Episode 48: Al Mahdi

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. 

Glossary

• Rabi’ bin Yunis: the father’s hajib continued in the same role when his son al Mahdi became caliph. As a freedman of al Mansur’s his obligation towards the family came from a sense of duty or personal purpose. His son would go on to serve as hajib one day down the line, and he is the source of transmission for many of the stories we hear about Rabi’ and the early Abbasid courts more generally.
• Abu Ubaydallah: his full name was Mu’awiya ibn Ubaydallah al Ash’ari, and he was al Mahdi’s first adviser, or wazir, or executive assistant or whatever. Al Mansur had sent Abu Ubaydallah to the young al Mahdi in order to help him run his court at Rayy, and he ran things for the future caliph from about 760 all the way to his fall from grace in 778.
• Ya’qub ibn Dawud: a son of the secretary to the last Umayyad governor of Khurasan, Nasr ibn Sayyar, Ya’qub clearly had the benefit of a good education and upbringing. He became a Hashemite partisan during the downfall of the Umayyads, originally supporting the abortive rebellion of Yahya ibn Zayd in Khurasan before it was snuffed out by Abu Muslim in early Abbasid times. His brother later became secretary to Ibrahim ibn Abdallah, brother of Mohammad the pure, in Basra. He was arrested there and was only released with al Mahdi’s mass amnesty. He went on to become a confidant of the caliph, and practically ran the state for five years between 778 and 783.
• Rayta bint al Saffah: the daughter of the first Abbasid caliph was wed to her cousin al Mahdi. It’s difficult to tell much about her, even if she was his first wife or not because Arab narration mostly elide this topics. There are genealogies which can be very helpful, but besides providing basic information there isn’t a lot to go on. This vagueness is why it was difficult to determine whether there was a divorce when al Mahdi elevated al Khayzuran to his wife. I don’t believe it as there’s no real reason for al Mahdi to divorce anyone.
• Al Khayzuran: she is often referred to as al Mahdi’s favorite wife, mainly due to the influence she had on the man and the fact that her sons became the caliphate’s future leaders. We’ll have more to say about her soon, but here I just want to note that her “elevation” from concubine to wife was very vaguely reported on in our sources, so we should remain skeptical. Clearly she was more than a concubine, but the narrations we find about this are hard to follow. One goes that the caliph convinced her to leave to go to hajj one year, telling her that she would return a reborn woman so he could marry her properly. They add that when she left he lustily married her sister, then divorced her just as al Khayzuran came back so he could marry his fave again. Does that make any sense to you? If so, you’re alone there.
• Musa Al Hadi: al Mahdi’s eldest son from al Khayzuran. He was born in Rayy and was placed in the succession at the young age of 13. We’ll have plenty to say about his upbringing next time, he might be the only caliph whom we’ll say more about his time before he got the gig than after. 
• Haroon al Rashid: Musa’s brother was only a couple years younger, and became second in line after he returned from a remarkably successful campaign against the Byzantines in 782. We’ll have lots to say about him before too long.