al-Musta'sim bi'llah Abdullah ibn al-Mustansir, last caliph of Baghdad
Abbasid caliph [640–656], the last of Baghdad — raised over his fierce uncle al-Khafaji for his softness, that the duwaydar and sharabi might rule. Empty of counsel, he cut most of the host his father had mustered on al-Alqami's advice, while the vizier wrote secretly to the Tatars meaning to move the caliphate to the Alids — 'and al-Musta'sim wandered in his pleasures'.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 12 in the chain · 1242–1258 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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Al-Nawawi begins writing, c. 655/1257
Around 655/1257 al-Nawawi began composing books, after nearly twenty years of day-and-night study had carried him past all his peers; al-Dhahabi places the start of his writing 'about 660' and says he wrote until his death. Among his earliest works were al-Tahrir fi alfaz al-Tanbih and al-Umda fi tashih al-Tanbih.
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Al-Nawawi arrives in Damascus and lodges at the Rawahiyya madrasa, 649/1251
In 649/1251, past the age of nineteen, al-Nawawi's father brought him to Damascus, where he lodged at the al-Rawahiyya madrasa. He began with medicine but soon turned to the religious sciences, reading twelve lessons a day with the shaykhs; in his own words he spent about two years without laying his side on the ground, living on the madrasa's allowance.
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The conquest of Ascalon and Tiberias in 644 AH
In Jumada II 644 the Muslims took Ascalon and Tiberias by storm, the conquest led by Fakhr al-Din ibn al-Shaykh.
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The Flood of Baghdad in 654
In 654 Baghdad drowned in a flood the like of which had not been heard of: the Tigris rose beyond all precedent, crowds drowned, houses collapsed on their people, boats passed through the alleys and the caliph himself rode a boat while the people implored God.
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Battle of Forbie
Draft card for the Battle of Forbie in 1244, the crushing defeat of the Franks and their Ayyubid allies by the Khwarezmians and Egyptians; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Jamal al-Din al-Mizzi is born at al-Ma'qiliyya outside Aleppo, 10 Rabi' II 654/1256
Jamal al-Din Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn al-Zaki Abd al-Rahman ibn Yusuf ibn Ali ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Abi al-Zahr al-Quda'i al-Kalbi al-Mizzi was born on 10 Rabi' II 654 outside Aleppo; Ibn Hajar gives the spot as al-Ma'qiliyya, and the Encyclopaedia of Islam has him born near Aleppo of Arab stock in 654/1256.
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Extreme Famine in Damascus in 643 AH
In 643 Damascus suffered extreme dearth: the load of grain sold at 1,600 dirhams, carrion was eaten and many notables perished.
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Death of Caliph al-Mustansir Billah and accession of al-Musta'sim in 640
Caliph al-Mustansir Billah died Friday morning, 10 Jumada II 640; the people mourned greatly and his son Abdallah al-Musta'sim was proclaimed.
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Hulagu's threatening letters to al-Nasir, ruler of Damascus
Hulagu's letters to al-Nasir of Damascus: 'We killed their soldiers with God's sword; the city's lord came into our service, lied under questioning, and earned death. Answer the king of the earth — the hour you stand on our letter, Syria's fortresses turn heaven to earth and length to breadth'. And: 'we have wasted lands and slain women and children; you who remain will follow those gone — we are armies of ruin, not of dominion; lions cower at our awe; amirs and caliphs are in my fist; we are coming to you — yours to flee, ours to pursue'.
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Death of Ibn al-Salah at Damascus and burial in the Sufi cemetery, 25 Rabi' II 643/Sept. 1245
Ibn al-Salah passed away at dawn on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of Rabi' II 643 (September 1245) at Damascus. He was carried on shoulders and the crowds pressed round him; the prayer was held at the Jami', then a second prayer inside Bab al-Faraj, and the people turned back because of the Khwarazmian siege of the city, so fewer than ten bore him out and buried him in the Sufi cemetery, his grave visible on the road at its western edge. He was sixty-six.
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Khwarezmian sack of Jerusalem
Draft card for the fall of Jerusalem in 1244, when the Khwarezmians allied to the Ayyubids retook the city from the Franks; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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The fall of the qadi al-Rafi'i, 641
In 641 God lifted the affliction by setting the vizier against the qadi al-Rafii — a corrupt judge of forged deeds, bribes, orphans' and waqf monies, who rode to Friday prayers drunk with ready perjured witnesses. His agents were jailed and tortured, Ibn al-Ruwas dying under it; al-Rafii was carried to Baalbek on a bare-backed mule, stood at the citadel's rim asking leave to pray two rak'as — and was kicked over by Dawud the executioner, torn apart before he reached the water. His accomplice the vizier al-Amin was strangled in Egypt in 648, his confiscated hoards reaching three million dinars.
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The Qadi al-Akram al-Qifti dies at Aleppo, Ramadan 646/1248
The vizier al-Qadi al-Akram Jamal al-Din Ali ibn Yusuf al-Shaybani al-Qifti died in Ramadan 646/1248-9; he had assembled a library no one else had matched, kept neither house nor wife, and bequeathed his books — worth fifty thousand dinars — to al-Malik al-Nasir of Aleppo.
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The Tatar sack of Baghdad and the killing of al-Musta'sim
In 656 AH the Tatars under Hulagu entered Baghdad, the caliph al-Musta'sim was killed, and the caliphate of Baghdad lapsed for about three and a half years. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says the caliph surrendered unconditionally on 4 Safar 656, or 10 February 1258, that the people were put to the sword for over a week, and that estimates of the dead range from 800,000 to two million, the author judging that the toll probably exceeded a hundred thousand. Baghdad then stayed under the Ilkhans until 740/1339 as a provincial city.
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Siege of Erbil (1258)
Draft card for Siege of Erbil (1258); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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The Tatars Begin the Conquest of the Islamic Lands in 652 AH
In 652 the Tatars began the conquest of the Islamic lands while the caliph was heedless in his privacy and pleasures, and the vizier Mu'ayyad al-Din and the caliph's retainers corresponded with Hulagu, envoys passing between them.