The killing of al-Musta'in

مقتل المستعين

252 AH

In Shawwal of the year 252 al-Musta'in was killed, after being moved from Wasit to al-Qatul; the accounts differ on how he was killed ^{1 2}. In the same place al-Tabari mentions that a group of the Talibids were carried from Baghdad to Samarra ³. According to al-Suyuti, al-Mu'tazz sent to Ahmad ibn Tulun to kill him; he said: 'By God, I will not kill the sons of caliphs', so al-Mu'tazz commissioned the chamberlain Sa'id, who slaughtered him on the third of Shawwal of that year, when he was thirty-one ⁴. According to al-Mas'udi, al-Mu'tazz sent Sa'id ibn Salih the chamberlain in Ramadan of the year 252; he met him near al-Qatul, struck him on the head with a whip, threw him down, sat on his chest, and cut off his head, leaving his body on the road until the common people buried it. He had been moved down to the house of al-Hasan ibn Wahb in Baghdad, then to Wasit, where his agent was Ahmad ibn Tulun the Turk, before Ahmad's appointment to Egypt. He died on Wednesday, six nights into Shawwal, aged thirty-five ⁵.