Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
The succession crisis and civil war that followed the death of Caliph Harun alRashid in 809 is a gloomy chapter in the history of the Abbasid caliphate in its prime that captured the attention of later medieval Muslim scholars. Their main challenge lay in trying to find an appropriate rationale for justifying the conflict between the caliph's sons, al-Amin and al-Maʾmun, and the fate of the community under a caliphate seized by force for the first time in the Abbasid era. The destruction wrought by the civil war on the capital, Baghdad, combined with the spread of factional strife to other provinces of the caliphate, presented an ethical and religious dilemma reminiscent to contemporaries of the early Islamic fitnas. Conscious of this parallel, the chronicler al-Tabari, writing a century later, devotes considerably more space to the years of the civil war than he does to the reigns of al-Rashid and al-Maʾmun that bracketed it.
Author's note: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association on 16 November 1989, in Toronto, Canada. Before and after that date, it went through many stages of elaboration. I am grateful to Professor Richard Bulliet for contributing valuable criticisms on several earlier drafts of this paper. Unless otherwise indicated, the translation provided of certain excerpts from Arabic texts is mine.
1 The Mecca Protocol has received little scrutiny in the literature on the succession crisis as compared with the political history of the conflict. The point of departure remains Gabrieli's, F. interpretation in his classic article on the subject, “La successione di Hārūn al-Rashīd e la guerra fra al-Amīn e al-Maman,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 11 (1926–1928): 341–497.Google Scholar Gabrieli finds no reason to question the authenticity of the protocol and instead builds his narrative of the crisis based on a trusting reading of the sources. Later historians, among them ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Dūri in his al-ʿAḥr al-ʿAbbāsī al-Awwal (Beirut, 1945);Google ScholarDominique Sourdel in the Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970);Google ScholarShaban, M. A. in Islamic History: A New Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976);CrossRefGoogle ScholarHugh, Kennedy in The Early Abbasid Caliphate (London: Croom Helm, 1981),Google Scholar have continued in the same direction, adopting the mainstream interpretation which says that al-Rashid—after nominating al-Amin in 792 for the succession and later adding al-Maʾmun in 799 for the second succession—started turning away from his earlier decision and sought to restrict the powers of al-Amin as future caliph. Thus, through the Mecca Protocol drafted in 802, al-Rashid attempted to modify the terms of succession in a way that would provide al-Maʾmun with greater autonomy and influence in the eastern provinces. The most recent view on the protocol is by Kimber, R. A. in “Hārūn al-Rashīd's Meccan Settlement of A.H. 186/A.D. 802,” University of St. Andrews, School of Abbasid Studies, Occasional Papers 1 (Edinburgh, 1986), 55–79 Kimber suggests that al-Rashid was even moving by the end of his reign to make al-Maʾmun his sole heir.Google Scholar
2 Although the idea of a double succession had precedent, al-Rashid was the first to initiate the practice of a triple succession. The precedent of al-Rashid is significant as a point of legal and theoretical reference for later medieval Muslim jurists such as al-Māwardī who cited the event when arguing for the validity of a triple-succession nomination and the legality of this practice by pointing to the silence of opposition from contemporary theologians. It is notable that al-Māwardī does not speak of a territorial division of the state, but simply characterizes al-Rashid's succession plan as setting the line of succession among his sons. See al-Māwardī's, al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya (Cairo, 1983), 12.Google Scholar
3 Yazīd, ibn Muḥammad, al-Azdī, , Tārikh al-Mawṣil, ed. ʿAli, Ḥabība (Cairo, 1967), 308.Google Scholar
4 Abū, Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-al-Mulūk, 3 ser., ed. de Goeje, M. J. (Leiden, 1879–1901) 784.Google Scholar
