Abbasid Caliphate (Great Empires)

The Abbasid Caliphate is a large nation in the Middle-East.

Name
The Abbasid Caliphate is often refered to as "Arabia".

Rise
The Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, because of which they considered themselves the true successor of Muhammad as opposed to the Umayyads. In 747 they started a large scale revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate, gaining support from many Arabs in all of the Arab world. In 750 they managed to defeat the Umayyad forces at the Battle of the Great Zab River. Soon they captured the capital of Dimashq (Damascus) and proclaimed the Abbasid Caliphate the true caliphate and legitimate successor to Mohammad. The Ummayad Dynasty was almost eradicated, but Abd al-Rahman I escaped to Iberia, founding the Emirate of Córdoba.. They founded Baghdad as the new capital of the caliphate in 750. In the same year they were proclamaid. They conquered all Ummayad remnants by 760 (except for Iberia).

Islamic Golden Age
As soon as they came into power, the Islamic Golden Age started and brought peace and prosperity to all of the Arabian world. The caliphs started to make Baghdad the largest and most prosperous city on Earth. The city grew explosively until it became the largest city on Earth by 800 AD. Caliph Al-Hadi crushed several rebellions during the caliphate's growth. His wife Khayzuran and his son Harun al-Rashid continued to bring glory and greatness to the empire. However the Caliphate wasn't able to hold it's outer provinces and gradually declined until it only controlled the Eastern Islamic World. The caliphate's power once again declined when the Mongol Empire, founded by Genghis Khan conquered large parts of Persia and Central Asia. The caliphate was on the verge of collapsing by various rebellions and wars to made it even worse. However, an ambitious and cunning man, Hassan al-Rashid, nephew of the then current caliph dethroned him and made himself caliph instead. He quickly mobilized his army crushed the rebllions and set up the defense of Baghdad. The Mongols arrived in 1258 at Baghdad and besieged the city for half a year. Before they could deal the final blow their forces were starved to death and less then 10,000 managed to escape. Their leader Hulagu Khan was furious because of their failure and instead set out to conquer the Roman Empire, which was largely succesful. However the Mongols managed to establish the Il-Khanate with Soltaniyeh as capital. At height it covered most of the Islamic world east of Mesopotamia, but it never managed to conquer Baghdad. At its height Soltaniyeh rivaled Baghdad, Angkor and Delhi in greatness and population. In 1400 Caliph Abdullah I conquered the Ilkhanate in an large invasion that took more than 20 years to complete. The Caliphate was an exotic and wealthy place in the beginning of the colonial era famous for luxerious goods such as incense, perfume, gold and marble. In 1600 an coalition of Rome and France invaded Mesopamia to gain control of this vital place with many luxeries. Fearing the empire would collapse, the capital was moved to Oasis of the Pillars (also known as City of Canals and Medina al-Kanuet) in the middle of the Arabian desert. The European forces managed to raid Baghdad and bring many luxeries back to Europe, but they were defeated by the Arabian army in 1603 by Damascus. Medina al-Kanuet was already a magnificient and large city, but it become even larger and greater after it became the capital. In 1750 the capital was moved back to Baghdad after a sandstorm and earthquake destroyed most of the city. Recently the Persian people rebelled against the Abbasid Caliphate, fearing they would become independent, the caliph made Persia an autonomous province on 12 October. Today the Abbasid Caliphate is the 2nd largest economy on Earth and is a both a economic and military superpower. ==Economy == Arabia is currently the second largest economy on Earth with a value of 13,000,000,000,000 USD, closely after the United States of America. It has a GDP growth larger than ? 7%. The majority of the people work in the service sector with 60%. 30% work in the industrial sector, only 10% works in the primary sector. Arabia's main exports are oil, petroleum products, jewels and gold. Arabia's main imports are machinery and foodstuffs. Tourism is an large sector for the economy with almost 75 million tourists visiting in a year and with revenue of more than 50 billion USD. Arabia is the world's largest exporter of oil and more than 30% of all oil on Earth is located in Arabia.

Government
Arabia is an absolute, hereditary, constitutional, elective and theocratic monarchy. The head of state of government is the caliph. The Caliph is responsible for all political and military affairs. The Grand Vizier is the Caliph's most trusted and important advisor, he acts as the regent when the caliph is unable to perform his duties and carries out all decrees of the Caliph. The current Caliph is Muhammad al-Rashid and his Grand Vizier is Abdullah Nuyafiq.

Foreign relations
Arabia has foreign relations with all countries. It first established relations with Europe through trade in the Antiquity. The Abbasid Caliph repelled any attempt at colonizing from Europe and isolated itself from Europe for this. The Abbasid Caliphate has friendly relations with the Moroccan? Empire and Lyrobia. Arabia is also a member and permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations.