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This coauthored chapter is a comparative synthesis of the preceding two chapters. It identifies ten elements in which, despite superficial similarities between the two processes, differences between the roles of ethnicity in the process of imperial devolution of the Roman and Abbasid realms are made visible. The result of the comparison is a complex matrix of similarities and differences, in which the different outcomes are the result not of any deep-seated alterity between the two societies but of the way seemingly quite similar conditions were combined in different ways and the way contemporary observers made sense of the perceived changes.

In this chapter, a general overview is given of the role of ethnic groups and tribes in the early Islamic world. Looking at the available source material, it appears that tribal identities and genealogies, as well as the ethnic differences that follow from these identifications, were of paramount importance to contemporary observers. The significance of tribes in internal politics and the way they are framed in literary texts, however, never allowed them to carve out a lasting dominion. The second part of the chapter addresses the more straightforwardly ethnic groups within the caliphate, principally Armenians, Kurds, and Iranians. Of these, only the Armenians developed modes of identification that were connected to their geographic situation, their brand of Christianity, and their language and script. At the other end of the spectrum, no strong common identity of the Kurds appears to have emerged in the premodern period, although there were some successful dynasties and rulers, such as Saladin, who (were) identified as Kurdish even if their empires did not. From among the multitude of possible identifications available to the populations in the early Islamic world (religious, tribal, linguistic, cultural, or urban), ethnicity thus did not have a specific impact on the constitution of states.

Arab sources say that mosaic workers and materials were sent by the Byzantine emperors to help in the decoration of mosques in Medina and Damascus, where the surviving eighth-century mosaics may be the tangible proof of this cultural interchange. Support is lent by the much better documented despatch of Byzantine mosaicists to help in the decoration of the great mosque at Cordova during a time of diplomatic rapprochement and, once again, the results of this ancient diplomacy are still visible today. Byzantine diplomatic strategy was essentially defensive. The main purpose was to keep Aleppo, ruled by the Hamdanids and from the early eleventh century, the Mirdasids, an Arab dynasty of Bedouin origin, as an independent, tribute-paying, buffer state. The Byzantines arrived by sea: 'the Byzantine warships came looking magnificent bringing with them the Moslem prisoners'. Any prisoners who refused to do so were returned to the Byzantines.

The emergence of eunuchs as a major political and social presence in Islamic courts is a development of the third/ninth century. 1 For the first two centuries of Muslim political life, they were almost unknown, and their role, if they had one, would have been marginal. Eunuchs were effectively unknown in the Hijaz at the time of the Prophet and the Rashidūn caliphs. 2 Perhaps more surprisingly, given the importance of eunuchs in the Byzantine imperial system, they do not seem to have played a significant role in the Umayyad court or in Umayyad political life from 41/661 to 132/750. Eunuchs first became an important presence in Islamic political life at the Abbasid court, especially from the beginning of the third/ninth century until the mid-fourth/tenth century; this followed the Būyids’ seizure of power, which caused the Abbasid court to be much reduced in numbers and wealth and effectively restricted to a domestic role. The emergence of powerful eunuchs is closely related to two other changes in court life in the third/ninth century. The first was the gradual restriction of female members of the ruling dynasty to the caliphal palace. 3 In the first half century of Abbasid rule (132–193/750–809), the most prominent female members of the ruling dynasty had their own palaces and households, often in gardens along the banks of the Tigris, but by the third/ninth century, these had largely disappeared, and the women lived in the Dār al-Khilāfa, the high rambling palace on the east bank of the Tigris. The second change was the whole nature and design of palaces. Umayyad palaces, the ruins of a number of which survive, were modest in size, much like large Roman villas. They were sometimes exquisitely decorated but were centred on one or two courts or perhaps a bath house. The palaces of the mid-ninth century as we find them in Samarra were very much larger, enclosing vast numbers of chambers and gardens. They were like small towns in area and complexity, and there was no need for the inhabitants to emerge into the outside world. 4 Within these vast palaces, there were harem areas, strictly segregated from the rest of the complex and forbidden to male visitors. Both these developments put much more power into the hands of the gatekeepers of these new enclosed spaces, and these gatekeepers were often eunuchs because they alone could mediate between the caliphal household and the outside world.