Caliphate of al-Muqtadir Billah

خلافة المقتدر بالله

295 AH

In Dhu'l-Qa'da 295 Ja'far ibn Ahmad, al-Muqtadir, was given the caliphate after the death of al-Muktafi billah. Al-Tabari reports that the treasury then held fifteen million dinars ^{1 2}. In Ibn al-Jawzi: when al-Muktafi's illness grew severe in Dhu'l-Qa'da 295, he asked about his brother Abu'l-Fadl Ja'far and was assured that he had reached majority; after eleven nights of Dhu'l-Qa'da had passed he summoned the qadis on Friday and had them witness that he had made the succession his. The bay'a was given before dawn on Sunday, after fourteen nights had passed. As he was about to sit for the bay'a he prayed four rak'as and kept raising his voice in supplication and istikhara; he was given the bay'a and titled al-Muqtadir billah, aged thirteen years, one month and twenty-one days, and no one younger had held the caliphate before him. The private treasury held fifteen million dinars and the public treasury six hundred thousand, with what was needed to make up twenty million. He gave five thousand dinars to the Banu Hashim and doubled their stipends; on the days of Tarwiya and Arafa he distributed thirty thousand head of cattle and sheep and two thousand camels; he released the prisoners and ordered the demolition of buildings at al-Ruhba, which had brought in a thousand dinars each month ³.