descended from Umayya, and were a clan separate from Muhammad’s in the Quraish tribe. Their forebear, Abu Sufyan, had been Muhammad’s bitter foe, although he did become a Muslim.

The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their secularism, moral character, and administration in general. The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as ‘‘mawali,’’ who remained outside the kinship-based society of Arab culture and were at best second-class citizens within the Umayyad empire. Muhammad ibn Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign for the return of power to the family of the Prophet, the Hashimites, in Persia during the reign of Umar II, Muhammad ibn Ali.

During the reign of Marwan II this opposition culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam, the fourth in descent from Abbas, who, supported by the province of Khorasan, achieved considerable successes, but was captured in 747 and died in prison (as some hold, assassinated). The quarrel was taken up by his brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-‘Abbas as-Saffah, who, after a decisive victory on the Greater Zab River in 750, finally crushed the Umayyads and was proclaimed Caliph.

Accusing the Umayyads of ruling the Islamic territory as emperors rather than as deputies of the Prophet of Islam, the Abbasids claimed religious legitimacy for their revolt and went into battle with the cry, “O Muhammad, helped of God.” They later wore Muhammad’s mantle while leaving Friday prayers as a sign of their loyalty to his tradition. The Abbasids may have promised their supporters that they would restore the original process by which the “best among” the Muslims would be selected as Caliph and abolish the dynastic system. They may also have hoped to reconcile Sunni and Shi’a Islam by asserting that their family link to Muhammad through a male uncle was more legitimate than that of Ali’s descendants, who traced themselves through Fatimah. The Abbasids rejected the rival claims of the Fatimids of Egypt on the basis that the Caliphate could not be transmitted through women. The revolt of the Abbasids against the Umayyads is one of only a few rebellions against a governing Caliph that has had majority support in Islam. Generally, Muslims have thought it better to obey even a corrupt Caliph provided that he is at least externally pious, for the sake of the unity of the community. Both selecting and removing a Caliph are matters of deep concern, though much of the literature focuses more on the qualities required of the Caliph than on the processes of appointing or dismissal.

Consolidation and schisms

The Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads. Abu al-‘Abbas’ successor, al-Mansur, moved their capital from Damascus to the new city of Baghdad and welcomed non-Arab Muslims to their court. While this helped integrate Arab and Persian cultures, it alienated many of their Arab supporters, particularly the Khorasanian Arabs who had supported them in their battles against the Umayyads.

These fissures in their support led to immediate problems. The Umayyads, while out of power, were not destroyed. The remains of the Umayyad Caliphate, the only survivor of a dinner party where all the others were assassinated finally made his way to Spain. There he established a Caliphate, also called Umayyad.

The Abbasids also found themselves at odds with the Shias, many of whom had supported their war against the Umayyads, since as noted above the Abbasids claimed legitimacy by their familial connection to Muhammad. Once in power, the Abbasids embraced Sunni Islam and disavowed any support for Shi’a beliefs. That led to numerous conflicts, culminating in an uprising in Mecca in 786, followed by widespread bloodshed and the flight of many Shi’a to the Maghreb, where the survivors established the Idrisid kingdom. Shortly thereafter Berber Kharijites set up an independent state in North Africa in 801.

At the same time the Abbasids faced challenges closer to home. The Byzantine Empire was fighting Abbasid rule in Syria and Anatolia. Former supporters of the Abbasids had broken away to create a separate kingdom around Khorosan in northern Persia. Harun al-Rashid (786-809) added to these troubles by turning on the Barmakids, the Persian family that had supplied the Caliphate with competent administrators, over a personal dispute.

The Mamluks

Faced with these challenges from within, the Abbasids decided to create an army loyal only to their Caliphate, drawn mostly from Turkish slaves, known as Mamluks, with some Slavs and Berbers participating as well. This force, created in the reign of al-Ma’mun (813-833), and his brother and successor al-Mu’tasim (833-842), prevented the further disintegration of the empire.

