Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

The Abbasid Caliphs sat at the head of a vast Islamic empire that stretched from Tunisia to the frontiers of India and held power

for several centuries. So how did the caliphs first come to prominence? What tools did they use

to control such a significant swath of land? And how far were they responsible for a prosperous

golden age of Islam?

Speaking to Emily Briffitt, Hugh Kennedy charts the rise and fall of a multicultural medieval empire

and answers your top questions on everything from the role of the Harim at court

to the enormous amount of scholarship that flowed through the caliphate.

Hi, Hugh, thank you so much for joining me on the History Extra podcast.

It's good to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

To start off, I think we need to cover the most broad question of this topic.

Who were the Abbasid Caliphs?

The Abbasid Caliphs were the Caliphs who ruled the central Islamic world, starting in the

year 750 and going through in their heyday, in their imperial phase until about 950.

After that the caliphate fragments, but the caliph still continue to have a titular position, a palace in Baghdad.

They don't have very much political power right through until Baghdad is sacked by Mongols in 1258,

which time the caliphate at least in Iraq ceases to exist.

Fundamentally, they are based in Iraq and especially their new capital Baghdad, the city of Baghdad,

was founded for the first time and it was a new town that was founded by the Abbasids in 762

and rapidly became the biggest city in the Middle East.

So the Abbasids are based in Baghdad, but ruling at their heyday, should we say, in the year 800,

all the way from Tunisia right through to Central Asia, to what we might now call the Stans,

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