The Caliphates

One office, and the polities that existed to claim it. The line from Medina to Damascus to Baghdad is the one usually meant by the word, and it spent its whole length contracting while the claim stayed universal — but from the tenth century it was not the only claimant, and a rival caliphate in Cairo and a restored Umayyad one in Cordoba are here on the same terms. Succession runs inside the line and stops at its edge: a polity that says the office was usurped is not its heir, and no edge joins them.

The line below is a time axis. Position on it is date, so concurrency is visible: concurrent polities sit side by side rather than in sequence.

32 sourced edges run between this region and another, to Sasanian Empire, Tahirid Dynasty, Buyid Confederation, Aghlabid Emirate, Rustamid Imamate, Tulunid Emirate, Ikhshidid Emirate, Ayyubid Sultanate, Mamluk Sultanate, Mirdasid Emirate, Mongol Empire, Jafnid Dynasty, Shirvanshahs, Emirate of Derbend, Bagratid Armenia, Ottoman Empire, Nizari Isma'ili State, Qarmatian State of Bahrayn, Sulayhid Dynasty, Ibadi Imamate of Oman, Visigothic Kingdom, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ammarid Emirate of Tripoli, Ziyadid Dynasty, Taifa of Seville, Zirid Dynasty, Midrarid Emirate of Sijilmasa, Hamdanid Dynasty and Sharifate of Mecca. Those are not drawn on this line — a thread that crossed regions would assert a sequence nobody cited — but they are on each polity’s own page.