Episode 78: Al Mu’tadid

Get ready for a blast from the past! Perhaps I should have prepared you for a weak pun instead. Hearing about this caliph’s reign will transport us back to his great-grandfather al Mu’tasim’s days. Much like his esteemed ancestor, the energetic new leader commanded his armies in person and used them to restore his caliphate to a lost glory. Our sources are effusive in their praise of this caliph, and he’s easily the most popular Abbasid figure we’ve come across in many generations.

Map

Glossary

• Al Mu’tadid: like his father, Ahmad ibn Talha is wildly popular in our sources. You can hardly find a negative narration about the pair. Although we find some gratuitous descriptions of al Mu’tadid’s brutality, his cruelty is often recast as strictness, or downplayed even further into a love for order or sense of justice. In any case most narrations describe him as a great caliph. There must be some heavy propaganda in there, but I’m sure his authority brought some welcome stability to the caliphate. There hadn’t been a powerful caliph since al Mutawakkil, so I can definitely excuse the forgiving excitement which permeates commentary on al Mu’tadid’s reign.
• Badr: the caliph’s most loyal friend and commander. Badr was a stableboy serving in his father’s camp, and the two quickly became inseparable. He served al Mu’tadid in his very earliest campaigns. During his reign, Badr was trusted to manage military affairs, but he still led armies in person, usually the ones on critical campaigns. Badr remained closer to the caliph than his other generals, and his daughter wed al Mu’tadid’s son late in his reign.
• Ubaydallah ibn Sulaiman: the vizier also had a pre-existing relationship with al Mu’tadid. As his secretary, he would have taken care of his finances, administration, and communications. Now that he was vizier the job was a lot more involved. Ubaydallah had no idea how to run an entire state, so he kept his predecessor’s bureaucrats in charge. Everything worked out, but mainly because Ubaydallah, Badr, and al Mu’tadid all worked well together as a team. The volatile caliph actually lost his temper quite a few times with Ubaydallah, but Badr always managed to calm tensions; it was a neat little set of working relationships.
• Is’haq ibn Kundaj: Talha’s loyal commander governed Mosul back in al Mu’tamid’s days, and used it to try and push the caliphate’s influence back into Mesopotamia. The region’s fiercely independent nomadic tribes and Kurdish population frustrated his attempts, and ultimately the Tulunids forced him to recognize their overlordship instead of the Abbasids’. His son succeeded him after he died, but Mohammad ibn Is’haq quickly lost Mosul to the Shaybanis, who in turn lost it to the Abbasids. 
• The Shaybanis: Isa ibn il Shaykh al Shaybani was a Mesopotamian commander in the caliphate’s armies. He rebelled against them during the anarchy and went rogue as governor of Palestine. The region’s Arabs happily supported him against the caliphate, and he kept it up for a while, but eventually accepted a compromise offered by al Mu’tamid and became the governor of Mesopotamia and Armenia. He was popular there to, which makes sense as it was his home. When the Turkish ibn Kundaj was appointed to Mosul al Shaybani feuded with him, and in doing so implicitly broke with the caliphate. He failed to defeat ibn Kundaj, and when he died his son Ahmad ibn Isa al Shaybani took over. Ahmad mostly fought against the Armenians in the northeast, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity presented by ibn Kundaj’s death. He took Mosul, and earned al Mu’tadid’s wrath. He wisely retreated all the way back to his capital in ‘amid, or Diyarbakir, where he passed away a few years later. The caliph had very little trouble unseating his son Mohammad ibn Ahmad al Shaybani the next year, retaking all of Mesopotamia up to southern Armenia for the caliphate. 
• The Hamdanids: I guess these guys can be considered a kharijite tribe at this point. Hamdan ibn Hamdun had brazenly seized the fortress of Mardin from ibn Kundaj, and refused to submit to the caliph when he asked somewhat nicely. Most narrations say Hamdan ran away before al Mu’tadid’s armies were in sight, only to be captured after their victory over his son, Husayn. Husayn was later tasked with hunting down a senior kharijite agitator, an accomplishment that earned him the caliph’s favor. His father was pardoned, and the Hamdanids were restored to their ancestral lands, where they continued to work closely with the caliphate, which found their strong connections with the Kurds extremely valuable.
• The Dulafids: the descendants of abi Dulaf ruled the province of Jibal in western Iran ever since the first decade of the 9th century. Their dynasty fell apart so quickly due to the pressure al Mu’tadid put them under and a lot of bad luck. Their chief eventually submitted to the caliphate, by which I mean he retired and acknowledged that the Abbasids ought to pick his successor. His brother tried to grab power for himself but his attempt was not very convincing, and he died a few years later in a distant land.
• The Tulunids: the masters of Egypt only show up in this episode as an oblique influence in Mesopotamia. Khumarwayh’s agreement with the caliphate meant that the Abbasids recognized Tulunid control of the province, so even if a loyalist like ibn Kundaj was in charge of Mosul, its taxes would count towards the sum Egypt owed the caliphate every year. Anyway we’ll have more to say about the Tulunids next time.
• Mohammad ibn abi al Saj: the Sajids were from Ushrusana, in faraway eastern Khurasan. Many of their men had joined Abi al Saj’s rebellion against Talha back in the mid-70’s, but those that didn’t remained loyal to his son Mohammad. He was in charge of a couple cities by Raqqa, and he took the initiative after ibn Tulun’s death. He joined forces with ibn Kundaj and invaded Tulunid territory. The two had a falling out, probably due to conflicting ambitions, and Mohammad recruited the Tulunids against ibn Kundaj. Eventually ibn Kundaj used Tulunid support to oust Mohammad, who turned to Talha for a new appointment. That’s when the Sajids first got to govern Azerbaijan. It was very difficult the first few years, but Mohammad managed to gain a foothold in Azerbaijan and then steadily expanded his influence. He benefitted from the fall of neighboring powers and some fantastic luck, and eventually felt confident enough to declare independence as the Afsheen. His domain included Azerbaijan and large parts of Armenia.