Al-Hadi

The cosmopolitan city of Baghdad, at this time the world’s largest, has blossomed during al-Mahdi's reign.

The city attracts immigrants from all of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Persia, and lands as far away as India and Spain.

Baghdad is home to Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians, in addition to the growing Muslim population.

Al-Mahdi has continued to expand the Abbasid administration, creating new diwans, or departments, for the army, the chancery, and taxation.

Qadis or judges have been appointed, and laws against non-Arabs have been dropped.

The Barmakid family staffed these new departments.

The Barmakids, of Persian extraction, had originally been Buddhists, but shortly before the arrival of the Arabs, they had converted to Zoroastrianism.

Their short-lived Islamic legacy will count against them during the reign of Harun al-Rashid.

The introduction of paper from China after 751, which had not yet been used in the West—the Arabs and Persians used papyrus, and the Europeans used vellum—had a profound effect.

The paper industry boomed in Baghdad where an entire street in the city center becomes devoted to sales of paper and books.

The cheapness and durability of paper are vital to the efficient growth of the expanding Abbasid bureaucracy.

Al-Mahdi has two important religious policies: the persecution of the zanadiqa, or dualists, and the declaration of orthodoxy.

Al-Mahdi had singled out the persecution of the zanadiqa in order to improve his standing among the purist Shi'i, who want a harder line on heresies, and find the spread of syncretic Muslim-polytheist sects to be particularly virulent.

Al-Mahdi has declared that the caliph has the ability—and indeed, the responsibility—to define the orthodox theology of Muslims, in order to protect the umma against heresy.

Although al-Mahdi does not make great use of this broad, new power, it will become important during the 'mihna' crisis of al-Ma'mun's reign.

The teenaged Harun, second son of Calph al-Mahdi, had been nominal leader of expeditions against Constantinople in 780 and 782, although there is no doubt that the experienced generals accompanying him made the military decisions.

The expedition of 782 had reached the Bosporus, opposite Constantinople, and peace had been concluded on terms favorable to the Muslims.

For this success, Harun had received the honorific title of ar-Rashid, “the one following the right path”, and had been named second in succession to the throne and appointed governor of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, with his tutor Yahya acting as actual administrator.

His mother is al-Khayzuran, a formerly enslaved Yemeni, and a woman of strong personality who greatly influences affairs of state in the reigns of her husband and will continue to do so in the reign of hers sons.

Al-Khayzuran an Yahya presumably the engineers behind these moves, are even said to have induced al-Mahdi to make Harun his immediate successor, but al-Mahdi, poisoned by one of his concubines, dies in August 785 without officially changing the succession.

Al-Hadi, the eldest son of Al-Mahdi and al-Khayzuran, becomes caliph and Harun acquiesces.

Al-Hadi is, like his father, very open to the people of his empire and allows citizens to visit him in the palace at Baghdad to address him.

As such, he is considered an "enlightened ruler", and continues the progressive moves of his Abbasid predecessors.

Al-Hadi's persecution of the 'Alids precipitates revolts in Medina, Egypt, and Iraq, all of which are put down brutally.

The revolt of Husayn ibn Ali ibn Hasan broke out when Husayn declared himself caliph in Medina.

Al-Hadi had crushed the rebellion and killed Husayn and many of his followers, but Idris bin Abdallah, a cousin of Husayn, had escaped to reach Morocco, where some years later he will found the Idrisi state.

Al-Hadi also crushes a Kharijite rebellion as well as faces an invasion by the forces of Constantinople.

However, the imperial forces are turned back.

Throughout his short reign, he has struggled with the question of succession, attempting to annul the rights of his brother.

Yahya has dissuaded the Caliph several times from proclaiming his own son as heir instead of Harun.

He eventually does so, and jails Yahya.

Al-Hadi moves his capital from Baghdad to …

…Haditha shortly before his mysterious death in September 786, which may have been a murder.

Al-Tabari notes varying accounts of this death, e.g.

an abdominal ulcer or assassination.

Rumor suggests that al-Khayzuran was behind al-Hadi's death, because he had resisted her domination.

Al-Tabari (v. 30 p. 42f) notes al-Hadi's assertion of independence from his mother, his forbidding her further involvement in public affairs and his threatening the succession of his younger brother, who is at first imprisoned and soon is released to assume the caliphate.

Harun ar-Rashid thus becomes caliph on September 14, 786, succeeding to the rule of an empire reaching from the western Mediterranean to India.

He makes Yahya his vizier, or chief minister.

With Yahya are associated his sons al-Fa'l and Ja'far, for the vizier at this period is not only an initiator of policy but also has attached to himself a corps of administrators to carry out his decisions.

Al-Khayzuran will have a considerable influence over the government until her death in 789.

Harun had made Yahya his vizier when he became caliph.

Under Yahya's influence, the Caliph invites to Baghdad many scholars and masters from India, especially Buddhists.

A catalogue of both Muslim and non-Muslim texts prepared at this time, Kitab al-Fihrist, includes a list of Buddhist works.

Among them is an Arabic version of the account of Buddha’s previous lives, Kitab al-Budd.