In the last episode we talked about the founding of Baghdad and the Caliph Harun al-Rashid building the house of wisdom which brought in the academic pinnacle of the Islamic Golden Age. This episode is a story of three brothers, it is a story about how the power afforded to an unelected monarch can help progress but can also result in disaster. The academic tradition put in place by Harun al-Rashid would continue with his son Al-Amin and in particular with his son al-Mamun. His third son however al-Mutasim would oversee a shift in the caliphate towards an empire based primarily on a military comprised mainly of foreign soldiers, this shift would signal the beginning of the end of Abbasid power and the Islamic Golden Age. Al-Mutasim went as far as to build a whole new capital city and later on in the episode we will take a look at the archaeology of that capital. First though, before we get to al-Mutasim and how he changed the face of the caliphate we are going to talk about his two older brothers. After their father Harun al-Rashid died in 809 it plunged the empire into chaos with al-Amin in Baghdad and al-Mamun in Persia, fighting for control and the right to continue their father’s legacy. So, let’s begin with the Abbasid civil war.