This study is an analysis of the behavior of different individuals and groups at the Abbasid court-the center of the largest empire in the world in the eighth-ninth centuries CE-during a period of political turmoil and governmental collapse, between the years 892 and 932. The study explores how individuals viewed themselves relative to their peers and competitors both within and outside their social/professional groups and at the strategies different individuals employed to cope with the increasing social and political instability. The book, which proceeds both chronologically and thematically, beginning with a period of revival and superior leadership and concluding with one of incompetence and regicide, is also an attempt to uncover individual and group dynamics relevant to the study of other periods, contexts, and courts.



David Marmer (PhD Princeton University, 1994) is a lecturer on Islamic culture at Tel Aviv University.