Al-Mamun (caliph)

Abu ul-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid (in Arabic: أبو العباس عبد الله بن هارون الرشيد, Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAb d Allah ibn Hārūn ar-Rashīd; September 14, 786 – August 9, 833), known by his real name Al-Mamun was an Abbasid caliph, the seventh to bear the title, son of Harun al-Rashid, the intellectual caliph and poet who inspired the famous work The Thousand and One Nights, and who began the period known as the Golden Age of Islam. His mother Marajil was a slave concubine of Persian origin from Badghís, present-day Afghanistan.

Al-Mamun reigned between 813 and 833. He succeeded his half-brother al-Amin after a civil war, the Fourth Fitna, during which the cohesion of the Abbasid caliphate was weakened due to rebellions and the rise of strong local leaders. Much of his reign was dedicated to pacification campaigns. Well-educated and with considerable interest in literature and study, al-Mamun promoted the Greco-Arabic translation movement, the flourishing of education and science in Baghdad, and the publication of the now-known book of al-Khuarismi. like "Algebra." He is also known for his support of the doctrine of Mu'tazilism and for imprisoning Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, the increase in religious persecution (mihna) and for the return of war to great scale against the Byzantine Empire.

The reign of this caliph is considered the most glorious and greatest in the history of Islam, and is always mentioned as the beginning of Arab scientific splendor. It can be said that as ruler, Al-Ma'mún encouraged among his people the transfer of all existing brawls and disputes to the courts, basing all rhetorical and dialectical arguments on logical, theological and legal matters.

He established his House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) in the city of Baghdad, combining an academy with a library in the same space. The library was composed of books that touched on all the disciplines known at the time, including literature, natural sciences and logic. The House of Knowledge was a place where all the important scientific and philosophical works of the ancient world, especially coming from ancient Greece and Egypt, were constantly translated into Arabic. It was in this golden age that Arab masters brought algebra and its special characters (Arabic numerals) to Western Europe from India. Among his contributions it is worth mentioning his attempt to measure the terrestrial meridian. However, because he expressed the result obtained in cubits (and his exact equivalent is unknown today), some authors disparage his work.

Abbasid civil war

In 802 Harun al-Rashid, father of al-Mamun and al-Amin, ordered that al-Amin succeed him as caliph, and that al-Mamun serve as governor of Khorasan and as caliph after al-Amin's death. In the last days of Harun's life his health was worsening and he saw in a dream Musa ibn Ya'far sitting in a bedroom praying and crying, which made Harun remember how hard he had fought to establish his own caliphate. He knew the personalities of his two sons and decided that for the good of the Abbasid dynasty, al-Mamun should be the caliph after his death, which intimidated a group of his courtiers. One of the courtiers, Fadl ibn Rabi', did not comply with Haroun's last wishes and convinced many that Haroun's wishes had not changed. Subsequently, Haroun's three other courtiers who had sworn allegiance to him by supporting al-Mamooun criticized Fadl's arguments, but he argued that, since Haroun was not in his senses, he should not obey his decision. Although al-Mamun was the eldest of the brothers, his mother was Persian while al-Amin's mother was from the Abbasid family.

After Haroun's death in 809, the relationship between the brothers deteriorated. In response to al-Mamun's independence movements, al-Amin declared his own son Musa as his successor. This violation of al-Rashid's will led to a conflict over succession. Al-Amin gathered an immense army in Baghdad with 'Isa ibn Mahan at its head in 811 and invaded Khorasan, but al-Mamun's Khorasanian general, Tahir ibn Husayn, destroyed the army and invaded Iraq, laying siege to Baghdad in 812. In 813 Baghdad fell, al-Amin was beheaded by orders of General Tahir, and al-Mamun became the undisputed caliph.

Al-Mamun remained in the city of Merv in Khorasan for several more years after the civil war, before returning to the capital, Baghdad, in 818. The civil war was a major episode. The long siege of Baghdad and the turmoil that followed its fall to al-Mamun's troops had left large parts of the city in ruins, and the assassination of Al-Amin, the first time in Abbasid history that a caliph had been assassinated, cast a long shadow over the victorious al-Amun's proclamations of legitimacy.

Internal conflict

Unrest occurred in Iraq during the early years of al-Mamun's reign, while the caliph continued to live in the city of Merv. Al-Mamoun had left the rest of the caliphate under the control of several of his lieutenants, including Hasan ibn Sahl, the brother of his grand vizier Fazl ibn Sahl. After the civil war there was a loss of respect for the authorities and separatist tendencies appeared in the form of revolts in Syria, Egypt and the Caspian provinces, as well as opposition in Baghdad from the ancient aristocracy of the Abná, who were the original sympathizers of the Abbasid revolution, as well as by the supporters of the Alides (the descendants of Ali).

On November 13, 815, Muhammad ibn Ja'far al-Sadiq (nicknamed Al-Dibaj, son of Ja'far as-Sadiq) proclaimed himself caliph in Mecca. He was defeated and quickly abdicated, stating that he had only become caliph because news of al-Mamun's death had reached him. Meanwhile, crime in Baghdad led to the formation of neighborhood guards.

