Al-Mu'tadid

Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Talha al-Muwaffaq (857 – 5 April 902), better known by his regnal name al-Mu'tadid bi-Allah (المعتضد بالله, "Seeking Support in God" ) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 892 until his death in 902. Prior to that, he had succeeded his father, al-Muwaffaq, as regent of the Caliphate under his uncle Caliph al-Mu'tamid in 891. Like his father, al-Mu'tadid's power depended on his close relations with the army, which he led in person in several campaigns, beginning with the suppression of the Zanj Rebellion. Al-Mu'tadid distinguished himself for his energy and ability, and succeeded in restoring to the Abbasid state some of the power and provinces it had lost during the turmoil of the previous decades, but his reign was too short to effect a lasting reversal of the Caliphate's fortunes. His reign also saw the expansion and rise to power of the central bureaucracy, and the permanent move of the capital back to Baghdad.

Early life
Al-Mu'tadid was born Ahmad, the son of Talha, one of the sons of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861), probably around the year 860. His mother was a Greek slave named Dirar. Al-Mutawakkil's murder in 861 began a period of internal turmoil known as the "Anarchy at Samarra" from the site of the Caliphate's capital, which ended in 870 with the rise to the throne of Ahmad's uncle, al-Mu'tamid. Real power however lay with the elite Turkish troops and with Ahmad's own father, Talha, who, as the Caliphate's main military commander, served as the chief intermediary between the caliphal government and the Turks. Assuming the honorific name al-Muwaffaq in the style of the caliphs, Talha increasingly dominated the governance of the state, and from 882 until his death in 891, was the effective ruler of the Caliphate.

Caliphal authority in the provinces collapsed during the "Anarchy at Samarra", with the result that by the 870s Baghdad had lost effective control over most of the Caliphate outside Iraq itself. Egypt had fallen under the control of Ahmad ibn Tulun, who also disputed control of Syria with al-Muwaffaq, Khurasan and most of the Islamic East had been taken over by the Saffarids, who replaced the Abbasids' loyal clients, the Tahirids. Effective control over most of the Arabian peninsula was lost, while in Tabaristan a radical Zaydi Shi'a dynasty took power. Even in Iraq, the rebellion of the Zanj slaves threatened Baghdad itself, and the Qarmatians were a nascent threat. Throughout his regency, al-Muwaffaq engaged in a long struggle to save the tottering Caliphate from collapse. His attempts to recover control of Egypt and Syria from the Tulunids failed, as the latter were able to expand their territory and force recognition of the new status quo, but he succeeded in preserving the core of the Caliphate in Iraq by repelling a Saffarid invasion aimed at Baghdad and subduing the Zanj, after a long struggle.

Al-Muwaffaq gave his son a military training from an early age. Ahmad, usually known by his kunya of Abu'l-Abbas, was "a keen horseman and took care to inspect both his troops and their mounts in person" (Hugh N. Kennedy), and would soon acquire extensive military experience against the Zanj. Within a decade from the outbreak of the revolt in 869, the Zanj had seized most of lower Iraq, including the cities of Basra and Wasit and expanded into Khuzistan as well. Abu'l-Abbas' appointment in December 879 to command against the Zanj, at the head of 10,000 troops, marks the turning-point of the war, as now, following the death of the first Saffarid ruler, Ya'qub al-Saffar, the Abbasid government was able to fully concentrate its attention against the rebellion. In the long and hard struggle against the Zanj, which involved amphibious operations in the Mesopotamian Marshes, Abu'l-Abbas and his own military slaves (ghilman), of which the long-serving Zirak al-Turki was the chief, played the major role: although the Abbasid armies gradually swelled with reinforcements, volunteers, and Zanj defectors, it was the few but elite ghilman who provided the army with leadership and the backbone and bore the brunt of the battle, often under the personal leadership of Abu'l-Abbas. After years of gradually tightening the noose around the Zanj, in August 883 the Abbasid troops stormed their capital of al-Mukhtara, putting an end to the rebellion.

Following the final victory over the Zanj, al-Muwaffaq's relations with his son Abu'l-Abbas deteriorated, although the reason is unclear. Already in 884, Abu'l-Abbas' ghilman rioted in Baghdad against al-Muwaffaq's vizier, Sa'id ibn Makhlad, possibly over unpaid salaries. In 885, following the death of Ibn Tulun, Abu'l-Abbas was sent against Ibn Tulun's son and heir, Khumarawayh, but suffered a heavy defeat after which the Tulunids expanded their control over the Jazira and the borderlands (Thughur) with the Byzantine Empire. A peace agreement followed, whereby al-Muwaffaq was forced to recognize the Tulunids as governors over Egypt and Syria for 30 years, in exchange for an annual tribute. Over the next couple of years, Abu'l-Abbas was involved in his father's ultimately unsuccessful attempts to wrest control of Fars from Saffarid control, but in 889, Abu'l-Abbas was arrested and put in prison on his father's orders, where he remained despite the demonstrations of the ghilman loyal to him. He apparently remained under arrest until May 891, when al-Muwaffaq, already nearing his death, returned to Baghdad after two years he spent in Jibal. Abu'l-Abbas was then released from captivity by his father's and his own troops, despite the attempt of the city commander, Abu'l-Saqr, who hoped to secure his position by ridding al-Mu'tamid and his son and heir al-Mufawwad of a dangerous rival, to prevent it.