5 Ibid., 3:796.
6 Ibid. 795. Geoje, M. J. de and Jong, P. de, eds., Kitāb al.ʿUyūn wa-al-Ḥadāʿiq fi Akhbār al-Ḥaqāʾiq, (Leiden, 1869), 323.Google Scholar Previous studies on the conflict have insistently attempted to establish the specific seqzuence of escalation and causal linkages in the conflict between the brothers. This I find to be a futile endeavor given the biased nature of the accounts in favor of al-Maʾmun. At best, one can arrive at a partial construction of the events, which only reinforces the skewed picture of legal responsibility for the war. One example of a synthetic study of the conflict is Samadi, S., “The Struggle Between the Two Brothers al-Amīn and a1-Maʿmūn,” Islamic Culture 32 (1958): 99–120.Google Scholar
7 Gabrieli, F., “al-Amīn,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Leiden, 1960), 438.Google Scholar
8 Hugh, Kennedy, The Early Abbasid Caliphate (London: Croom Helm, 1981), 132–87;Google ScholarElton, Daniel, The Political and Social History of Khurasan under Abbasid Rule 747–820 (Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979), 172;Google ScholarRoy, Mottahedeh, “The ʿAbbasid Caliphate in Iran,” in Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, ed. Frye, R. N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 72.Google Scholar
9 ʿAbd, Allah ibn Muslim, Ibn, Qutayba, al-Imāma wa-al-Siyāsa (Cairo, 1904), 172;Google ScholarAḥmad, ibn Dāwūd al-Dīnawarī, al-A khbār al-Ṭiwāl, ed. Guirgass, V. (Leiden, 1888), 385;Google ScholarʿAli, Ibn Ḥusayn al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab, ed. Pellat, C. (Beirut, 1973), 4:213–14.Google Scholar
10 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:656.Google Scholar
11 Aḥmadibn Abi Yaʿqūb, al-Yaʿqūbī ibn Abi Yaʿqūb, al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārikh, vol. 2, 416;Google ScholarMuḥammad, B. ʿAbd Allah al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, ed. Wüustenfeld, F. (Leipzig, 1858), 161;Google ScholarṬabarī, . Tāīkh, 3:656.Google Scholar
12 A1-Amin promises in his document the following: I have contracted with God's servant Harun, with full approval and with good will on my part, to comply with all that he has conveyed to my brother ʿAbd Allah in the matter of the succession, the caliphate, and all the affairs of the Muslims after me, surrendering that to him, and what he has appointed for him in the viceregency of Khurasan and all its dependencies, and the estates assigned him by the Commander of the Faithful, or given him from his own lands or exchanged with him in estates and assignments; all that he has given him in his own right by way of wealth, ornaments, jewels, furnishings, garments, residences or animals, whether small or great; all these shall be for ʿAbd Allah, the son of Harun, Commander of the Faithful, conveyed to him without restriction, and I have recognized this item by item. In the event of the Commander of the Faithful's death, and the passing of the caliphate to Muhammad his son, Muhammad must carry out all that Harun, Commander of the Faithful, has provided for in the governing of Khurasan and its marches by ʿAbd Allah. It is not for Muhammad, son of the Commander of the Faithful, to turn any officer or soldier or any other man assigned to ʿAbd Allah by the Commander of the Faithful away from him, nor to turn ʿAbd Allah, son of the Commander of the Faithful, away from any part of the governorship given him by his father, nor to summon him therefrom to himself, nor to separate any one of his followers and officers from him or any of his officials and functionaries, any merchant or any accountant or any collector, and not to cause any harm to befall him in any matter small or great, nor to come between him and the discharge of his functions there with his own opinion or disposition, nor to occasion to anyone of those assigned to ʿAbd Allah by his father from the people of his family, his followers, his judges, his officials and secretaries, his officers, retainers, mawlas. and army, anything that might cause harm to them or constraint, whether to their persons, their families, or their dependents, nor to anyone coming from them on an errand, nor yet to shed their blood or touch their possessions, their estates, their houses, their allotments, their goods, their slaves, their animals, or anything of theirs small or great, or any of the people by his order, advice, or caprice, or by his permission or instigation thereto to any one of the children of Adam, nor to give orders about their affairs; he or any of his judges or officials, except by the permission of ʿAbd Allah son of the Commander of the Faithful, and his opinion and the opinion of ʿAbd Allah's qadis. ḏabari, , Tārīkh, 3:655–58;Google ScholarJohn, A. Williams, trans., al-Ṭabari: The Early ʿAbbāsī Empire, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Eng., 1989), 232–33.Google Scholar
13 Yaʿqūbī, , Tārikh, 2:418;Google ScholarAzraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 164;Google ScholarṬabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:658.Google Scholar
14 Masʿūdi, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:270;Google ScholarṬabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:658.Google Scholar
15 Al-Maʾmun declares in the following excerpt from his document: The Commander of the Faithful has appointed me in the succession of the caliphate and all the affairs of the Muslims under his sovereignty after my brother Muhammad and given me in his own lifetime the government of the frontiers of Khurasan and its districts and dependencies, and stipulated that Muhammad his son shall comply with his provisions for the caliphate and the governing of the affairs of God's servants and territories after himself, and the government of Khurasan with all its dependencies. He shall not oppose me in any of the things allotted to me by the Commander of the Faithful or assigned to me by way of estates, covenants, and properties or exchanged with me, nor in what the Commander of the Faithful has given me in the monies, jewels, regalia, furnishings, animals, or slaves, or other possessions. He shall not confront me or any of my functionaries or secretaries for the purpose of an accounting, or ever at any time pursue me or one of them for that, or impose upon me or them or my followers or appointees whomever, any constraint in life or blood or hair or man or wealth whatever, in any matter small or great. He has complied with this and declared it and written a document for it in which he solemnly confirms it as obligatory upon himself. The Commander of the Faithful has attested his satisfaction and his acceptance in it, and recognized his sincerity of purpose. ḏabari, , Tārīkh, 3:660–61;Google ScholarWilliams, , trans., al-Ṭabarī 2:235.Google Scholar
16 Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 167;Google ScholarYaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:420;Google ScholarṬabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:661.Google Scholar
17 De, Geoje and de, Jong, eds., Kitāb al-ʿUyūn wa-al-Ḥadāʾiq, 331;Google Scholaral-Azdī, , Tārikh al-Mawṣil, 302;Google ScholarYaʿqūbi, , Tārīkh, 2:421.Google Scholar
18 It is significant that on his pilgrimage in 804, al-Rashid did not renew the oath of allegiance to the Mecca Protocol by the people.
