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

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 for five centuries. They ...

In Ancient Greece, cooks deep-fried dough in olive oil to create honey-drenched desserts similar to modern-day loukoumades. These fried sweets, often topped with sesame seeds or nuts, were served ...

The Abbasid caliphate was centuries ahead of Mr. Baghdadi’s backward-looking cohorts. Abbasid society during its heyday thrived on multiculturalism, science, innovation, ...

The caliphate, in its Abbasid, Andalusian and Shiite Fatamid expressions, was a glorious thing to be sure. But each of these empires was taxed by periods of internecine strife, ...

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.

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 ...

Administrative division of the Abbasid Caliphate in the mid-9th century AD. Credit: Cattette / Wikimedia Commons Ali ibn Muhammad, skillfully combining Kharijism with Zaydism, began his Friday sermons ...

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 ...