Summary

News reached on the third of Shaʿban in the year 285 AH that Raghib the servant, mawla of al-Muwaffaq, had raided by sea. God granted him victory, with many ships and everyone aboard them from the Byzantines (al-Rum). Three thousand of them were beheaded, the ships were burned, and many Byzantine forts were taken. ¹

The scene

A brief report that shows sea raids on the Byzantine frontier continuing for years after al-Muwaffaq's death, and that the mawla of the man who led the war against the Zanj now commanded the Muslims' ships at sea. ¹

Abu Ahmad al-Muwaffaq

Brother of the caliph al-Mu'tamid. Al-Tabari records his departure from al-Jabal for Iraq, his illness with gout, and his death on a Wednesday, eight days before the end of Safar 278. According to al-Suyuti, his brother al-Mu'tazz invested him with the robe of kingship, crowned him with a gold crown and a jewelled cap, gave him two shawls and girded him with two swords; in the same year he removed him from office and exiled him to Wasit. Also according to al-Suyuti, his brother al-Mu'tamid placed him in charge of the east, and he commanded the army in most of the engagements against the Zanj; when the leader of the Zanj was killed, the people cried out prayers for al-Muwaffaq and poets praised him. In 269 al-Mu'tamid summoned him back from the direction of Damascus and placed him under restraint; he was given the titles Ibn Kundaj, Dhu al-Sayfayn, and Sa'idan, Dhu al-Wizaratayn, and al-Mu'tamid ordered Ibn Tulun to be cursed from the pulpits. He died in 278, and al-Mu'tamid was relieved of him. According to al-Mas'udi, when al-Musta'in was deposed he went from Baghdad to Samarra, where al-Mu'tazz invested him, put a robe on him, gave him two shawls and clothed his commanders. According to al-Mas'udi, al-Mu'tazz imprisoned him with his brother al-Mu'ayyad, then tightened his confinement and sent him to Basra thirteen nights before the end of Ramadan 252; between his honour and his imprisonment there were six months and three days. According to al-Mas'udi, al-Mu'tamid invested him and Mufallih at the start of Rabi' I 258 and sent them against the leader of the Zanj; he met Ya'qub al-Saffar at Sayb Bani Kuma in 262. According to Ibn al-Jawzi, the gout grew so severe that he could not ride, so he had a domed litter made to sit in, with an attendant who cooled his feet with cold things until ice was applied to them; his leg became elephantiasis. Forty porters carried his litter, twenty at a time in turns. When the pain grew he would order them to set him down and say: 'You are weary of me, and I wish I were one of you, carrying a load on my head and eating in good health.' He also said: 'My register covers a hundred thousand men, yet none of them is in a worse state than I am.' He died in the Qasr al-Hasani on the night of Thursday, eight days before the end of Safar 278, aged forty-seven years less a month and some days. Abdallah ibn al-Mu'tazz wrote a letter of condolence: 'I console you with al-Mansur the second, for I know of no one among his descendants more like him.' In his war against the Zanj he sent their leader a letter calling him to repent and return to God from the shedding of blood, the violation of what is sacred, the ruin of lands, and the claim to a prophethood and messengership that God had not made him fit for, and to give up his course and join the community of Muslims. When the letter reached him it only increased his aversion and obstinacy, and he did not reply. He encamped in the city he named al-Muwaffaqiyya, sent merchants to it, built its congregational mosque, and set up mints there where dinars and dirhams were struck.

The naval raid of Raghib, mawla of al-Muwaffaq

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The scene

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Abu Ahmad al-Muwaffaq