Thus, when al-Muwaffaq died in June 891, Abu’l-Abbas succeeded him immediately in his offices, with the name of al-Mu'tadid and a position in the line of succession after the caliph and al-Mufawwad. Within a few months, in April 892, al-Mu'tadid sidelined al-Mufawwad completely, and when al-Mu'tamid died in October, he succeeded his uncle as Caliph.

Campaigns of reunification
Like his father, al-Mu'tadid’s power rested on his close relations with the military, and it was military activities which consumed his interest, especially as he usually led his army in person. According to Hugh Kennedy, "No Abbasid caliph, not even al-Mu'tasim, spent as much time on campaign as did al-Mu'tadid. He was also a skilful diplomat, always prepared to make compromises with those who were too powerful to defeat." From the outset of his reign, al-Mu'tadid set out to reverse the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate, by first securing firm control over its core territories in Iraq, the Jazira and western Persia (Jibal).

In the Jazira he struggled against the Shaybani ruler of Amid and Diyar Bakr, Ahmad ibn Isa al-Shaybani, and the Taghlibi chief Hamdan ibn Hamdun. Mosul was captured from the Shayban in 893, and Hamdan ibn Hamdun was hunted down and captured, although his son Husayn ibn Hamdan managed to enter caliphal service and secure his father's release. Husayn became a prominent commander in the caliphal armies, marking the start of the gradual rise of the Hamdanid dynasty to power in the Jazira. Ahmad al-Shaybani died in 898, and in the next year, al-Mu'tadid invaded the Jazira, ousted Ahmad's son Muhammad from Amid, and re-imposed direct control over the province by installing his son and heir, Ali al-Muktafi, as governor. Al-Mu'tadid was unable, however, to re-extend caliphal control into Transcaucasia, where Armenia and Azerbaijan remained in the hands of independent local dynasties like the Sajids.

Towards the Tulunids, al-Mu'tadid adopted a conciliatory attitude. He recognized the status quo in exchange for an annual tribute of 300,000 dinars and 200,000 in arrears, while the Tulunid ruler, Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun, agreed to hand back the two Jaziran provinces of Diyar Rabi'a and Diyar Mudar. The pact was sealed by the marriage of Khumarawayh's daughter Qatr al-Nada to the Caliph, who brought a further million dinars as her dowry. In the event, the accord did not survive the murder of Khumarawayh in 896 (his daughter died soon after her marriage): with the Tulunid state in the unsteady hands of Khumarawayh's under-age sons, in 897 al-Mu'tadid extended his control over the border emirates of the Thughur, and in the words of Michael Bonner, "assumed, after a long hiatus, the old caliphal prerogative of commanding the annual summer expedition and arranging the defence against the Byzantine empire". To secure recognition, the new Tulunid ruler Harun ibn Khumarawayh (r. 896–904) was forced to more concessions, handing back all of Syria north of Homs, and increasing the annual tribute to 450,000 dinars. In the Tulunid domains, increasing domestic turmoil and the mounting Qarmatian attacks led to the increasing defection of many of the Tulunids' followers to the resurgent Caliphate.

In Persia, the Caliph was forced to acknowledge the reality of the Saffarids' control over the Islamic East, and reached a modus vivendi with them, perhaps hoping, according to Hugh Kennedy, to harness them in a partnership analogous to that which the Tahirids had enjoyed in previous decades: the Saffarids were recognized in their possession of Khurasan and eastern Persia as well as Fars, while the Abbasids were to exercise direct control over Jibal, Rayy and Isfahan. This policy gave the Caliph free hand to recover the territories of the Dulafids, a semi-independent dynasty centred on Isfahan and Nihavand. When the Dulafid Ahmad ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Abi Dulaf died in 893, al-Mu'tadid moved swiftly to install his son al-Muktafi as governor in Rayy, Qazvin, Qum and Hamadan. The Dulafids were confined to the region of Karaj and Isfahan, before being deposed outright in 896. Nevertheless, Abbasid hold over these territories remained precarious, especially due to the proximity of the Zaydi emirate in Tabaristan, and in 897 Rayy was handed over to the Saffarids.

The Abbasid–Saffarid partnership in Iran was most clearly expressed against the intrepid general Rafi ibn Harthama, who had made his base in Rayy and posed a threat to both caliphal and Saffarid interests in the region. Al-Mu'tadid sent Ahmad ibn Abd al-Aziz to seize Rayy from Rafi, who fled and made common cause with the Zaydis of Tabaristan in an effort to conquer Khurasan from the Saffarids. With Amr mobilizing anti-Alid sentiment against him and the expected assistance from the Zaydis failing to materialize, Rafu was defeated and killed in Khwarazm in 896. Amr, at the pinnacle of his power, sent the defeated rebel's head to Baghdad, and in 897 the Caliph transferred control of Rayy to him.

