The successors of Abbasid caliph Al-Mutasim’ follow…

The successors of Abbasid caliph Al-Mutasim’ follow his policy of maintaining a special military corps composed of imported enslaved Turkish men and mercenaries.

This practice will soon result in the relegation of the caliphs to mere puppets of their Turkish troops, whose commanders will begin to claim portions of the empire as their virtually independent domains.