Part 17

Mansur could now give his mind to the founding of the new capital. When the tumult of the Rawendis took place he saw clearly that his personal safety was not assured in Hashimiya,[29] where a riot of the populace could be very dangerous, and his troops were continually exposed to the perverting influence of the fickle and disloyal citizens of Kufa. He had just made choice of the admirable site of the old market-town of Bagdad when the tidings came of the rising of Mahommed in Medina. In those days he saw that he had been very imprudent to denude himself of troops, and decided to keep henceforth always with him a body of 30,000 soldiers. So Bagdad, or properly "the round city" of Mansur, on the western bank of the Tigris, was built as the capital. Strictly it was a huge citadel, in the centre of which was the palace of the caliph and the great mosque. But around this nucleus there soon grew up the great metropolis which was to be the centre of the civilized world as long as the Caliphate lasted.[30] The building lasted three years and was completed in the year 149 (A.D. 766). That year is really the beginning of the new era. "The Omayyads," says the Spanish writer Ibn Hazm, "were an Arabic dynasty; they had no fortified residence, nor citadel; each of them dwelt in his villa, where he lived before becoming caliph; they did not desire that the Moslems should speak to them as slaves to their master, nor kiss the ground before them or their feet; they only gave their care to the appointment of able governors in the provinces of the empire. The Abbasids, on the contrary, were a Persian dynasty, under which the Arab tribal system, as regulated by Omar, fell to pieces; the Persians of Khorasan were the real rulers, and the government became despotic as in the days of Chrosroes." The reign of Abu'l-Abbas and the first part of that of Mansur had been almost a continuation of the former period. But now his equals in birth and rank, the Omayyads and the Alids, had been crushed; the principal actors in the great struggle, the leaders of the propaganda and Abu Moslim were out of the way; the caliph stood far above all his subjects; and his only possible antagonists were the members of his own family.

'Isa b. Musa had been designated, as we have seen, by Abu'l-Abbas as successor to Mansur. The latter having vainly tried to compel 'Isa to renounce his right of succession, in favour of Mansur's son Mahommed al-Mahdi, produced false witnesses who swore that he had done so. However unwillingly, 'Isa was obliged at last to yield, but it was understood that, in case of Mahommed's death, the succession should return to 'Isa. One of the false witnesses was, it is asserted, Khalid b. Barmak, the head of that celebrated family the Barmecides (q.v.), which played so important a part in the reign of Harun al-Rashid. This Khalid, who was descended from an old sacerdotal family in Balkh, and had been one of the trusty supporters of Abu Moslim, Mansur appointed as minister of finance.

A son of Mahommed the Alid had escaped to India, where, with the connivance of the governor Omar b. Hafs Hazarmerd, he had found refuge with an Indian king. Mansur discovered his abode, and caused him to be killed. His infant son was sent to Medina and delivered to his family. Omar Hazarmerd lost his government and received a command in Africa, where he died in 770.

In A.H. 158 (A.D. 775) Mansur undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca, but succumbed to dysentery at the last station on the route. He was about sixty-five years of age, and had reigned for twenty-two years. He was buried at Mecca. He was a man of rare energy and strength of mind. His ambition was boundless and no means, however perfidious, were despised by him. But he was a great statesman and knew how to choose able officers for all places. He was thrifty and anxious to leave to his son a full treasury. He seems to have cherished the ideal that this son, called Mahommed b. Abdallah, after the Prophet, should fulfil the promises of peace and happiness that had been tendered to the believers, and therefore to have called him al-Mahdi. For that purpose it was necessary that he should have the means not only to meet all state expenses, but also to be bounteous. But from the report of the historian Haitham b. 'Adi[31] about the last discourse which father and son had together, we gather that the former had misgivings in regard to the fulfilment of his wishes.

Khalid b. Barmak took the greatest care of the revenues, but contrived at the same time to consult his own interests. Mansur discovered this in the same year in which he died, and threatened him with death unless he should pay to the treasury three millions of dirhems within three days. Khalid already had so many friends that the sum was brought together with the exception of 30,000 dirhems. At that moment tidings came about a rising in the province of Mosul, and a friend of Khalid said to the caliph that Khalid was the only man capable of putting it down. Thereupon Mansur overlooked the deficiency and gave Khalid the government of Mosul. "And," said a citizen of that town, "we had such an awe and reverence for Khalid, that he appeased the disorders, almost without punishing anybody."

