The Caliphs

Haroon al Rashid is commonly portrayed as a martial caliph, one who menaced the Byzantine empire and led a tireless crusade against them. He is praised in Arab sources for defeating the Greeks time and again, all in defense of the umma’s faith and faithful. While this popular opinion isn’t entirely mistaken, it is remarkably exaggerated, a curiosity which itself deserves special attention. The caliphate’s forces dominated the battlefield, but no tangible gains were made despite their sustained success in war.

From our vantage point in the 21st century, it is clear that Haroon al Rashid is by far the most famous Arab caliph. His renown is not some modern phenomenon either: he may occasionally pop up as a cultural reference or on a trivia show, but he was immortalized early in the epic One Thousand and One Nights. His time in charge is generally thought of as the height of Arab power and culture, a claim we will investigate together in our many episodes on the legendary figure.

The sudden passing of Mohammad al Mahdi led his son Musa al Hadi to become the umma’s next leader sooner than anyone would have expected. With a wild disposition and little actual experience in administration, the twenty one year old became the youngest Abbasid to wield power. He didn’t get a chance to do very much, and there is very little agreement on his brief spell as caliph.

Al Mansur’s long reign transformed the caliphate in countless ways, most of them for the better. It provided a kind of stability the umma desperately needed to absorb the tumult of the Abbasid revolution and adjust to the new status quo. What followed was a golden age of prosperity, to be reaped by al Mahdi after having been sown by his father.

Perhaps most significant among al Mansur’s many triumphs was his founding of a new capital for his administration, a glorious new city which would come to be known as Baghdad. It was a decision that had a tremendous impact on Arab and world history, bringing the umma another step closer to the imperial models surrounding it.

The chaos of the Abbasid revolution gave foreign powers a rare opportunity to strike at the caliphate while it was paralyzed by internal strife. Things could have gone very badly for the Arabs but the unparalleled al Mansur proved as capable against these foes as he had those who had opposed him within the caliphate. His armies faced down assaults from all directions and successfully guarded his domain, though some fringes were secured better than others.

The Abbasids based their legitimacy on the fact that they were part of the prophet’s clan. This was not contested during the upheaval of their revolution, and in the following years al Saffah inflicted great pain on his enemies as a way of warning others not to mess with the new dynasty. Despite all this, al Mansur knew to expect a challenge from his clan sooner or later, a threat he took very seriously indeed.

One of al Mansur’s first acts as caliph was to lure Abu Muslim to his court and assassinate the powerful and popular governor. This led to immediate turmoil in the East, leaving him to contend with sporadic upheavals for almost an entire decade. The caliph proved up to the task: his adept management of all these challenges helped him emerge from the chaos with more control over the region than any of his predecessors.

Much of what people associate with the idea of a medieval Arab caliphate is rooted in the reign of our upcoming caliph. The foundation he laid for his dynasty is so solid that it makes the Umayyad era seem like little more than a formalized extension of the early Arab raids against their neighboring empires. It will take us a while to get through his reign, and before we start with that, we’ll take this episode to better orient ourselves within the world he is about to reshape.

Succession once again warrants its own episode. Al Saffah relied on three commanders to oversee different parts of his caliphate, and while the setup kept the new dynasty safe and stable, the ambitions of these three leaders clashed soon after the caliph passed away.