Talk:Abbasid–Carolingian alliance

"three Umayyad ruler"

From the section "Charlemagne's alliance - Military alliance in Spain (777-778)":

The three Umayyad ruler also conveyed that the caliph of Baghdad, Muhammad al-Mahdi, was preparing an invasion force against Abd al-Rhaman I.

Quite apart from the grammatical error, who does this refer to? And why would any Ummayad ruler point out to Charlemagne that he was about to be attacked by the Abbasids? Maproom (talk) 15:21, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Now fixed by Per Honor et Gloria. Maproom (talk) 10:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Title of the article

The lead says that the alliance was "attempted and partially formed", shall we really say that is a real alliance ? I raised the case in the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history because I assume there are other cases in military history.

As for this precise article, the three sources referenced in the article do speak about the Abbasid–Carolingian alliance, but, I could not find any scholar results [1]. In French I did find a scholarly article from 2002 called "Les Carolingiens et le califat Abbisside" (I'm currently reading it). The article uses words like relations and connections rather than alliance. --Anneyh (talk) 14:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Contacts were initiated, gifts were exchanged, agreements apparently made, both parties found agreement in fighting against the Umayyads etc... as described in sources (Heck, p.172, Shalem, p.94-95, Scholz, p.16). I wouldn't mind if we could find a better title though, what is interesting is that we can document these relations during the period... just "relations" would be underwhelming though... could be something like "rapprochement"?? Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 22:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Rapprochement sounds good to my French ears (to be honest I did not know it was an English word), I understand it as close and peaceful relations but not something as strong as an alliance that I would imagine as an uninterrupted agreement throughout the period. In this case the title is changed, the alliance between Haroun-al-Rachid and Charlemagne should be mentioned in the lead (I take the opportunity to introduce another French source... "Diplomatie en Islam". Qantara - Mediterranean heritage (in French)., very nice website, not fully translated though but there are lots of photos). I still did not read the article "Les Carolingiens et le califat Abbisside", may take time. --Anneyh (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's actually a French word that we borrowed off you. I'm not sure if rapprochement would be the correct term as it means a reestablishment of relations or reconciliation between two countries, as can be seen here. John Hendo (talk) 20:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

A Google Books search on Carolingian+Abassid+alliance already provides quite a good sampling of what published historians have to say on the subject. The degree achieved by the alliance is described variously by historians, but "alliance" clearly seems to be a term used to describe the rapprochement that developed between the Carolingians and the Abassids. I tend to trust most Kenneth M. Setton on the subject, who explains "Charlemagne entered into some sort of alliance with the caliph Harun ar-Rashld" [2]. Best regards Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 22:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Historian	Opinion	Year	Type of analysis
Kenneth M. Setton	"When Charlemagne entered into some sort of alliance with the caliph Harun ar-Rashld..." [3]	2006	Historian
Arthur J. Zuckerman	"The outstanding instance of Abbasid-Carolingian collaboration was, according to Buckler, the alliance between Sulaiman, wali of Barcelona, and Charlemagne, consummated at Paderborn in 777." [4])	1972	Historian
Allan Harris Cutler	"set up to serve the interest of the Carolingian-Abbasid alliance directed against Umayyad Spain" [5]	1986	Historian
Avinoam Shalem	"It is likely that the Carolingians tried to seek an alliance with the Abbasids in order to weaken the power of their enemies at the time: the Byzantine empire and the Umayyads of Spain" [6]	2004	Historian
William D. Phillips Jr	"The alliance came to nothing" [7]	1983	Historian
Central Conference of American Rabbis	"the Carolingian policy of organizing an alliance with the Abbasid East against Ommayad Spain" [8]	1973
Gene W. Heck	"Carolingian-Abbasid alliance" [9]	2007	Historian
Clifford R. Backman	"Apart from the political fallout of these events — the most surprising one being a brief alliance between Charlemagne and the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid" [10]	2009	Historian
	"Charlemagne's building work in Jerusalem, and his fervent alliance with both the Abbasid Caliphate and the patriarch of Jerusalem" [11]	1988
Majid Khadduri	"One of the most famous cases in Western tradition is the exchange of emissaries between Charlemagne and Harun al-Rashid, in which the former, in addition to the exchange of valuable gifts, sought to establish an alliance with the Abassids" [12]	2006	Historian
Beryl Ratzer	"One of the notable Abassid Caliphs, Haroun al Rashid (783-809 CE), made an alliance with Charlemagne" [13]	2000	Historian
Daniel D. McGarry	"Harun-al-Raschid, who sought an alliance with the Frankish monarch Charlemagne" [14]	1976	Historian
Brian A. Catlos	"Yusuf, attempted to counter the authority of the capital by forging an alliance with Charlemagne, an event recalled, albeit distortedly, in the late eleventh-century French epic the Chanson de Roland" [15]	2004	Historian
Asher Kaufman	"The Franco- Syrian alliance began, he claimed, in the 8th century with the cooperation of Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Khalifa, and Charlemagne, the Frankish leader" [16]	2004	Historian
A History of Early Medieval Europe	"Charlemagne's alliance with the Abbasids" [17]		Historian