3. _Reign of Mahdi._--As soon as Mansur was dead, Rabi', his client and chamberlain, induced all the princes and generals who accompanied the caliph, to take the oath of allegiance to his son Mahommed al-Mahdi, who was then at Bagdad. Isa b. Musa hesitated, but was compelled to give in. In 776 Mahdi constrained him for a large bribe to renounce his right of succession in favour of his sons, Musa and Harun. Mansur wrote in his testament to his son that he had brought together so much money that, even if no revenue should come in for ten years, it would suffice for all the wants of the state. Mahdi, therefore, could afford to be munificent, and in order to make his accession doubly welcome to his subjects, he began by granting a general amnesty to political prisoners. Among these was a certain Ya'qub b. Da'ud, who, having insinuated himself into the confidence of the caliph, especially by discovering the hiding places of certain Alids, was afterwards (in 778) made prime minister. The provincial governors in whom his father had placed confidence, Mahdi superseded by creatures of his own.

In Khorasan many people were discontented. The promises made to them during the war against the Omayyads had not been fulfilled, and the new Mahdi did not answer at all to their ideal. A revolt in 160 under the leadership of a certain Yusuf b. Ibrahïm, surnamed al-Barm, was suppressed by Yazid b. Mazyad, who, after a desperate struggle, defeated Yusuf, took him prisoner and brought him in triumph to Bagdad, where he with several of his officers was killed and crucified. In the following year, Mahdi was menaced by a far more dangerous revolt, led by a sectary, known generally as Mokanna (q.v.), or "the veiled one," because he always appeared in public wearing a mask. He took up his abode in the Transoxianian province of Kish and Nakhshab, where he gathered around him a great number of adherents. After some successes, the pretender was ultimately cornered at the castle of Sanam near Kish, and took poison together with all the members of his family. His head was cut off and sent to Mahdi in the year 163.

Mahdi had been scarcely a year on the throne when he resolved to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca. The chroniclers relate that on this occasion for the first time camels loaded with ice for the use of the caliph came to Mecca. Immediately on his arrival in the Holy City he applied himself, at the request of the inhabitants, to the renewal of the curtains which covered the exterior walls of the Ka'ba. For a very long time no care had been taken to remove the old covering when a new one was put on; and the accumulated weight caused uneasiness respecting the stability of the walls. Mahdi caused the house to be entirely stripped and anointed with perfumes, and covered the walls again with a single cloth of great richness. The temple itself was enlarged and restored. On this occasion he distributed considerable largesses among the Meccans. From Mecca Mahdi went to Medina, where he caused the mosque to be enlarged, and where a similar distribution of gifts took place. During his stay in that city he formed for himself a guard of honour, composed of 500 descendants of the Ansar,[32] to whom he assigned a quarter in Bagdad, named after them the Qati'a (Fief) of the Ansar. Struck by the difficulties of every kind which had to be encountered by poor pilgrims to Mecca from Bagdad and its neighbourhood, he ordered Yaqtin, his freedman, to renew the milestones, to repair the old reservoirs, and to dig wells and construct cisterns at every station of the road where they were missing. He also had new inns built and decayed ones repaired. Yaqtin remained inspector of the road till 767.

During the reign of Mansur the annual raids against the Byzantines had taken place almost without intermission, but the only feat of importance had been the conquest of Laodicea, called "the burnt" ([Greek: hae katakekaumenae]), by Ma'yuf b. Yahya in the year 770. At first the armies of Mahdi were not successful. The Greeks even conquered Marash (Germanicia) and annihilated the Moslem army sent from Dabiq. In 778, however, Hasan b. Qahtaba made a victorious raid as far as Adhruliya (Dorylaeum); it was on his proposition that Mahdi resolved on building the frontier town called Hadath (Adata), which became an outpost. In 779 the caliph decided on leading his army in person. He assembled his army in the plains of Baradan north of Bagdad and began his march in the early spring of 780, taking with him his second son Harun, and leaving his elder son Musa as his lieutenant in Bagdad. Traversing Mesopotamia and Syria, he entered Cilicia, and established himself on the banks of the Jihan (Pyramus). Thence he despatched an expeditionary force, nominally under the command of Harun, but in reality under that of his tutor, the Barmecide Yahya b. Khalid. Harun captured the fortress Samalu after a siege of thirty-eight days, the inhabitants surrendering on condition that they should not be killed or separated from one another. The caliph kept faith with them, and settled them in Bagdad, where they built a monastery called after their native place. In consequence of this feat, Mahdi made Harun governor of the whole western part of the empire, including Azerbaijan and Armenia. Two years later war broke out afresh between the Moslems and the Greeks. Leo IV., the East Roman emperor, had recently died, leaving the crown to Constantine VI. This prince being only ten years old, his mother Irene acted as regent and assumed the title Augusta. By her orders an army of 90,000 men, under the command of Michael Lachanodrakon, entered Asia Minor. The Moslems, on their side, invaded Cilicia under the orders of Abdalkabir who, being afraid of encountering the enemy, retired with his troops. Irritated by this failure, the caliph in 781 sent Harun, accompanied by his chamberlain Rabi', with an army of nearly 100,000 men, with orders to carry the war to the very gates of Constantinople. The patrician Nicetas, count of Opsikion, who sought to oppose his march, was defeated by Harun's general, Yazid b. Mazyad, and put to flight. Harun then marched against Nicomedia, where he vanquished the domesticus, the chief commander of the Greek forces, and pitched his camp on the shores of the Bosporus. Irene took alarm, sued for peace, and obtained a truce for three years, but only on the humiliating terms of paying an annual tribute of 90,000 denarii, and supplying the Moslems with guides and markets on their way home. This brilliant success so increased Mahdi's affection for Harun that he appointed him successor-designate after Musa and named him _al-Rashid_ ("the follower of the right cause"). Three years later, he resolved even to give to him the precedence in the succession instead of Musa, yielding to the importunity of Khaizoran, the mother of the two princes, and to his own predilection. It was necessary first to obtain from Musa a renunciation of his rights; and for that purpose he was recalled from Jorjan, where he was engaged on an expedition against the rebels of Tabaristan. Musa, informed of his father's intentions, refused to obey this order, and Mahdi determined to march in person against him. But, after his arrival at Masabadhan, a place in Jabal (Media, the later Persian Irak), he died suddenly, at the age of only forty-three. Some attribute his death to an accident met with in hunting; others believe him to have been poisoned. Some European scholars have suspected Musa of having been concerned in it, but of this we have no proof whatever.

