Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Marchin, and I'll be your history teacher for today.

I'm really looking forward to starting our learning journey together, and my role will be to make sure that you can meet today's learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson where we're gonna be describing Baghdad in the 11th century and its connections to the wider Islamic world.

As our learning objective for today suggests, this lesson is part of our unit on the 11th century Islamic world where we're gonna be comparing different regions and thinking about what were some of the similarities and some of the differences between them.

There are five keywords which are gonna help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are Abbasid, caliphate, extent, caliph, and Seljuks.

An Abbasid is a member of the third dynasty of caliphs that ruled the Islamic Empire after Muhammad.

A caliphate is an Islamic state, especially one ruled by a single religious and political leader.

The size of something can be described as its extent.

A caliph is a political and religious leader of Muslim communities.

And finally, the Seljuks were a Muslim group from Central Asia.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts, and we'll begin by focusing on the Abbasid Caliphate.

Islam was founded as a religion in the 7th century.

Islam began in the Middle East, but spread in the centuries afterwards to other parts of the world.

The Abbasid Caliphate rose to power in the 8th century, and the Abbasid Caliphate was an Islamic state.

So based on what we've heard so far, let's just make sure our initial understanding is secure.

What was the religion of the Abbasid Caliphate? Was it Christianity, Islam, or Judaism? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

The religion of the Abbasid Caliphate was Islam.

Remember that caliphates are Islamic states usually led by a single religious and political leader.

The Abbasid Caliphate extended across two continents, across both Asia and Africa.

At its greatest extent, the Abbasid Caliphate was larger than any other state in the mediaeval world.

So if we wanna think about the location and the extent of the Abbasid Caliphate in a little bit more depth, we can focus on the map that is currently shown on the screen.

All the coloured areas were part of the Abbasid Caliphate, whereas those lands shown in white were areas beyond the control of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Now, what we can see from this is that the caliphate very clearly extended to reach parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

So there we can see how it's stretched across two continents and multiple regions.

The capital of the Abbasid Caliphate was Baghdad, which is located in the Middle East in what we'd think of as Iraq in the modern day.

So based on what we've heard, let's just make sure our understanding is really secure.

We have a statement on the screen that says the Abbasid Caliphate extended across multiple continents.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was true.

The Abbasid Caliphate did extend across multiple continents, but we want to justify our answer, so two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that the Abbasid Caliphate controlled lands in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Our second justification on the screen says that the Abbasid Caliphate controlled lands in Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

Which one of those justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was A.

The Abbasid Caliphate extended across two continents, Asia and Africa, as it controlled lands in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Let's try another question.

What was the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate? Was it Baghdad, Berlin, or Busan? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was Baghdad.

Baghdad was the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, and you'd expect to find it in the Middle East, even more specifically in modern day Iraq.

So now that we've made sure our knowledge is secure, we can put it into practise.

I want you to describe the extent of the Abbasid Caliphate in two sentences.

So pause the video here, write your answers, and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So I asked you to describe the extent of the Abbasid Caliphate in two sentences.

Your answer may have included that when it reached its greatest extent, the Abbasid Caliphate was larger than any other state in the mediaeval world.

The caliphate covered multiple continents as it controlled lands in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

So if your own answer looked something similar to that model we've just worked through, then really well done.

And now we're ready to move on to the second part of our lesson for today where we're gonna think about Baghdad and its place in the Abbasid Caliphate.

Baghdad was the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Baghdad was important for two main reasons.

Firstly because of religion and politics, and secondly because of the links between the city and learning.

Baghdad is located in modern day Iraq.

The city was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and was designed to show off the Abbasid Caliphate's wealth and power.

More than 100,000 workers were involved in the construction of the city.

Persian influences were important in the Abbasid Empire, such as in Baghdad's distinctive circular layout.

You can see the circular layout of Baghdad in the map, which you can see on the screen.

This layout placed the caliphs' palace at the very centre of the city.

By the 11th century, the Abbasid caliphs had been living in Baghdad for roughly 300 years.

The Abbasid caliphs were both political and religious leaders for the areas under their control.

This meant that Baghdad was an important location for religious and political decision-making in the caliphate.

So let's try a few questions just to make sure our initial understanding of Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate is really secure.

I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence: "The blank lived in a palace in the centre of Baghdad." So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see what the missing word is.

Okay, well done to everybody who said our missing word was caliph.

The caliph lived in a palace in the centre of Baghdad.

By the 11th century, Abbasid caliphs had been living in Baghdad for 300 years.

And let's try another question.

How many workers were involved in the construction of Baghdad? Was it 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that C was our correct answer.

100,000 workers were involved in the construction of Baghdad, which gives us a pretty good impression of just how impressive the city was.

Baghdad was an important centre of learning in the Abbasid Caliphate.

The capital had become famous for learning long before the 11th century.

The Abbasid caliphs had set up the House of Wisdom in the late 7th century, which was one of the largest libraries in the world at the time.

Even in the 11th century, many people continued to travel to Baghdad to study and debate in the House of Wisdom.

In 1065, the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad was set up in the Abbasid capital.

Al-Nizamiyya was a university and offered free education to its students.

Students were taught a range of subjects such as religious studies, law, literature, and maths.

Al-Nizamiyya has been described as the largest university in the mediaeval world and had roughly 3,000 students by the end of the 11th century.

So let's try a couple of questions just to make sure our understanding is really secure.

What was the large library in Baghdad called? Was it the House of Books, House of Learning, or the House of Wisdom? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was C.

The large library in Baghdad was called the House of Wisdom.

By the 11th century, the House of Wisdom had been in place for centuries, but it was still an important location visited by people from across the caliphate to debate and to study.

And let's try another question.

We have a statement that says, "By the 11th century, "Baghdad had lost its reputation for learning." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false, but we need to justify our answers, so two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad was was set up in 1065 and was the largest library in the world.

Our second justification says that the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad was set up in 1065 and was the largest university in the world.

So which one of those justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said our second justification was correct.

The Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad was set up in 1065 and it was the largest university in the mediaeval world.

It had up to 3,000 students who received a free education across a range of different subjects.

So now we're in a great position to put our knowledge about Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate into practise.

I want you to complete the following two sentences.

"In the 11th century, Baghdad was an important place "in the Islamic world because.

." So you're gonna complete that sentence by offering a clear reason.

And our second sentence says, "For example.

." So with that sentence you're gonna offer some factual detail to back up your completed first sentence.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you to complete our two sentences, and your answer may have included, "In the 11th century, Baghdad was an important place "in the Islamic world because it was a centre for learning.

"For example, a university, Al-Nizamiyya, "was set up in Baghdad in 1065.

"By the end of the 11th century, it had 3,000 students "and was the largest university in the world." So really well done if your answer looks something like that model we've just seen.

Alternatively, you may have talked about something like the political and religious importance of Baghdad because the caliphs lived there.

In any case, I'm really impressed by all the hard work you showed in that task.

So now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson where we're going to focus on the problems of the Abbasid Caliphate.

Although the Abbasid Caliphate was very large in the 11th century and their capital city was really impressive, the actual power of the caliphs living in Baghdad had become quite limited.

The caliphs had governors to help them rule over areas which were far away from Baghdad.

However, although these governors still claimed that they were loyal to the Abbasid caliphs, in reality, they often ruled their local areas as they wanted.

By the 11th century, the caliphs had little real control outside of Baghdad itself.

Some local governors didn't even mention the name of the caliphs in Friday prayers, and also left the name of the caliphs off local coins.

In 1058, Baghdad itself was conquered by a soldier called Al-Basasiri who was loyal to the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, a rival Islamic power to the Abbasids.

The Abbasid caliph only regained control over Baghdad in 1060 by seeking help from a group of outsiders, the Seljuk Turks and their leader Tughril.

Tughril and the Seljuks had much more military power than the Abbasid caliph.

Even though the caliph had been returned to power, for the rest of the 11th century, important decisions were actually made by the Seljuks instead and Baghdad was no longer the centre of decision-making in the caliphate.

So we've heard a bit about some of the problems of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 11th century.

Now we just wanna make sure our knowledge of that is secure.

So, why did the Abbasid caliphs use local governors? Was it because the caliphs were too lazy to rule themselves, because the caliphs wanted local people to control their own lives, or because it helped the caliphs control faraway places? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that C was our correct answer.

The Abbasid caliphs used governors because it helped them to control faraway areas.

This was really important in a caliphate that was as big as the Abbasids'.

Let's not forget, the Abbasid Caliphate stretched across two different continents.

And how can historians tell that the local governors of the Abbasid Caliphate became less loyal to the Abbasid caliphs? Is it because many governors went to war with the caliphs, because many governors stopped praying for the caliphs, or because many governors stopped writing letters to the caliphs? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

Local governors were expected to make sure that Friday prayers honoured the caliph, but in some areas the local governors stopped doing this, showing that they were becoming less loyal to the Abbasid caliphs.

And let's try one more question.

We have a statement that says, "The Abbasid caliphs had little military power "by the 11th century." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was true, but we need to be able to justify our answer, so two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that the caliph needed help from the Seljuks to recapture Baghdad in 1060, and our second justification says that the caliph was removed from power by the Seljuks in 1060.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said our correct justification was A.

The caliph needed help from the Seljuks to recapture Baghdad in 1060.

Without the help from this group of outsiders, it's quite possible that the Abbasid caliphs would've lost control over their capital city.

So now we're in a great position to put our knowledge about the problems of the Abbasid Caliphate into practise.

We have a statement that says, "By the 11th century, "the Abbasid Caliphate had lost a lot of power." Now, do you agree with the statement? I want you to support your judgement with an example.

So you may use the following sentence starters to help structure your response: "The statement is or is not correct," "For example.

." So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your work on that task.

So I gave you the statement that said, "By the 11th century, "the Abbasid Caliphate had lost a lot of power," and I asked if you agreed with that statement and for you to support your judgement with an example.

Your answer may have included, "The statement is correct.

"For example, the Abbasid caliph was overthrow in 1058 "and needed outside help from the Seljuks "just to regain control in Baghdad." So if your answer looked something similar to that with a clear judgement followed by relevant evidence, really well done for all your hard work.

And that means we've now reached the end of our lesson for today, so we're in a good position to summarise all of our learning about Baghdad.

We have seen that the Abbasid Caliphate extended across Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and was also famous for being a centre of learning.

The Abbasid caliphs had lost effective control over most parts of their caliphate to local governors by the 11th century.

And after 1060, the Seljuks had more military power than the Abbasid caliphs and made most of the important decisions.

So thank you for joining me for today's lesson.

You worked really hard throughout and it's been a pleasure to have you joining me.

I look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about different parts of the 11th century Islamic worlds.