Al-Mansur, Almanzor or
Abu Ja'far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur (712–775; ) was the second
AbbasidThe Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus....
CaliphThe Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transliterated version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
. He was born at al-Humaymah, the home of the 'Abbasid family after their emigration from the Hejaz in 687–688. "His father, Muhammad, was reputedly a great-grandson of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the youngest uncle of Mohammad; his mother was a
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
woman.". He reigned from 754 until 775.
Al-Mansur, Almanzor or
Abu Ja'far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur (712–775; ) was the second
AbbasidThe Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus....
CaliphThe Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transliterated version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
. He was born at al-Humaymah, the home of the 'Abbasid family after their emigration from the Hejaz in 687–688. "His father, Muhammad, was reputedly a great-grandson of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the youngest uncle of Mohammad; his mother was a
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
woman.". He reigned from 754 until 775. In 762 he founded as new imperial residence and palace city Madinat as-Salam, which became the core of the Imperial capital
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
.
Al-Mansur was concerned with the solidity of his regime after the death of his brother, Abu'l `Abbas, who later become known
as-SaffahAbu al-`Abbās `Abdu'llāh as-Saffāh ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah ibn Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib ibn Hashim was the first Abbasid caliph...
(the bloodshedder). In 755 he arranged the assassination of
Abu MuslimAbu Muslim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muslim al-Khorasani was an Abbasid general of Persian origin, born in city of Balkh in Khorasan who led the first liberal movement against the Umayyad dynasty....
. Abu Muslim was a loyal freed man from the eastern Iranian province of
KhorasanGreater Khorasan is a modern term for a historical geographic region spanning north-eastern and east of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, western and northern Afghanistan and the North Western Areas of Pakistan...
who had led the Abbasid forces to victory over the
UmayyadThe Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
s during the Third Islamic Civil War in 749-750. At the time of al-Mansur he was the subordinate, but undisputed ruler of Iran and Transoxiana. The assassination seems to have been made to preclude a power struggle in the empire.
Al-Mansur certainly saw himself as universal ruler with religious and secular authority. His victory against Nafs az-Zakiya, a Shiite rebel in Southern
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
and in the
Arabian PeninsulaThe Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia...
further alienated certain Shiite groups. They had been hoping that an 'Abbasid victory would restore the caliphate to the
ImamateThe word Imamate is an Arabic word with an English language suffix meaning leadership. Its use in theology is confined to Islam.Theological usage:...
, and that the rule of the "Al Muhammad", the family of the prophet would begin. But many were disappointed.
During his reign,
literatureIslamic literature refers to literature written with an Islamic perspective, in any language.The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , which was a compilation of many earlier folk tales told by the Persian Queen Scheherazade...
and scholarly work in the Islamic world began to emerge in full force, supported by new Abbasid tolerances for Persians and other groups suppressed by the Umayyads. Although the Umayyad caliph
Hisham ibn Abd al-MalikHisham ibn Abd al-Malik 10th Umayyad caliph who ruled from 723 until his death in 743. When he was born in 691 his mother named him after her father....
had adopted Persian court practices, it was not until al-Mansur's reign that Persian literature and scholarship were truly appreciated in the Islamic world. The emergence of
Shu'ubiya among Persian scholars occurred during the reign of al-Mansur as a result of loosened censorship over Persian nationalism.
Shu'ubiya was a literary movement among Persians expressing their belief that Persian art and culture was superior to that of the Arabs; the movement served to catalyze the emergence of Arab-Persian dialogues in the eighth century. Al-Mansur also founded the
House of WisdomThe House of Wisdom was a library and translation institute in Abbassid-era Baghdad, Iraq. It was a key institution in the Translation Movement and considered to have been a major intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. The House of Wisdom acted as a society founded by Abbasid caliphs Harun...
in Baghdad.
Perhaps more importantly than the emergence of Persian scholarship was the conversion of many non-Arabs to Islam. The Umayyads actively tried to discourage conversion in order to continue the collection of the
jizyaUnder Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...
, or the tax on non-Muslims. The inclusiveness of the Abbasid regime, and that of al-Mansur, saw the expansion of Islam among its territory; in 750, roughly 8% of residents in the Caliphate were Muslims. This would double to 15% by the end of al-Mansur's reign.
Al-Mansur died in 775 on his way to
MeccaMecca , sometimes spelled Makkah is the holiest meeting site of the Islamic religion. The city is modern, cosmopolitan and whilst being closed to non-Muslims is nonetheless ethnically diverse.Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants...
to make
hajjThe Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca . It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, an obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
. He was buried somewhere along the way in one of the hundreds of graves that had been dug in order to hide his body from the Umayyads. He was succeeded by his son,
al-MahdiMuhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi , was the third Abbasid Caliph. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur.Al-Mahdi, whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph when his father was on his deathbed...
.
According to a number of sources, the scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man was imprisoned by al-Mansur and tortured. Imam Malik, the founder of another school of law, was also flogged during his rule, but al-Mansur himself did not condone this - in fact, it was his cousin, who was the governor of Madinah at the time, who did so. Al-Mansur, in turn, punished his cousin, and retributed Imam Malik. (Ya'qubi, vol.lll, p. 86; Muruj al-dhahab, vol.lll, p. 268-270.)
Character
Al-MasudiAbu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi , was an Arab historian and geographer, known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs." He was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawhar , a world...
in Meadows of Gold recounts a number of anecdotes that present aspects of this caliphs character. He tells of a blind poet on two occasions reciting praise poems for the Umayyads to one he didn't realize was this Abbasid caliph. Al-Mansur rewarded the poet for the verses. Al-Masudi relates a tale of the arrow with verses inscribed on feathers and shaft arriving close to al-Mansur. These verses prompted him to investigate the situation of a notable from Hamadan unjustly imprisoned and release him. There is also the account of the foreboding verses al-Mansur saw written on the wall just before his death.
A very impressive aspect of this caliph's character is that when he died he left in the treasury six hundred thousand dirhams and fourteen million dinars.
Other stories reflect more negatively on Mansur's character. His perfumer, Jamra, related a particularly unsettling story in regard to Mansur's treatment of the Alids. According to Jamra, while Mansur was leaving for what would be his last pilgrimage, he left his daughter in law, Rita, with a keys to his storerooms but with instructions to under no circumstances open a certain door until she was sure he was dead. When he passed, Rita and her husband, Muhammad ibn Mansur
al-MahdiMuhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi , was the third Abbasid Caliph. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur.Al-Mahdi, whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph when his father was on his deathbed...
rushed excitedly to this special store.
When Rita and
al-MahdiMuhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi , was the third Abbasid Caliph. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur.Al-Mahdi, whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph when his father was on his deathbed...
opened it, they were horrified to find the corpses of all of the Alids that Mansur had murdered in his lifetime. There were many corpses and of all ages, including infants and seniors. Each corpse's left ear was tagged their name and genealogy, evidencing Mansur's brutal policy towards the Alids.
In 2008,
MBC 1MBC is a free-to-air, pan-Arab news and entertainment television channel.Satellite transmission started from London in September 1991, making MBC the first independent Arabic satellite TV station, with an estimated audience of more than 130 million Arabic-speaking people around the world.MBC has...
had depicted the life and leadership of Al-Mansur in a historical series aired during the holy month of
ramadanRamadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset...
.