al-Wathiq
Harun al-Wathiq bi'llah ibn al-Mu'tasim, ninth Abbasid caliph; in al-Baladhuri: certain officials had laid head-jizya on the Jarajima at Antioch — they being a service-treaty people, not jizya-payers — and they appealed it to him as caliph, whereupon he ordered it remitted; al-Mutawakkil afterwards ordered it taken of them while paying them stipends. Tarikh Baghdad (#7351): born 186 on the Mecca road to an umm walad named Qaratis; bay'a at Samarra on his father's death in Rabi' I 227 aged twenty-nine, his letter read to Baghdad by Ishaq b. Ibrahim; died Wednesday six days short of Dhu'l-Hijja 232 at Qasr al-Haruni aged thirty-two (his son Ahmad said thirty-eight), his brother Ja'far praying over him — Di'bil's famous lines 'a caliph died unwept, another rose unblessed' are here too.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 21 in the chain · 842–847 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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Abu Dawud's wider journey: Egypt, the Jazira, Harran and Aleppo
Abu Dawud heard a great many teachers in the Hijaz, Egypt, al-Sham, the frontier and Khurasan; Abu Ja'far al-Nufayli and a circle in the Jazira; Abu Tawba al-Rabi' ibn Nafi' at Aleppo; Ahmad ibn Abi Shu'ayb at Harran; and Haywa and Yazid ibn 'Abd Rabbih at Homs. In his Sunan he recalls measuring a cucumber thirteen spans at Egypt and seeing a citron carried on a camel cut into two halves. This wider circuit falls in the 230s of the hijra, after his first journey and before he settled at Basra.
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Al-Wathiq installs Ashinas al-Turki over the sultanate
In year 228 al-Wathiq installed Ashinas al-Turki over the sultanate, clothing him in two jewelled sashes and a jewelled crown; al-Suyuti thinks him the first caliph to appoint a sultan — for the Turks had only multiplied in his father's days.
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Battle of Butera (845)
Draft card for the Battle of Butera in 845, an action of the Aghlabid conquest of Sicily; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Hamadan (843)
Draft card for Battle of Hamadan (843); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Mauropotamos
Draft card for the Battle of Mauropotamos in 844, the Abbasid victory over the Byzantines in Anatolia; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Rekha (842)
Draft card for Battle of Rekha (842); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Death of al-Mu'tasim
Al-Mu'tasim died Thursday, 11 Rabi' I 227; in his illness he kept saying 'the ruse is gone — there is no ruse'. He had resolved to march to the far west against the Umayyad of al-Andalus — 'the Umayyads ruled when none of us had rule; we rule and this Umayyad holds al-Andalus? Reckon what is needed to fight him' — when his illness grew heavy and he died.
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Death of al-Wathiq
Al-Wathiq died at Sur man Ra'a on Wednesday, 6 Dhu'l-Hijja 232; when he died he was left alone while the people busied themselves with the bay'a to al-Mutawakkil, and a rat came and plucked out his eye and ate it.
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al-Jahiz presented to al-Mutawakkil as tutor, then dismissed
In al-Mutawakkil's caliphate (232-247/847-861) al-Jahiz was mentioned to the caliph as a tutor for one of his sons; when the caliph saw him he was repelled by his looks, granted him ten thousand dirhams and dismissed him. Al-Jahiz himself records an interview he claims to have had with al-Mutawakkil, who was anxious to entrust him with the education of his children but finally dismissed him because of his ugliness.
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Fall of Ibn al-Zayyat nearly proves fatal to al-Jahiz
In Baghdad al-Jahiz attached himself to the vizier Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik al-Zayyat; when al-Zayyat fell from favour in 233/847 the fall almost proved fatal to both men. Al-Jahiz then attached himself successively to the chief qadi Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad (d. 240/854) and his son Muhammad (d. 239/853), and finally to al-Fath ibn Khakan (d. 247/861).
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Killing of Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i
In 231 al-Wathiq killed Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i, a hadith man devoted to commanding right. Brought shackled from Baghdad to Samarra, he refused createdness, transmitted the vision hadith — 'you lie?' — 'you lie!' — and the Mu'tazili jurists ruled his blood lawful. Al-Wathiq struck his neck himself upon the nat'a, his head was crucified at Baghdad and his body at Sur man Ra'a for six years until al-Mutawakkil buried him; a note in its ear named him and his charge, and the appointed watchman swore he saw the head turn to the qibla and recite Ya-Sin.
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The Patrikioses' Killing of Yusuf al-Marwazi
In al-Baladhuri: al-Mu'tasim gave the march to al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Badhaghisi, known as al-Ma'muni, who neglected Armenia's patrikioses and freemen, going soft with them till they worsened in corruption against the sultan and in savaging the subjects beneath them; Ishaq ibn Isma'il ibn Shu'ayb, a mawla of Banu Umayya, mastered Jurzan, and Sahl ibn Sanbat the patrikios ambushed Haydar ibn Kawus al-Afshin's governor over Armenia, killed his scribe, and escaped by a hair; then governors came to Armenia who accepted pardon from its people and contented themselves with easy kharaj; then al-Mutawakkil gave Armenia for two years of his caliphate to Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Marwazi — who at Khilat seized its patrikios Buqrat ibn Ashut and carried him to Samarra, estranging the patrikioses, freemen and warlords; then his agent called al-Mala' ibn Ahmad made for a monastery in Sisajan known as Dayr al-Aqdah, which Armenia's Christians had ever venerated and gifted, took everything in it and brutalised its people — the patrikioses held that enormity unbearable, wrote to one another urging breach and rupture, and sent to the Khwaythiyya — the Aztan — to ambush Yusuf, inciting them over his carrying off their patrikios Buqrat, each man of them and of the warlords sending horse and foot to back it; they ambushed him at Batrun while his men were dispersed among the villages, killed him and seized all that was in his camp.
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Majus landing at Seville, 230 AH
The great Majus raid of AH 230: the northern sea-raiders entered Seville itself; Córdoba's army fought them 'after a hard stand,' burnt some of their ships, and the raiders withdrew down the coast through Sidonia, Niebla, Beja and Lisbon before vanishing — Abd al-Rahman II then repaired what they had wrecked and reinforced the garrisons.
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Al-Nasa'i's journey to Qutayba ibn Sa'id at Balkh, aged fifteen, c. 230/844
Ahmad ibn Shu'ayb al-Nasa'i journeyed to Qutayba ibn Sa'id al-Thaqafi — shaykh of al-Bukhari and Muslim and the muhaddith of Khurasan resident at Balkh — when he was fifteen, and said: 'I stayed with him a year and two months'.
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Siege of Lentini (846)
Draft card for Siege of Lentini (846); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Lisbon (844)
Draft card for Siege of Lisbon (844); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Al-Tirmidhi's hadith journeys through the lands of Khurasan, Iraq and the Hijaz, c. 230/845
Al-Tirmidhi ranged on his scholarly journey through the lands of Khurasan, Iraq and the Hijaz, hearing and gathering copiously; he travelled widely in search of traditions through Khurasan, Iraq and the Hijaz, counting among the pupils of al-Bukhari, Muslim and Abu Dawud al-Sijistani.
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The Ransoming of Muslim Captives from the Byzantines in the Year Thirty-One
In 231 al-Wathiq ransomed 1,600 Muslim captives from the Byzantines; Ibn Abi Du'ad ruled that any captive who affirmed the Quran created be freed and given two dinars, and whoever refused be left in captivity.