The reign of Mahdi was a time of great prosperity. Much was done for the organization of the huge empire; agriculture and commerce flourished; the revenues were increasing, whilst the people fared well. The power of the state was acknowledged even in the far east: the emperor of China, the king of Tibet, and many Indian princes concluded treaties with the caliph. He was an ardent champion of the orthodox faith, repudiating all the extravagant doctrine preached by the Abbasid missionaries and formerly professed by his father. In particular he persecuted mercilessly the Manichaeans and all kinds of freethinkers.

4. _Reign of Hadi_.--On the death of Mahdi, Harun, following the advice of Yahya. b. Khalid, sent the insignia of the Caliphate, with letters of condolence and congratulation, to Musa in Jorjan, and brought the army which had accompanied Mahdi peacefully back from Media to Bagdad. Musa returned in all haste to the capital, and assumed the title of _al-Hadi_ ("he who directs"). The accession of a new caliph doubtless appeared to the partisans of the house of Ali a favourable opportunity for a rising. Hosain b. Ali b. Hasan III. raised an insurrection at Medina with the support of numerous adherents, and proclaimed himself caliph. Thence he went to Mecca, where on the promise of freedom many slaves flocked to him, and many pilgrims also acknowledged him. Suleiman b. Mansur, the caliph's representative in the pilgrimage of that year, was entrusted with the command against him. Hosain was attacked at Fakh, 3 m. from Mecca, and perished in the combat with many other Alids. His maternal uncle, Idris b. Abdallah, a brother of Mahommed and Ibrahim, the rivals of Mansur, succeeded in escaping, and fled to Egypt, whence by the help of the postmaster, himself a secret partisan of the Shi'ites, he passed into West Africa, where at a later period his son founded the Idrisite dynasty in Fez (see MOROCCO).

Hadi, who had never been able to forget that he had narrowly escaped being supplanted by his brother, formed a plan for excluding him from the Caliphate and transmitting the succession to his own son Ja'far. To this he obtained the assent of his ministers and the principal chiefs of his army, with the exception of Yahya b. Khalid, Harun's former tutor, who showed such firmness and boldness that Hadi cast him into prison and resolved on his death. Some historians say that he had already given orders for his execution, when he himself was killed (September 14th, 786) by his mother Khaizoran, who had systematically and successfully intrigued against him with the object of gaining the real power for herself. Hadi, indignant at the fact that she was generally regarded as the real source of authority, had attempted to poison her, and Khaizoran, hoping to find a more submissive instrument of her will in her second and favourite son, caused Hadi to be smothered with cushions by two young slaves whom she had presented to him. She herself died three years later.

5. _Reign of Harun al-Rashid_.--We have now reached the most celebrated name among the Arabian caliphs, celebrated not only in the East, but in the West as well, where the stories of the _Thousand and One Nights_ have made us familiar with that world which the narrators represent in such brilliant colours. Harun ascended the throne without opposition. His first act was to choose as prime minister his former tutor, the faithful Yahya b. Khalid, and to confide important posts to the two sons of Yahya, Fadl and Ja'far, of whom the former was his own foster-brother, the latter his intimate friend. The Barmecide family were endowed in the highest degree with those qualities of generosity and liberality which the Arabs prized so highly, and the chronicles never weary in their praises. Loaded with all the burdens of government, Yahya brought the most distinguished abilities to the exercise of his office. He put the frontiers in a good state of defence; he filled the public treasury, and carried the splendour of the throne to the highest point. His sons, especially Fadl, were worthy of their father.

