Future generations of the Abbasids were unable to sustain the magnitude of their empire and were forced to accelerate the breakup of their empire by conceding territories to better placed royal families like the Fatmadids of Egypt8. In the south, Abbasid rulers began to be replaced by the Iranian Shiite and Turkish dynasties including the Shia Builds, the Seljuk Turks and the Empire of Khwarazm. The breakup of the Abbasid empire thus led to the formation of local nation states instead of the centralised system of governance that had become the norm. With the new political and social landscape, it was now no longer possible to look at the Islamic world from a single perspective.
The fragmentation of the Arab world would continue till well into the 1200s, catalysed by the …show more content…
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, ottoman emperors would juggle the expansion of their own territory and control over the ambitions of the Safavid shahs of Persia. Unlike the Safavid the ottomans preferred a system of provincial rule by chieftains and warlords under regional governors appointed by the Sultan.13 Thus, When the inevitable decline of the Ottomans came, provincial warlords and nomadic tribes saw themselves in the prime position to emerge as powerful leaders. In Mosul the Jalili family succeeded in seizing power while Baghdad and Basra were under the control of Arab chieftains14. However, as peasant revolts sprang up across the region against the brutal system of taxation, the Pashas found themselves unable to sustain the lavish lifestyle they had grown accustomed