These novels blend the substantiated with the surreal, offering new ways to understand the past through magic, monsters and ...

Supporters of the Islamic State march in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014, the year the militant group declared a new caliphate in Iraq and Syria. (Associated Press) Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow in the ...

Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters ...

Meanwhile, the Abbasid Caliphate faced an unexpected and serious problem: a massive insurrection that broke out in Mesopotamia near Basra, led by a self-proclaimed descendant of Muhammad who was ...

Several caliphates have been declared throughout history, including the Abbasid caliphate of the ninth century, which dominated the Arabian peninsula as well as modern-day Iran, Iraq and ...

The succeeding Arab caliphates ruling the Muslim world for over six hundred years from Damascus and Baghdad, the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 C.E.) and the Abbasid caliphate (750-1258 C.E.), met the ...

And Harun al-Rashid, perhaps the greatest Abbasid caliph, briefly relocated the caliphate to Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the capital of the Islamic State.

They ruled for 500 years and led the Islamic world into a golden age. Then in a single siege, Baghdad was reduced to ruins and the caliphate was no more.

The Mongols invade the Middle East. In 1258, General Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, kills Al-Musta’sim Billah, the last Abbasid Caliph.