Why Did The Rashid Decline

The weakening of caliphal authority in the 9th and 10th century fits in with the assumption of a mainstream 'decline' in Islamic civilisation. Thomas Arnold wrote “As the power of the Abbasids declined, soon after the death of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the essential features of the caliphate gradually disappeared, until there remained nothing but the name. The weakening of Abbasid caliphal authority can be attributed to the interrelationship between many factors that contributed to the Abbasid collapse in the early 4th/10th century. It can be argued that the major challenge to caliphal authority was uniting a multi-ethnic and massive empire.
The decline in imperial revenue lay in the loss of profit from the agricultural heartland of Sawad and political
Foremost the financial crisis of the Abbasid caliphate may be summed up as the absence of a source of credit for the caliphate to maintain their political and military infrastructure. The Abbasids depended on their mercenary armies as they were based in the capitals Baghdad and Samarra. In turn, the military depended on the government for their salary, the army itself was expensive, increasing their prices consistently(WAINES). This inevitably placed economic pressure on the caliph as they had to reform heir military taking into account their troops. The military reacted with threat if any policy had threatened their. Incomes. Usually this situation was met with violence and openly fatal responses. Although reforem to the military was effective enough to subdue upheavals such as the Ghilm corps suppression of the Zanj rebellion in southern Iraq, Waines does reiterate the inmportance of finances. The military would have restored caliphal power if there was no financial crisis. The extent of distress was so much that in Shawwal 253/867 a Turkish commander ‘Wasif told discontented solders to eat dirt as he had nothing to give them.’ The civil war did much