al-Radi bi-llah Abu al-Abbas Muhammad ibn al-Muqtadir

Al-Radi billah Abu al-Abbas Muhammad ibn al-Muqtadir ibn al-Mu'tadid, an Abbasid caliph who ruled from 322 to 329 AH. He was born in 297 AH, and his mother was a Byzantine slave-girl called Zulum. ¹

Al-Suyuti says that he was given the allegiance on the day al-Qahir was deposed, on the sixth of Jumada al-Akhira 322 AH, and Ibn Muqla was ordered to write a letter on al-Qahir's faults to be read to the people. ¹ Al-Mas'udi dates the allegiance to Thursday, the sixth of Jumada al-Ula of the same year. The two accounts differ on the month and the day. ²

Al-Suyuti says he died in Rabi al-Akhir 329 AH aged thirty-one and a half. ¹ Al-Mas'udi says he died a natural death in Baghdad in Rabi al-Awwal of the same year, and that his caliphate lasted six years and eleven months. ²

Al-Suyuti describes him as generous, noble, a man of letters, a poet, eloquent, a lover of scholars, and that he left verse written down and heard hadith from al-Baghawi and others. He relates from al-Khatib al-Baghdadi that he had merits, among them that he was the last caliph with recorded poetry, the last to direct the armies and money alone, and the last to preach on Friday. ³

Al-Mas'udi says that he appointed Ibn Muqla and others as viziers, and that he trained himself in knowledge and the arts of literature. He describes him as generous and close to the people of learning and letters, so that no companion left him without a gift, a robe or a perfume. ^{2 4}