Episode 49: Al Hadi

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. 

Glossary

• Al Khayzuran: we already said quite a bit about al Mahdi’s favorite and her path from concubine to wife in our last episode. She acquired a taste for administration and displayed quite a flair for it after her husband let her weigh-in on matters during his time in charge. While al Mahdi never excluded her from power while he was in charge, his son and heir al Hadi had a much more traditional view on the woman’s place in the palace. Al Khayzuran was completely isolated from court early during her son’s reign, and while she never tried to violate his will, she is still the one who gets blamed for his sudden death. 
• Musa al Hadi: our man of the hour, the fourth Abbasid caliph. He seems to have been a daring young man with a love for adventure. One story about him goes that a kharijite once caught him in a narrow alley when he was just a teenager and approached him menacingly with his sword drawn. Completely unphased, the imperious young man looked behind him and yelled “strike his neck!”, and when the kharijite turned to see who the youth was talking to, al Hadi snatched the sword from his hands and slew him on the spot. Everything else we have on the guy I shared in this episode, and the overall image we get of him is of a young man eager to assert himself by bossing others around and threatening them with manly violence.
• Haroon al Rashid: al Hadi’s brother was probably a couple years younger, though there is no real agreement on either of their birth years. His father made him vice-regent of the west and second-in-line for the throne after his triumph against the Byzantines in 782. After coming to power, his brother al Hadi badgered him to give up his position as heir to his 7 year old nephew Ja’far. There’s no telling how long al Rashid would have been able to resist his brother’s demands, but the pressure was relieved after al Hadi died suddenly some months later. We’ll have plenty more to say about him in coming episodes.
• Yahya ibn Khalid al Barmaki: the most influential of the storied Barmaki family, the Baramika, Yahya had a successful career even before the events of today’s episode. His father had been entrusted by al Saffah to govern an Iraqi province, and he was similarly designated by al Mansur as governor of Azerbaijan. He was a close friend of al Mahdi and al Khayzuran, and the caliph eventually put him in charge of looking after his son’s education. While officially his mentor, Yahya was more of a father figure to the young Haroon, and he will continue to play an important role in the caliphate’s administration over the course of al Rashid’s reign.
• Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan: al Hadi’s mentor, ibn Mahan was the son of a Khurasani supporter of the da’wa back before the Abbasid revolution. He came west with the Abbasid armies and rose to become one of the leaders of the Khurasaniya, dubbed the abna’ for their unflinching loyalty to the caliph. While originally from the Eastern province, there was plenty of friction between his armies and those who remained in Khurasan, mainly due to the way the caliphate’s finances were structured. We’ll have more to say on the topic and the man in coming episodes.
• Al Fadl ibn Rabi’: the son of the longtime Abbasid hajib, al Rabi’ bin Yunis. He occupied his father’s position after Rabi’s death a few months into al Hadi’s reign. While it’s not something I believe or will build upon, you may be interested to learn that some narrations say that al Hadi never liked Rabi’ because of his closeness to al Rashid, and had him poisoned to get rid himself of the biased hajib.
• Mohammad ibn Sulayman: al Mansur’s cousin had first distinguished himself during the rebellion of Ibrahim, brother of the pure soul, in Basra. While some narrations make it seem like the capable al Mansur was on top of things from the get-go, it seems like they’re just extrapolating from al Mansur’s reputation for competence. More accurate accounts point to the key role played by ibn Sulayman in alerting the rest of the Abbasids to what was going on in Basra, and some add that he tried to stop Ibrahim himself but was outnumbered and expelled from the city instead. As a reward for his diligence al Mansur made him governor of Kufa for a spell. After that he became governor of Basra, and more nearby lands kept getting added to his domain until he united all of Bahrain, the eastern Arabian peninsula, and Oman under his command, a first in Abbasid administration.
• Musa ibn Isa ibn Musa: the son of Isa ibn Musa, the man whom Mohammad ibn Sulayman had replaced as governor of Kufa. He and his father remained esteemed members of the clan until Musa’s imprudent executive decision to put Hashemite prisoners to death following the victory at Wadi al Fakh. He and his family were dispossessed of their assets, an increasingly common fate in the caliphate.