JOHN J. DONOHUE, The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012: Shaping Institutions for the Future, Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 44 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003). Pp. 399. $131.00 cloth
BOOK REVIEWS Medieval and Early Modern History and Culture
JOHN J. DONOHUE, The
Buwayhid
Dynasty
in
Iraq
334H./945
to
403H./1012:
Shaping
Institutions
for
the
Future, Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 44 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003). Pp. 399. $131.00 cloth
MAURICE A. POMERANTZ a1 a1 Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago; e-mail: mpomeran@uchicago.edu
In A. D. 945, eleven days after receiving his title from the ruling Abbasid Caliph al-Mustakfi, the Buwayhid amir Muizz al-Dawla deposed him. Like the green dome of the palace of Abu Jafar Mansur that had crumbled during the spring rains of 939, the Abbasid caliphate was collapsing inward. Not until the turn of the next century, with the loosening of the hold of the Buwayhid amirs on Baghdad, did a caliph make guarded efforts to assert his divinely sanctioned authority outside his sacred precinct. By that time, beyond the walls of the caliphal palace, monumental changes in the structure of power had long since occurred.