In 817, trying to quell the Shia revolts that were taking place throughout his kingdom, al-Ma'mun began to take a series of important measures, in particular the implementation of pro-alid policies. The alides, that is, the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, considered themselves the rightful successors to the caliphate, and saw not only the Umayyads but also the Abbasids as usurpers, statements that caliphs of both houses viewed unfavorably. Al-Mamoun was aware, as the Umayyads had been, that the Shiites, who made up a large part of the population of Iran, considered the Alid imams (Ahlul Bayt) as their leaders, the which they had to obey in all aspects of life, spiritual and earthly, as they were considered the royal caliphs of Muhammad. Still in Khorasan, al-Mamun made an unprecedented decision that alarmed and dismayed many in his Abbasid clan, by nominate in 817 Alid Ali ibn Musa al-Rida (also known as Imam Reza) as his successor. Al-Mamoun justified this decision by stating that al-Rida —“the acceptable one,” whom the Twelver Shiites consider their eighth Imam — was the most qualified person for the political leadership of the community. Al-Mamun also adopted the green color of the Alides to replace the black color of the Abbasids as the official color, and later in his career he had Ali publicly declared as the 'best' person after the Prophet Muhammad, thus denying the superiority of Muhammad's first two successors, Abu Bakr and Umar, a point that was by then becoming a matter of dogma among the early Sunnis. Thus, the appointment of al- Rida as his successor, the caliph's generally pro-Shia attitude, and the fact that al-Mamoun continued to live in Merv, a prominent city populated by Persians, and not in the Arab center of the caliphate in Iraq, generated great discontent among his Abbasid clan, who began to call "persophiles" to the caliph and his advisors and to criticize them as 'anti-Arab.' In particular, they attributed this attitude of the caliph to the "evil" influence of his grand vizier Fal ibn Sahl, who was pro-Persian.

Al-Mamun's pro-Alide intentions, of course, were not purely altruistic but rather his own political calculations with which he hoped that the Shiites would not rise up against their own imam. According to some traditions, al-Mamun offered Imam Reza the caliphate, which he rejected several times. Finally, he offered to be his successor, and when the Imam refused again, he threatened to kill him if he did not accept. Imam Reza, eighth descendant of Muhammad, accepted reluctantly and with the condition of not taking any part in the affairs of the government or commanding or issuing laws. Being thus named his heir, the imam was forced to move from Medina to Merv. Al-Mamoun's plan was to keep Imam Reza under surveillance, while reducing discontent among the Shiites with the promise of succession. His plans were not successful, however, as Shiism became even more popular with the growing popularity of the Imam in Merv. People from all regions of the Muslim world traveled to see the prophet's grandson and to listen to his teachings and guidance. Al-Mamun tried to get the greatest scholars of different religions from his House of Wisdom to humiliate the Imam, and organized several debates for this purpose between them and the Imam. Imam Reza, however, emerged victorious.

Meanwhile, the Arabs of his Abbasid clan in Baghdad were furious at his decisions, and fearing that their empire would be taken from them, began to band together to overthrow al-Mamun, swearing allegiance to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, his uncle. of al-Mamun. In accordance with Shia tradition, Imam Reza informed al-Mamoun that his grand vizier, Fazl ibn Sahl, had not been informing him of everything. Be that as it may, al-Mamun found out about the Arab plans, and the imam advised him to solve the problem by removing the title of successor, but al-Mamun would have refused. Al-Mamun then decided, in 818, to return to Baghdad.

Shortly before his return, on February 13, 818, his vizier Fadl was mysteriously found dead in a bath in the city of Sarakhs, in northern Khorasan. Al-Mamun left for Baghdad on April 12, 818 together with Imam Reza. Around June 6, 818, while on their way to Baghdad, Imam Reza also died mysteriously in the city of Tus. Although al-Mamun ordered him to be buried next to his father Harun al-Rashid and showed extreme regret during the funeral rite and stayed at the site for three days, the widespread suspicion was that al-Mamun had murdered him by poisoning him. According to Wilferd Madelung, the presence of the vizier and the imam would have made any attempt at reconciliation with the powerful Abbasid opponents in Baghdad virtually impossible, and the consensus is that in order to gain the support of the Abbasids and establish a new base for his government in Baghdad, Al-Mamun would have decided to get rid of Imam Reza by poisoning and order the death of Fazl ibn Sahl. After the death of the imam, a great revolt took place in Khorasan. Al-Mamun tried unsuccessfully to absolve himself of responsibility for the crime.

Whatever the case, after the death of Imam Reza, al-Mamun returned to the use of the color black Abbasid for ceremonial uses, and finally made a triumphal entry into Baghdad in August 819, after ten years of absence and already as the ruler of a united caliphate. The year 819 thus marks the beginning of the second part of Ma'mun's caliphate, in which he assumed a more personal and secure role.