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from PART IV - THE MIDDLE ABBASID CALIPHATE (809–865)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
Al-Yacqūbī describes the accession of al-Mutawakkil on the day of al-Wāthiq's death (Wednesday 10 August 847):
The pledge of allegiance was taken to Jacfar b. al-Muctaṣim … the first who pledged allegiance to him were Sīmā the Turk, known as al-Dimashqī, and Waṣīf the Turk. He (al-Mutawakkil) immediately rode to the Public Audience Hall (Dār al-cĀmma), and ordered the giving of eight months pay to the army (al-jund). In total, the sons of seven caliphs greeted him (sallama calayhi): Manṣūr b. al-Mahdī; al-cAbbās b. al-Hādī; Ahmad b. al-Rashīd; cAbd Allāh b. al-Amīn; Mūsā b. al-Maɔmūn and his brothers; Aḥmad b. al-MuCtaṣim and his brothers; Muḥammad b. al-Wāthiq.
Al-Ṭabarī cites three main accounts without citing his sources.2 None mentions the ‘sons of seven caliphs’. However, the third corroborates al-Yac qūbī, in stating that ‘the senior courtiers’ pledge of allegiance (baycat al-khāṣṣa) was taken to al-Mutawakkil at the hour of al-Wāthiq's death and the public pledge (bayc at al-cāmma) when the sun set on the same day'.
Al-Ṭabarī's first account is quite different in that it makes much more of the selection of al-Mutawakkil by the administrators and Turkish commanders. He places six of them at the death of al-Wāthiq in his Hārūnī palace: Aḥmad b. Abī Dāwūd, the chief qāḍī, Muḥammad b. cAbd al-Malik al-Zayyāt, the ḥāḥib dīwān al-rasāɔil, cUmar b. Faraj al-Rukhkhajī, the senior scribe, the future vizier Aḥmad b. Khalid AbU al-Wazīr and two Turkish commanders, Ītākh and Waṣīf (but not Sīmā, who is mentioned by al-Yacqūbī).
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