al-Musta'sim bi'llah Abdullah ibn al-Mustansir, last caliph of Baghdad

Al-Musta'sim billah, Abd Allah ibn al-Mustansir, the last caliph of Baghdad, who held the caliphate between 640 and 656 AH. ¹

Al-Suyuti says that al-Duwaydar and al-Sharabi set him up after his father's death and put him before his uncle al-Khafaji, for his softness and weak judgement, so that the affair would be theirs. His father had multiplied the troops and nevertheless flattered and placated the Tatars. ¹

Al-Suyuti says that the vizier al-Alqami advised him to cut down most of the troops, and that placating the Tatars would achieve the aim, and he did so. He adds that al-Alqami was eager to transfer the state to the Alids, that messages passed between him and the Tatars in secret, while the caliph was occupied with his pleasures. ¹

Ibn Khaldun relates that the vizier went out to Hulagu and sought safe conduct for himself, then returned, promising the caliph that he would leave him in the caliphate. Al-Musta'sim went out with his household and the men of his state, and they were killed. ²

He was born in 609 AH. Ibn al-Imad describes him as forbearing, generous, sound in his inner self, of little judgement and good in religion. The Tatars trampled him to death at the end of Muharram 656 AH. Ibn al-Imad says that the affair was too occupied for any historian to record his death or the burial of his body. ³

Al-Suyuti reports al-Dhahabi's view that he was not buried, and describes the event as a calamity such as Islam had not suffered. ⁴

Ibn Khaldun gives a description of the disorder in Baghdad before the fall: a lasting strife between the Shi'a and the people of the Sunna, and between the Hanbalis and the other schools. ²