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The golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate did not last long. Its extravagant court and the embracing of Sunni Islam caused many rifts; the Abbasids had, after all, come to power with the support of many Shiite Muslims. This alienated many of whom should have been loyal followers and led to the emergence of several regional centres of Islamic power that ended up challenging the central authority of the Caliphate.
The Umayyad prince who had fled to Spain after the massacre of his family represented only one disenchanted party. Many Shiites, believing that the Abbasids were usurpers, left for northern Africa where they established rival kingdoms. The most renowned of these was that of the Fatimids, who claimed descent from Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima. Proclaiming a rival caliphate in AD 910, they conquered Egypt in AD 969 and founded the city of Cairo as their capital, from which they ruled most of northern Africa.
By the 11th century the Fatimids were already more powerful than the Abbasids in Baghdad, but their gradual encroachment on Palestine and Syria brought them into direct conflict with both the Seljuk Turks and the invading European crusaders, and this ultimately led to their downfall.
The Seljuk Turks had migrated to Persia from the Central Asian Steppe in the 11th century and proceeded to settle in Abbasid lands and convert to Sunni Islam. Sensing the weaknesses of the Abbasids, they gained control of Baghdad in 1055 and within 20 years had captured most of Asia Minor from the Byzantines, naming it the Independent Sultanate of Rum,35 after the Arabic word for Rome. This became the first permanent settlement of Turks in Asia Minor and is generally understood to be the beginning of Islam in Turkey – the land of the Turks.36