Muhammad al-Mahdi
Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Mansur, al-Mahdi, third Abbasid caliph; in al-Baladhuri: he sent his son Harun raiding Byzantine lands in year 163, besieging Damalu — its people by some reports settled at Baghdad on his ruling, spared and named for their town — and he completed what remained of the march-cities' and fortresses' works after his father al-Mansur, adding to their garrisons, ordered al-Hadath built and bequeathed the building of Tarsus on al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba's description; in his caliphate a body of Qinnasrin's hadir converted and he had the khadra written at their hands.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 15 in the chain · 775–785 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
-
Battle of Caesarea (781)
Draft card for Battle of Caesarea (781); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
The Aman of Samalu and its People's Transfer to Baghdad
In al-Baladhuri: al-Mahdi sent his son Harun al-Rashid raiding in year 163 and he besieged the people of Damalu — which common speech calls Samalu — and they asked his aman, ten householders among them the qummis, which he granted on the condition that they not be separated, so they were settled in Baghdad at the Shammasiyya gate and named their quarter Samalu, which it is still known as; others say they came down on al-Mahdi's ruling — he spared them, gathered them at that spot and ordered it named Samalu; al-Rashid had those remaining in the fortress cried and sold, and an Abyssinian who used to curse al-Rashid and the Muslims was taken and crucified on one of its towers.
-
The execution of Salih ibn Abd al-Quddus
Salih ibn Abd al-Quddus of Basra was denounced to al-Mahdi for zandaqa and the caliph meant to kill him; 'I repent to God,' he said, and recited: 'what foes inflict on a fool is less than the fool inflicts on himself — and the old man never leaves his ways until buried in the dust of his grave.' Released and nearly gone, he was called back: 'Did you not say the old man never leaves his ways?' 'Yes.' 'So you will not leave yours until you die' — and ordered his execution.
-
The Building of Madinat al-Hadath
In al-Baladhuri: al-Hadath was among the conquests of Umar's days, taken by Habib ibn Maslama at Iyad ibn Ghanm's direction, and Mu'awiya kept it up thereafter; Banu Umayya called the Darb al-Hadath 'al-Salama' out of omen, for the Muslims had been smitten there — that calamity being 'the event' as some say — while others say a Byzantine youth (ghulam hadath) fought them on the pass so it was named Darb al-Hadath; in Marwan ibn Muhammad's civil war the Romans demolished Madinat al-Hadath and evacuated its people as they had Malatya; then in year 161 Michael came out to Amq Mar'ash, and al-Mahdi sent al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba ranging Byzantine lands — in this expedition were Mandal al-Anzi the Kufan and Mu'tayyir ibn Sulayman al-Basri — who chose his city-site there, and on return spoke to al-Mahdi of building it and Tarsus; al-Mahdi ordered al-Hadath built first, and Ali ibn Sulayman ibn Ali founded it while over the Jazira and Qinnasrin — it was named al-Muhammadiyya — and al-Mahdi died just as they finished, so it is called al-Mahdiyya and al-Hamadiyya; it was built of mud brick, his death falling in year 169, when his son Musa al-Hadi succeeded, removed Ali ibn Sulayman and gave the Jazira and Qinnasrin to Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ali; Ali had finished the city, and Muhammad levied for it a contingent of Syrians, Jazirans and Khurasanis at forty dinars' pay, granted them house-lots and gave each man three hundred dirhams — completed in year 169; Abu al-Khattab says Ali ibn Sulayman levied four thousand for the city, settled them in it and transferred two thousand men from Malatya, Shimshat, Sumaysat, Kaysum, Duluk and Ra'ban; when built, winter struck with snows and heavy rain — its building not sound — and the city collapsed in ruin, the Romans occupied it and its garrison scattered; word reached Musa, who dispatched columns with al-Musayyab ibn Zuhayr, Rawh ibn Hatim and Hamza ibn Malik, but died before they could march; al-Rashid then ordered it rebuilt, fortified, garrisoned and its fighters granted houses and estates — another than al-Waqidi says a patrikios grandee camped on the city with a dense host just as it was built, the stacked mud brick ruined by snow, its governor and people fleeing while the enemy burned its mosque, wrecked it and carried off the people's goods — al-Rashid rebuilt it at his accession.
-
Khuzayma ibn Khazim Institutes the Land Survey at Dabil and Nashwa
In al-Baladhuri: Armenia's Abbasid governors ran in succession — Uthman ibn Umada ibn Khurathim, then Rawh ibn Hatim al-Muhallabi, then Khuzayma ibn Khazim, then Yazid ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani, then Ubaydallah ibn al-Mahdi, then al-Fadl ibn Yahya, then Sa'id ibn Salm, then Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Mazyad; Khuzayma was the sternest of them in office, and it was he who instituted the land-survey at Dabil and Nashwa, which had not existed before. The Armenian patrikioses ever stayed in their lands, each guarding his district: when a march-governor arrived they surrounded him — if they saw continence and sternness in him while he had force and equipment, they paid him the kharaj and yielded obedience, but otherwise despised him and made light of his command; and Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Mazyad governed them in al-Ma'mun's caliphate, accepting their gifts and mixing them with his own person — that deed corrupted them and emboldened them against al-Ma'mun's governors who came after.
-
Establishment of the barid from the Hijaz to Iraq
In year 166 al-Mahdi moved to Qasr al-Salam and ordered a barid relay established for him from the Prophet's Medina and from Yemen and Mecca to the capital, by mule and camel; per al-Dhahabi it was the first barid worked from the Hijaz to Iraq.
-
Works on the Mecca road and reform of the minbars
In year 161 al-Mahdi ordered the hajj road to Mecca made good, building palaces and constructing pools along it; he ordered the maqasir in the mosques of Islam removed and the minbars shortened to the measure of the Prophet's minbar. In year 160 he performed hajj: the Ka'ba's custodians warned that the weight of hangings threatened to bring it down, so he had them stripped and limited it to his own kiswa — and snow was carried to him at Mecca, a thing, al-Dhahabi says, granted to no king before.
-
The Great Enlargement of the Sacred Mosque
In year 167 al-Mahdi ordered the great enlargement of the Sacred Mosque, absorbing many houses into it.
-
Michael's Incursion on the Mar'ash Depths, 161
In al-Baladhuri — Muhammad ibn Sa'd told me from al-Waqidi: Michael came out of the Darb al-Hadath with eighty thousand, reached Amq Mar'ash killing, burning and taking captives of the Muslims, and came to the gate of Mar'ash, where Isa ibn Ali was — he having raided that year — so Isa's mawalis, the city folk and their fighters went out and shot him with arrows and darts; he feigned flight until he had drawn them from the city, then turned on them and killed eight of Isa's mawalis, the rest holding fast in the city which they shut, whereupon he besieged them then withdrew to Jayhan; word reached Thumama ibn al-Walid al-Absi at Dayq — he having been placed over that year's summer expedition, year 161 — who sent dense cavalry against him that were destroyed save those who escaped, which so grieved al-Mahdi that he made ready to send al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba raiding the next year, year 162.
-
The movement of al-Muqanna' al-Khurasani (the Veiled One)
The rising of the Veiled One in Marw's region, 159-161 AH — the last of the movements bound to Abu Muslim's name, broken by Sa'id al-Harashi.
-
The Paderborn Plot and Charlemagne's Campaign against al-Andalus
The Paderborn pact, 160 AH/777 CE — the Andalusi governors' compact with Charlemagne to deliver Saragossa, collapsing when al-Ansari shut the gates and the Saxon revolt recalled the Frank.