[Sidenote: The Second ‘Abbásid Period (847-1258 A.D.).] The reigns of Mutawakkil (847-861 A.D.) and his immediate successors exhibit all the well-known features of Prætorian rule. Enormous sums were lavished on the Turkish soldiery, who elected and deposed the Caliph just as they pleased, and enforced their insatiable demands by mutiny and assassination. For a short time (869-907 A.D.) matters improved under the able and energetic Muhtadí and the four Caliphs who followed him; but the Turks soon regained the upper hand. From this date every vestige of real power is centred in the Generalissimo (_Amíru ’l-Umará_) who stands at the head of the army, while the once omnipotent Caliph must needs be satisfied with the empty honour of having his name stamped on the coinage and celebrated in the public prayers. The terrorism of the Turkish bodyguard was broken by the Buwayhids, a Persian dynasty, who ruled in Baghdád from 945 to 1055 A.D. Then the Seljúq supremacy began with Ṭughril Beg's entry into the capital and lasted a full century until the death of Sanjar (1157 A.D.). The Mongols who captured Baghdád in 1258 A.D. brought the pitiable farce of the Caliphate to an end. [Sidenote: Dynasties of the early ‘Abbásid Age.] "The empire of the Caliphs at its widest," as Stanley Lane-Poole observes in his excellent account of the Muḥammadan dynasties, "extended from the Atlantic to the Indus, and from the Caspian to the cataracts of the Nile. So vast a dominion could not long be held together. The first step towards its disintegration began in Spain, where ‘Abdu ’l-Raḥmán, a member of the suppressed Umayyad family, was acknowledged as an independent sovereign in A.D. 755, and the ‘Abbásid Caliphate was renounced for ever. Thirty years later Idrís, a great-grandson of the Caliph ‘Alí, and therefore equally at variance with ‘Abbásids and Umayyads, founded an ‘Alid dynasty in Morocco. The rest of the North African coast was practically lost to the Caliphate when the Aghlabid governor established his authority at Qayrawán in A.D. 800." [Sidenote: Dynasties of the Second Period. 872 A.D.] [Sidenote: The Sámánids (874-999 A.D.).]