Abbasid Empire

The Umayyad Empire began to decline in the early 700's CE when its leaders became more and more detached from their people, especially the warriors who had fought for their conquest.[14] A new political group, the Abbasids, joined the upset warriors, Shia, and mawali, and overthrew the Umayyad in 750 CE during the Battle of the Zab. The remaining Umayyads fled to Iberia, and established the independent, Muslim Caliphate of Córdoba. The establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate started with moving the capital to Baghdad in Persia (now Iraq) in 762 CE and with this came the application of certain Persian political institutions. This included the creation of an absolute monarchy, which ruled without question, as well as an improved bureaucracy, led by the wazir who took most of the political and administrative responsibilities the caliph previously had.[15] The Abbasid also experienced a boom in trade, specifically that at sea, sending dhows that continued expansion, first by sending merchants and missionaries to India and Southeast Asia. Eventually conflict would arise due to a piracy issue in India, and the Abbasid would begin to conquer the western area of India which they traded with. The first expedition was led by Turkish general Qutb-ud-din Aybak and established the Mamluk Sultanate in 1206 CE, ruled by the sultan (Arabic: سلطان) which means "authority."

 
Christian Crusaders before Saladin in JerusalemHowever, the Abbasid government soon fell to the same vices as the Umayyad. Different factions in the royal court would fight for power, especially various groups of the Turkic peoples. The caliph began to rely on advisors from wealthy families, which would sometimes render him a mere puppet. This happened when the Persian Buyid dynasty was established in 934 CE. The Shia government lasted only a little over a century. They were quickly overpowered by the Turkish people who would create the Seljuq dynasty by 1051 CE, reestablishing the Sunni government. Nevertheless, succession issues and the squabbling factions would continue through the First Crusade, launched by Christian western Europeans in 1095 CE, which was largely ignored by the more powerful Muslim princes[16] despite its success at capturing Jerusalem. The next eight Crusades would succeed to varying degrees, and the Christians would lose considerable ground when the Muslims were united under Saladin in the late 1100s CE.[16] By 1291, after the final crusade and the fall of Acre, the Christians had lost all of the territory they originally gained.[16]

The increasingly divided regions of the Abbasid caliphate would face new challenges in the early 1200s CE, during the invasion of the central Asian nomadic peoples, the Mongols; led by the infamous Genghis Khan, the Mongols raided much of the eastern empire.[17] In 1258, Genghis Khan's grandson Hulegu Khan would finish his grandfather's work with the sacking of Baghdad and the death of the caliph.[17] The Mongols eventually retreated, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuq Turks. In 1401, the weak and limping caliphate was further plagued by the Turko-Mongol, Timur, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottomans. Based in Anatolia, by 1566 they would conquer the Mesopotamia region, the Balkans, Greece, Byzantium, most of Egypt, most of north Africa, and parts of Arabia, unifying them under the Ottoman Empire. The rule of the Ottoman sultans marked the end of the Postclassical Era in the Middle East, and of the caliphate.

IndiaChola Dynasty of south India, annexed most of south-east Asia during 10th-11th century. The Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place from the 12th century onwards, though earlier Muslim conquests made limited inroads into the region, beginning during the period of the ascendancy of the Rajput Kingdoms in North India, although Sindh and Multan were captured in 8th century.

Medieval ChinaPostclassical China saw the rise and fall of the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties and therefore improvements in its bureaucracy, the spread of Buddhism, and the advent of Neo-Confucianism. The Middle Ages were an unsurpassed era for Chinese ceramics and painting. Medieval architectural masterpieces the Great South Gate in Todaiji, Japan, and the Tien-ning Temple in Peking, China are some of the surviving constructs from this era.

 
Tang Dynasty circa 700 CESui DynastyMain article: Sui Dynasty
A new powerful dynasty began to rise in the 580's CE, amongst the divided factions of China. This was started when an aristocrat named Yang Jian married his daughter into the Northern Zhou Dynasty. He proclaimed himself Emperor Wen of Sui and appeased the nomadic military by abandoning the Confucian scholar-gentry. Emperor Wen soon led the conquest of the southern Chen Dynasty and united China once more under the Sui Dynasty. The emperor lowered taxes and constructed granaries that he used to prevent famine and control the market. Later Wen's son would murder him for the throne and declare himself Emperor Yang of Sui. Emperor Yang revived the Confucian scholars and the bureaucracy, much to anger of the aristocrats and nomadic military leaders. Yang became an excessive leader who overused China's resources for personal luxury and perpetuated exhaustive attempts to reconquer Korea. His military failures and neglect of the empire forced his own ministers to assassinate him in 618 CE, ending the Sui Dynasty.

