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By al-Ṭabarī, Clifford Edmund Bosworth
This quantity of al-Tabari’s heritage covers approximately 1 / 4 of a century, and after protecting the very short caliphate of al-Hadi, concentrates on that of Harun al-Rashid. in the course of those years, the caliphate was once in a kingdom of stability with its exterior foes; the nice enemy, Christian Byzantium, used to be looked with recognize via the Muslims, and the 2 nice powers of the close to East handled one another basically as equals, whereas the Caucasian and vital Asian frontiers have been held opposed to strain from the Turkish peoples of internal Eurasia. the most stresses have been inner, together with Shi’ite risings on behalf of the excluded condominium of ’Ali, and revolts through the unconventional equalitarian Kharijites; yet none of those used to be critical sufficient to impact the fundamental balance of the caliphate. Harun al-Rashid’s caliphate has obtained within the West, lower than the impact of a deceptive photograph from the Arabian Nights, a sparkling picture as a golden age of Islamic tradition and letters stemming from the Caliph’s patronage of the exponents of those arts and sciences. In gentle of the image of the Caliph which emerges from al-Tabari’s pages, besides the fact that, this snapshot looks especially exaggerated. Al-Rashid himself doesn't show any extraordinary indicators of administrative competence, army management or highbrow pursuits past these which conference demanded of a ruler. for far of his reign, he left the company of presidency to the able viziers of the Barmakid family--the account of whose astounding fall from strength kinds the most dramatic gains of al-Tabari’s narratives here--and his choice to divide the Islamic empire after his demise among his sons used to be to steer therefore to a disastrous civil struggle. however, al-Tabari’s tale is stuffed with fascinating sidelights at the lives of these fascinated by the courtroom circle of the time and at the motivations which impelled medieval Muslims to hunt precarious careers there.
Read or Download The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. 30: The ’Abbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium: The Caliphates of Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid A.D. 785-809/A.H. 169-193 PDF
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Extra info for The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. 30: The ’Abbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium: The Caliphates of Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid A.D. 785-809/A.H. 169-193
Sample text
The popular image of the despotic but bluff and genial monarch, patron of poetry and the arts, under whom Baghdad became a city of luxury and douceur de vie unparalleled in the previous history of the Islamic world, was fostered in the West from the eighteenth century onward under the seductive but delusory depiction of life there in the Thousand and One Nights. The materials for the art of biography as we know it in the West today are generally meager in the premodern Islamic sources, and the real mainsprings of al-Rashid's character will probably remain as obscure to us as those of most leading figures in early Islam.
Hasan's Uprising and His Role in These Events 115 Yahya b. `Abdallah al-`Alawi's Altercation with Bakkar b. `Abdallah al-Zubayri 120 Al-Rashid's Repudiation of Yahya b. `Abdallah's Guarantee of Safe- Conduct 125 More Accusations from the Zubayri Family against Yahya b. `Abdallah al-`Alawi 126 The Internecine Strife (fitnah) among the North and South Arabs in Syria 132 The Reason behind al-Rashid's Appointment of Ja`far al-Barmaki over Egypt and the Latter's Appointment of 'Umar b. Mihran (as His Deputy) over It 134 The Events of the Year 577 (793/794) 139 The Events of the Year 178 (794/795) 141 Harthamah b.
Yahya al-Barmaki in gratitude for his appointment as governor of Syria in 180 (796-7) (III, 642-4; below, 159-62); al-Rashid's letter of dismissal in 191 (806-7) to `Ali b. `Isa and the letter of appointment of `Ali's successor in Khurasan, Harthamah b. A`yan (III, 716-18; below, 273-75); but above all, that of the "Meccan documents," the stipulations by which the two princes al-Amin and al-Ma'mun bound themselves to their father's arrangements, and the letter to the provincial governors announcing these measures (III, 654-66; below, 183-99).