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TheAbbasid caliphs were the holders of theIslamic title ofcaliph who were members of theAbbasid dynasty, a branch of theQuraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophetMuhammad,Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib.

The family came to power in theAbbasid Revolution in 748–750, supplanting theUmayyad Caliphate. They were the rulers of theAbbasid Caliphate, as well as the generally recognized ecumenical heads of Islam, until the 10th century, when theShi'aFatimid Caliphate (established in 909) and theCaliphate of Córdoba (established in 929) challenged their primacy. The political decline of the Abbasids had begun earlier, during theAnarchy at Samarra (861–870), which accelerated the fragmentation of the Muslim world into autonomous dynasties. The caliphs lost their temporal power in 936–946, first to a series of military strongmen and then to the Shi'aBuyidEmirs that seized control of Baghdad; the Buyids were in turn replaced by the SunniSeljuk Turks in the mid-11th century, and Turkish rulers assumed the title of "Sultan" to denote their temporal authority. The Abbasid caliphs remained the generally recognized suzerains ofSunni Islam, however. In the mid-12th century, the Abbasids regained their independence from the Seljuks, but the revival of Abbasid power ended with theSack of Baghdad by theMongols in 1258.

Most Abbasid caliphs were born to aconcubine mother, known asumm al-walad (Arabic:أم الولد,lit. 'mother of the child'). The term refers to aslave woman who had a child from her owner; those women were renowned for their beauty and intelligence, in that the owner might recognize the legitimacy of his children from them to be legally free and with full rights of inheritance, and refrain from trading the mothers afterwards.^[1] Those concubines where from non-Muslim lands and brought toslavery in the Abbasid Caliphate via a number of different slave trade routes. The slave concubines mostly wereAbyssinians,Armenians,Berbers,Byzantine Greeks,Turkish or even fromSicily.^[2][3][4]

This is the list of Abbasid Caliphs.^[5]

In 1261, the Abbasid dynasty was re-established by a cadet branch of the dynasty atCairo under the auspices of the localMamluk sultans, but these caliphs were purely religious and symbolic figures, while temporal power rested with the Mamluks. The revived caliphate in Cairo lasted until theOttoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, after which the caliphal title passed to theOttoman dynasty.

The Cairo Abbasids were largely ceremonial caliphs under the patronage of the Mamluk Sultanate that existed after the takeover of theAyyubid dynasty.^[19][20]

• Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1996).The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.ISBN 0-7486-2137-7.
• Bobrick, Benson (2012).The Caliph's Splendor: Islam and the West in the Golden Age of Baghdad. Simon & Schuster.ISBN 978-1416567622.
• Houtsma, M. Th.; Wensinck, A. J. (1993).E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936. Vol. IX. Leiden: BRILL.ISBN 978-90-04-09796-4.
• Lane-Poole, Stanley (1894).The Mohammedan Dynasties: Chronological and Genealogical Tables with Historical Introductions. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company.OCLC 1199708.
• Hurvitz, Nimrod (2002).The Formation of Hanbalism: Piety into Power. New York: Routledge.ISBN 0-7007-1507-X.
• Zetterstéen, K. V.;Pellat, Ch. (1960)."Ahmad b. Abi Du'ad".The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume I: A–B. Leiden and New York: BRILL. p. 271.ISBN 90-04-08114-3.{{cite encyclopedia}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Al-Tabari, Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir (1985–2007). Ehsan Yar-Shater (ed.).The History of Al-Ṭabarī. Vol. 40 vols. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Ibn Khallikan (1842).Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Translated from the Arabic. Vol. I. Translated byBaron Mac Guckin de Slane. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.OCLC 1184199260.
• Bosworth, C. E., ed. (1987).The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXXII: The Reunification of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate: The Caliphate of al-Maʾmūn, A.D. 813–33/A.H. 198–213. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.ISBN 978-0-88706-058-8.
• Kennedy, Hugh (2006).When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.ISBN 978-0-306814808.
• Zetterstéen, K. V. & Bosworth, C. E. (1993)."al-Muhtadī". InBosworth, C. E.;van Donzel, E.;Heinrichs, W. P. &Pellat, Ch. (eds.).The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.Volume VII: Mif–Naz. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 476–477.doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5437.ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
• Cobb, P. M. (2000)."ʿUmar (II) b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz". InBearman, P. J.;Bianquis, Th.;Bosworth, C. E.;van Donzel, E. &Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.).The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.Volume X: T–U. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 821–822.ISBN 978-90-04-11211-7.
• Zetterstéen, K. V. (1987)."al-Muʿtaḍid Bi'llāh". In Houtsma, Martijn Theodoor (ed.).E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, Volume VI: Morocco–Ruzzik. Leiden: Brill. p. 777.ISBN 978-90-04-08265-6.
• Bennison, Amira K. (2009). The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the 'Abbasid Empire. Princeton: Yale University Press, p. 47. ISBN 0300167989
• El-Hibri, Tayeb (2021).The Abbasid Caliphate: A History. Cambridge History Press.ISBN 9781316634394.

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