Never again would caliphs wield as much political and spiritual power over such a massive swath of territory as they had during the heyday of the Rightly Guided caliphs and the Umayyads. Nevertheless, the Abbasid age (which lasted until 1258, when the caliphate was destroyed by the Mongols [see chapter 9]), would come to be known as the golden age of Islam, during which art, architecture, poetry, philosophy, medicine, and scientific inquiry flourished.