The partnership finally collapsed after Mu'tadid appointed the Saffarid ruler Amr ibn al-Layth as governor of Transoxiana in 898, which was ruled by his rivals the Samanids. In the event, Amr was crushingly defeated and captured by the Samanids in 900. The Samanid ruler, Isma'il ibn Ahmad, sent him in chains to Baghdad, where he was executed in 902, after al-Mu'tadid's death. Al-Mu'tadid conferred Amr's titles to Isma'il ibn Ahmad, but the Saffarid remnant under Tahir proved sufficiently resilient to thwart the caliphal attempts at regaining Fars and Kirman for several more years. It was not until 910 that the Abbasids managed to regain the coveted Fars province from them.

From 897 on, the Caliphate faced a new threat, that of the Qarmatians. Originally a sporadic and minor nuisance in the Sawad, their power grew swiftly to alarming proportions: under Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, in 899 they seized Bahrein, and in the next year defeated a caliphal army under al-Abbas ibn Amr al-Ghanawi. Following al-Mu'tadid's death, the Qarmatians "were to prove the most dangerous enemies the Abbasids had faced since the time of the Zanj" (Kennedy). The same period also saw more anti-Abbasid regimes established on the periphery of the Islamic world: the Fatimids seized power in Ifriqiya, and another Zaydi dynasty established itself in Yemen.

Domestic government
The Caliphate's recovery under al-Muwaffaq and al-Mu'tadid relied on a strong army, and the state was in need of ever more money to pay for the ghilman and the mercenaries who comprised it. According to Hugh Kennedy, based on a treasury document from the time of al-Mu'tadid's accession, "out the total expenditure of 7915 dinars per day, some 5121 are entirely military, 1943 in areas (like riding animals and stables) which served both military and non-military and only 851 in areas like the bureaucracy and the harem which can be described as truly civilian (though even in this case, the bureaucrats’ main purpose seems to have been to arrange the payment of the army). It seems reasonable to conclude that something over 80 per cent of recorded government expenditure was devoted to maintaining the army."

At the same time, many of the former tax-paying provinces had been lost to the central government, either to autonomous dynasties or to semi-autonomous governors who held them by way of muqata'a, a form of tax farming, in exchange for a fixed tribute, which they often failed to pay. To maximise their revenue from the territory remaining to them, the Abbasids increased the breadth and complexity of the central bureaucracy, dividing the provinces into smaller tax districts as well as increasing in the number of the fiscal departments (diwans), allowing for a far closer oversight of both revenue collection and the activities of the officials themselves. This policy strengthened the position of the civil bureaucracy, which now reached the apogee of its influence, and especially the vizier, whom even the army came to respect as the spokesman of the caliph.

In terms of personnel, al-Mu'tadid's reign was marked by continuity among the senior leadership of the state: Ubayd Allah ibn Sulayman ibn Wahb remained vizier from the start of the reign until his death in 901, and was succeeded by his son, al-Qasim; Badr, a veteran who had served under al-Muwaffaq and whose daughter married the Caliph's son, remained commander of the army; and the finances of Iraq were managed first by the Banu'l-Furat, and after 899 by their rivals, the Banu'l-Jarrah. These two rival bureaucratic dynasties would dominate the Abbasid government over the next years, alternating in office while often fining and torturing their predecessors to the benefit of the treasury.

Al-Mu'tadid also completed the return of the capital from Samarra to Baghdad, which had already served as his father's main base of operations. The city's centre, however, was relocated on the eastern bank of the Tigris and further downstream of the original city, where he and al-Muktafi engaged in major construction activities. The new town of al-Mu'tadid has remained Baghdad's centre to this day. He also took care to restore the city's irrigation network, cleaning up the silted-up Dujayl canal, paying for it with money from those landholders who stood to profit from it. At the same time, he changed the start of the tax year so that the land tax (kharaj) was now collected after the harvest instead of before, easing the farmers' burden.

Death and legacy
Al-Mu'tadid died in April 902, and was succeeded by his designated heir, al-Muktafi, whom his father had taken care to prepare for his role as governor in Rayy and the Jazira. Al-Mu'tadid's reign is credited with having arrested the Abbasid Caliphate's decline for a while, but his successes were too dependent on the presence of an energetic ruler at the helm, and "his reign was too short to reverse long-term trends and re-establish Abbasid power on a long-term basis" (Kennedy). His son, al-Muktafi, tried to follow his father's policies, but he lacked his energy. As Michael Bonner writes, "in his character and comportment he did not, being a sedentary figure, instil much loyalty, let alone inspiration, in the soldiers". The Caliphate was still able to secure major successes over the next few years, including the reincorporation of the Tulunid domains in 904 and victories over the Qarmatians, but with al-Muktafi's death in 908, the so-called "Abbasid restoration" passed its high-water mark.