For me the main difficulty of using Abbasid-Carolingian alliance is that on the one hand most historian are positive about an alliance involving Charlemagne and Harun-al-Raschid, but on the other hand the term Caroligian refers to a much longer period (~741-876) and the Abbasid Caliphate is even longer (750-1258). There were long terms relation and an attested alliance for a shorter period of time. I haven't read through the French article I referred earlier in the discussion, by I find quite relevant that the word alliance is only used once on 21 pages. --Anneyh (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Hiya, popping in per request on my talkpage. The key issue here is to try and determine the term that is in most wide use among modern scholars on the topic. In checking Google Books and Google Scholar, the term "Abbasid-Carolingian alliance" does not seem to be in wide use. We went into this "alliance" question rather at length at Franco-Mongol alliance, and after extensive disputes, it resulted in one editor (who I see is currently editing on this page) being permanently banned from editing in the topic area. I hope that the dispute isn't just overflowing to here now? --Elonka 03:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Article Improvements-Meetup Students of Islamic Art

Added section title on Diplomatic Gifts We added a section on diplomatic gift that had been exchange between the abbasids and the carolingians. It made the article read more clearly to add a section titled Diplomatic Gifts. Within this section we added further accounts of specific gifts that were sent form the Abbasid Empire to the Carolingians Changed the Aftermath title at bottom of page to the title of Lasting influences. The definition of aftermath didn't fit well with the contents of the section. Fixed plagiarism The bottom section of the Embassies section, about the Horologium clock, was palgiarised from Moshe Gil, Ethel Broido A History of Palestine, 634-1099 Cambridge University Press, 1997 ISBN 0-521-59984-9. -In the background selection the removal of “partially formed” was done because nothing substantial or concrete was formed between the two empires. The sending of embassies does not imply the formation of something, therefore it could not really be partially formed. The alliance between the Abbasids and Carolingians was simply attempted.This change was added to include the gifts that were a feature in the embassies sent by Charlemagne to the Abbasid empire - “It is noted that Charlemagne made attempts to establish an open market between the Carolingians and Abbasids, possibly as a means for the Carolingians economically benefit from trade with the Abbasids” This change was added to provide further context as to why Charlemagne would have been motivated to pursue this relationship - “The embassies sent by Charlemagne possessed sundry royal red fabrics, a textile noted to be of value within the Abbasid realm. In addition, Charlemagne sponsored the construction of the Church of St. Mary in Jerusalem and its library, and send sums of money with all of his envoys.” This change was added to include the gifts that were a feature in the embassies sent by Charlemagne to the Abbasid empire - “with which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent Charlemagne the keys to the Holy Sepulcher and the site of Calvary, as well as a Jerusalem Banner (Kennedy).” This information was added to highlight the extent of contact experienced when these embassies moved between the two empires. - “In the Byzantine Empire from 723 to 842, Islam and Judaism influenced a Christian movement towards the destruction of images this time, an event known as "Iconoclasm".[11] According to Arnold Toynbee, it is the prestige of Islamic military successes in the 7-8th centuries that motivated Byzantine Christians into evaluating and adopting the Islamic precept of the destruction of idolatry images.[12] Charlemagne himself attempted to follow the iconoclastic precepts of the East Roman Emperor Leo Syrus, but this was stopped by Pope Hadrian I.”[12] This section was rewritten, because it did not appear to bare significant relevance to the overall topic of the article, and appeared to be create a distinct connection between the Byzantine Iconoclasm and one that may have occurred in Europe. The new changes are intended to still have relevant information and relatively not create a connection between a Western European Iconoclasm and the Byzantine iconoclasm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Derian.Trahan9704 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

ummayad not abbasid

ummayad was the one who rule al andalus not abbasid Xsax777 (talk) 05:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)