 
Miniature statue of Buddha from the Tang DynastyTang DynastyMain article: Tang Dynasty
Fortunately, one of Yang's most respectable advisors, Li Yuan, was able to claim the throne quickly, preventing a chaotic collapse. He proclaimed himself Emperor Gaozu, and established the Tang Dynasty in 623 CE. The Tang saw expansion of China through conquest to Tibet in the west, Vietnam in the south, and Manchuria in the north. Tang emperors also improved the education of scholars in the Chinese bureaucracy. A Ministry of Rites was established and the examination system was improved to better qualify scholars for their jobs.[18] In addition, Buddhism became popular in China with two different strains between the peasantry and the elite, the Pure Land and Zen strains, respectively.[19] Greatly supporting the spread of Buddhism was Empress Wu, who additionally claimed an unofficial "Zhou Dynasty" and displayed China's tolerance of a woman ruler, which was rare at the time. However, Buddhism would also experience some backlash, especially from Confucianists and Taoists. This would usually involve criticism about how it was costing the state money, since the government was unable to tax Buddhist monasteries, and additionally sent many grants and gifts to them.[20]

The Tang dynasty began to decline under the rule of Emperor Xuanzong, who began to neglect the economy and military and caused unrest amongst the court officials due to the excessive influence of his concubine, Yang Guifei, and her family.[21] This eventually sparked a revolt in 755 CE.[21] Although the revolt failed, subduing it required involvement with the unruly nomadic tribes outside of China and distributing more power to local leaders—leaving the government and economy in a degraded state. The Tang dynasty officially ended in 907 CE and various factions led by the aforementioned nomadic tribes and local leaders would fight for control of China in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

Song DynastyMain article: Song Dynasty
By 960 CE, most of China had been reunited under the Song Dynasty, although it lost territories in the north and could not defeat one of the nomadic tribes there—the Liao Dynasty of the highly sinicized Khitan people. From then on, the Song would have to pay tribute to avoid invasion and thus set the precedent for other nomadic kingdoms to oppress them. The Song also saw the revival of Confucianism in the form of Neo-Confucianism. This had the affect of putting the Confucian scholars at a higher status than aristocrats or Buddhists and also intensified the reduction of power in women. The infamous practice of foot binding developed in this period as a result. Eventually the Liao Dynasty in the north was overthrown by the Jin Dynasty of the Manchu-related Jurchen nomads. The new Jin kingdom invaded northern China, leaving the Song to flee farther south and creating the Southern Song Dynasty in 1126 CE. There, cultural life flourished.

Yuan DynastyMain article: Yuan Dynasty
By 1227, the Mongols had conquered the Western Xia kingdom northwest of China. Soon the Mongols incurred upon the Jin empire of the Jurchens. Chinese cities were soon besieged by the Mongol hordes that showed little mercy for those who resisted and the Southern Song Chinese were quickly losing territory. In 1271 the current great khan, Kublai Khan, claimed himself Emperor of China and officially established the Yuan Dynasty. By 1290, all of China was under control of the Mongols, marking the first time they were ever completely conquered by a foreign invader; the new capital was established at Khanbaliq (modern-day Beijing). Kublai Khan segregated Mongol culture from Chinese culture by discouraging interactions between the two peoples, separating living spaces and places of worship, and reserving top administrative positions to Mongols, thus preventing Confucian scholars to continue the bureaucratic system. Nevertheless, Kublai remained fascinated with Chinese thinking, surrounding himself with Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian advisors.

Mongol women displayed a contrasting independent nature compared to the Chinese women who continued to be suppressed. Mongol women often rode out on hunts or even to war. Kublai's wife, Chabi, was a perfect example of this; Chabi advised her husband on several political and diplomatic matters; she convinced him that the Chinese were to be respected and well-treated in order to make them easier to rule.[22] However this was not enough to affect Chinese women's position, and the increasingly Neo-Confucian successors of Kublai further repressed Chinese and even Mongol women.

The Black Death, which would later ravage Western Europe, had its beginnings in Asia, where it wiped out large populations in China in 1331.

JapanDuring this time period Japan went under the process of sinicization, or the impression of Chinese cultural and political ideas. Japan sinicized mostly because the emperor and other leaders at the time were largely impressed by China's bureaucracy. The major influences China had on this region were the spread of Confucianism, the spread of Buddhism, and the establishment of a bureaucracy (although it was vulnerable to favoritism towards the wealthy). In Japan, these later medieval centuries saw a return to the traditional Shinto faith and the continuing popularity of Zen Buddhism.

Medieval Japan is marked by the beginning of the Asuka period. During this time, Yamato dynasty is established, along with the beginning of recorded Japanese history and a capital in the southern Nara region. In 600 CE, the Japanese send their first diplomatic mission to China, catalyzing the process of adoption of Chinese culture. The Yamato establish their power with a Chinese-based bureaucracy and encourage the spread of Buddhism, discovered through China. The latter was achieved particularly through the construction of Buddhist temples in cities and the countryside.[23]

Mongol EmpireThe Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Medieval Asia was the kingdom of the Khans. Never before had any person controlled as much land as Genghis Khan. He built his power unifying separate Mongol tribes before expanding his kingdom south and west. He and his grandson, Kublai Khan, controlled lands in China, Burma, Central Asia, Russia, Iran, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Estimates are that the Mongol armies reduced the population of China by nearly a third. Genghis Khan was a pagan who tolerated nearly every religion, and their culture often suffered the harshest treatment from Mongol armies. The Khan armies pushed as far west as Jerusalem before being defeated in 1260.