Although the administration of Hãrun's states was committed to skilful hands, yet the first years of his long reign were not free from troubles. Towards the year 176 (A.D. 792-793) a man of the house of Ali, named Yahya b. Abdallah, another brother of Mahommed and Ibrahim, who had taken refuge in the land of Dailam on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, succeeded in forming a powerful party, and publicly claimed the Caliphate. Hãrun immediately sent against him an army of 50,000 men, under the command of Fadl, whom he made governor of all the Caspian provinces. Reluctant, however, to fight against a descendant of the Prophet, Fadl first attempted to induce him to submit by promising him safety and a brilliant position at the court of Bagdad. Yahyaaccepted the proposal, but required that the caliph should send him letters of pardon countersigned by the highest legal authorities and the principal personages of the empire. Harun consented and Yahya went to Bagdad, where he met with a splendid reception. At the end of some months, however, he was calumniously accused of conspiracy, and the caliph, seizing the opportunity of ridding himself of a possible rival, threw him into prison, where he died, according to the majority of the historians, of starvation. Others say that Ja'far b. Yahya b. Khalid, to whose care he had been entrusted, suffered him to escape, and that this was the real cause of Harun's anger against the Barmecides (q.v.). Dreading fresh insurrections of the Alids, Harun secured the person of another descendant of Ali, Musa b. Ja'far, surnamed al-Kazim, who enjoyed great consideration at Medina, and had already been arrested and released again by Mahdi. The unfortunate man was brought by the caliph himself to Bagdad, and there died, apparently by poison.

Meanwhile Harun did not forget the hereditary enemy of Islam. In the first year of his reign all the strong places of Kinnesrin and Mesopotamia were formed into a special province, which received the name of al-'Awasim ("the defending fortresses"), with Manbij (Hierapolis) as its capital. The building of the fortress of Hadath having been completed, Harun committed to Faraj the Turk the task of rebuilding and fortifying the city of Tarsus. Thanks to these and similar measures, the Moslem armies were able to advance boldly into Asia Minor. Almost every year successful raids were made, in the year 797 under the command of the caliph himself, so that Irene was compelled to sue for peace. An attack by the Khazars called the caliph's attention from his successes in Asia Minor. This people had made an irruption into Armenia, and their attack had been so sudden that the Moslems and Christians were unable to defend themselves, and 100,000 had been reduced to captivity. Two valiant generals, Khozaima b. Khazim and Yazid b. Mazyad, marched against the Khazars and drove them out of Armenia.

In the midst of the cares of war, Harun was assiduous in his religious duties, and few years passed without his making the pilgrimage. Having determined to fix the order of succession in so formal a manner as to take away all pretext for future contentions, he executed a deed by which he appointed his eldest son Mahommed his immediate heir, and after him the second, Abdallah, and after Abdallah the third, Qasim. Mahommed received the surname of _al-Amin_ ("the Sure"), Abdallah that of _al-Ma'mun_ ("he in whom men trust"), and Qasim that of _al-Mo'tamin billah_ ("he who trusts in God"). Harun further stipulated that Mamun should have as his share during the lifetime of his brother the government of the eastern part of the empire. Each of the parties concerned swore to observe faithfully every part of this deed, which the caliph caused to be hung up in the Ka'ba, imagining that it would be thus guaranteed against all violation on the part of men, a precaution which was to be rendered vain by the perfidy of Amim.

It was in the beginning of the following year, at the very moment when the Barmecides thought their position most secure, that Harun brought sudden ruin upon them. The causes of their disgrace have been differently stated by the annalists (see BARMECIDES). The principal cause appears to have been that they abused the sovereign power which they exercised. Not a few were jealous of their greatness and sought for opportunities of instilling distrust against them into the mind of Harun, and of making him feel that he was caliph only in name. The secret dissatisfaction thus aroused was increased, according to some apparently well-informed authorities, by the releasing of the Alid Yahya b. Abdallah, already mentioned. Finally Harun resolved on their destruction, and Ja'far b. Yahya, who had just taken leave of him after a day's hunting, was arrested, taken to the castle of Harun, and beheaded. The following day, his father Yahya, his brother Fadl, and all the other Barmecides were arrested and imprisoned; all their property was confiscated. The only Barmecide who remained unmolested with his family was Mahommed the brother of Yahya, who had been the chamberlain of the caliph till 795, when Fadl b. Rabi' got his place. This latter had henceforward the greatest influence at court.