It also, however, led to the ultimate eclipse of Abbasid rule. The creation of this foreign army and al-Mu’tasim’s transfer of the capital from Baghdad to Samarra created a division between the Caliphate and the peoples they claimed to rule. In addition, the power of the Mamluks steadily grew until al-Radi (934-941) was constrained to hand over most of the royal functions to Mahommed bin Raik. In the following years the Buyids, who were Shi’ites, seized power over Baghdad, ruling central Iraq for more than a century before being overthrown by the Seljuq Turks. In the same period, the Hamdanids, another Shi’ite dynasty, came to power in northern Iraq, leading to a tremendous expansion of Shi’a influence. In the process, the Abbasid caliphs became no more than figureheads. However, they continued to confer certificate of legitimacy, and titles, on the Sultans (whose power was in theory delegated to them by the Caliph) and the oath of loyalty to them was recited during Friday prayers. Copying from the practice of the Shahs of Persia, the Abbasids started to receive visitors behind a veil (hijab) and to surround their office with mystique. As their temporal authority declined, this mystique increased.

Learning under the Abbasid dynasty

The reigns of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) and his successors fostered an age of great intellectual achievement. This era is known as the Golden Age of Islamic civilization. Baghdad was known as the City of Peace. In large part this was the result of the schismatic forces that had undermined the Umayyad regime, which relied on the assertion of the superiority of Arab culture as part of its claim to legitimacy, and the Abbasids’ welcoming of support from non-Arab Muslims. The popular Arabian Nights is set in the reign of Harun al-Rashid, and tells us something about what life was like for people during this period. In this story, women as well as men take the initiative and some suggest that the text represents a feminist alternative to official, male-dominated accounts of Islamic history. The empire reached its largest geographical limits under Harun, who received a diplomatic delegation from the first Holy Roman Emperor, to whom he sent an elephant as a gift.

A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule, many of them non-Muslims or heretical Muslims, played a role in transmitting Greek literature and Greek, Hindu, and other pre-Islamic knowledge to the Christian West. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. In addition, the period saw the recovery of much of the Alexandrian mathematical, geometric, and astronomical knowledge, such as that of Euclides and Claudius Ptolemy. These recovered mathematical methods were later enhanced and developed by other Islamic scholars, notably by Al-Biruni, and Abu Nasr Mansur, who are thought to have first derived the Cosine rule and applied it to spherical geometry.

Three speculative thinkers, the Persians al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Theological debate also took place. Significant debates include human free will versus predestination, the created or uncreated nature of the Qur’an and the relationship between God and God’s attributes. Political interests were involved here, too. Those (the Mutazalites) who supported free will and a created Qur’an gave more scope to human reason. This appealed to several Caliphs, who supported the Mutazalites (813-847). The Asharites, named after Abu al-Hasan bin Isma’el al-Ash’ari (873-935), who argued in favor of an uncreated Qur’an, gave more scope to “revelation” and the traditions of Muhammad (the sunnah had greater authority than the Caliph, arguing that the Caliph was subject to the authority of the Sunnah). During the early Abbasid period, too, the hadith (sayings and acts of Muhammad, which constitutes the Sunnah) were collected and the four legal schools of Sunni jurisprudence were established. Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855) after whom the Hanbali School is named, was a great traditionalist who was imprisoned under Al-Ma’mun, who had instigated an inquisition (Mihna) (833-848). Al-Ma’mun sponsored the translation of works of Greek philosophy into Arabic. The Asharites triumphed and most Muslims asserted that it was now their duty to follow the rulings of the founders of the four schools, and not to innovate. This firmly established the principle that even the Caliph was subject to the law, not the maker of the law. In practice, Caliphs and the Sultans to whom in theory they delegated power, had the task of protecting the law and could do so in the form of decrees (qanun) that sometimes effectively by-passed it. Thus, in practice there was often competition between the temporal leader and those who saw it as their job to interpret the law. Since the temporal ruler was not trained in jurisprudence, the primacy of the law gave a great deal of authority to the professional religious-legal scholars. The high value that the above philosophers placed on reason, drawing on Aristotle especially, led to the charge that they had made revelation redundant. A reaction set in which some represent as the end of rationalistic philosophy in Islam. Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) roundly criticized the philosophers for paying only lip-service to Islam. Some consider the work of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126- 1198) to be the last great example of theological and philosophical thought in Islam until the modern period, although this view is not shared by everyone.

The end of the caliphate

Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad on February 10, 1258, causing great loss of life. Al-Musta’sim, the last reigning Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad was then executed on February 20, 1258. The Abbasids still maintained a remnant of authority, confined to religious matters, in Egypt under the Mamluks, but the dynasty finally ended with Al-Mutawakkil III. He was carried away as a prisoner to Constantinople by Selim I who defeated the Mamluks and claimed that Al-Mutawakkil ceded him the title and dignity of Caliph.