In the 8th century Middle East, a new dynasty seized control of one of the world’s greatest empires – the Islamic Caliphate. Though little remembered in the west today, the Abbasids reigned ...

Many chief advisers of the Abbasids professed loyalty to one or another of the Shi’ite branches of Islam yet, as El-Hibri points out, with the exception of the Fatimids of Egypt, the Abbasids strove ...