19 Yaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:425;Google ScholarKitāb al-ʿUyūn wa-a1-Ḥadāʿiq, 303–4;Google Scholaral-Azdī, , Tārīkh al-Mawṣil, 302;Google Scholaral-Masʿqūdī, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:215.Google Scholar
20 There are a variety of dirhams from al-Rashid's reign documenting the succession nominations of the two heirs. For the year 792, when al-Rashid made his first nomination of al-Amin for the succession, the inscriptions on the reverse of dirhams read: “mimmā amara bihi al-amīr al-Amīn Muḥammad ibn amīr al-muʾminīn walī ʿahd al-muslimīn.” Later in 799 when al-Rashid nominated al-Maʾmun for the second succession, this was also commemorated by inscribing on dirhams the statement: “mimmā amara bihi al-amīr al-Maʾmūn ʾAbd Allāh ibn īr al-Muʾminīn walī walī ʿahd al-muslimīn.” See Widād, Qazzāz, “Al-Dirham al-ʿAbbāsī fi Zaman al-Khalīfa al-Rashīd,” Sumer 21 (1965): 181.Google Scholar
21 The protocol text is provided in a later recension in Qaiqashandi's, Kītāb ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā fi ṣināʿat al-Inshāʾ, vol. 14 (Cairo, 1917), 85–89,Google Scholar who states that he relied on the version of Azraqī. A summary of the text of the protocol is also provided in al-Irbilī's, Khulāṣat al-Dhahab al-Masbūk Mukhraṣar min Siyar aI-Mulūk (Baghdad, nd.), 140.Google Scholar
22 Williams, , trans., al-Ṭabarī, 2:232.Google Scholar
23 Ibid., 233.
24 Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 162;Google ScholarYaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:416.Google Scholar
25 The Arabic text of this passage is: fa-sharaṭṭu liʿAbd Allah Hārūn amīr al-muʾminīn wa-jaʿaltu lahu ʿalā nafsī an asmaʿli-Muḥammad ibn amīr al-muʾminīn wa-uṭīʾahu wa-lā aʾṣih wa-anṣabaḥu wa-lā aghushshahu wa-awfi bi-bayʿatihi Wawilāyatihi wa-lā aghdira wa-lā ankitha wa-unfidha kutubahu wa-umūrahu wa-uḥsina muʾāzaratahu wamukānafatahu wa-ujāhida ʿaduwwahu fi nāḥiyatī mā wafā li bi-mā sharaṭa li wa-li-ʿAbd Allah Hārūn amīr al-muʾminīn… Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:661.Google Scholar The excerpt is also part of the text in Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 167;Google Scholar and Yaʿqubi, , Tārikh, 2:420.Google Scholar
26 Ṭabarī, , Tārikh, 3:661.Google Scholar This translation is a composite one from the translations of al-Tabari's Tārikh by Bosworth, C. B., The History of al-Tabari (The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in Equilibrium), vol. 30 (Albany, 1988), 193,Google Scholar and Williams, , al-Ṭabari, 235.Google Scholar
27 Bosworth, , trans., History of al-Ṭabarī, 30:193.Google Scholar This text from Ṭabarī, , Tārikh, 3:661,Google Scholar is also agreed upon by Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka,167;Google Scholar and Yaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:420.Google Scholar
28 Unless we interpret the “covenant” as solely the promise of al-Amin not to depose al-Maʾmun or alter the line of succession, there would be no logical connection between the two different actions.
29 De, Geoje and de, Jong, eds., Kitāb alʿUyūn wa-al-Ḥadāʾiq, 292;Google ScholarMuḥammad, ibn Aḥmad, al-Dhahabī, , Duwal al-Islām, vol. 1 (Hyderabad, 1945), 88.Google Scholar
30 Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 167;Google ScholarYaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:420;Google ScholarṬabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:662;Google ScholarWilliams, , trans., al-Ṭabarī, 236.Google Scholar
31 De, Geoje and de, Jong, eds., Kitāb alʿUyūn wa-al-Ḥadāʾiq, 331.Google Scholar
32 Al-Masʿūdi, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:271.Google Scholar
33 Al-Masʿūdī, , al-Tanbīh wa-al-Ishrāf, ed. Goeje, M. J. de (Leiden, 1894), 347.Google Scholar
34 Ṭabarī, , Trīikh, 3:796.Google Scholar
35 The nomination of a child prince for the succession in fact had not been as novel as the sources imply. Al-Rashid had earlier nominated al-Amin for the succession in 792, when the latter was only five years of age. This precedent, however, is not described in the sources as a sign of the reckless judgment on the caliph's part. Ironically the criticism made against al-Rashid was that he did not nominate al-Maʿmun, though he was only older by five or six months. See al-Masʿūdī, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:261.Google Scholar
36 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:767–68.Google Scholar
37 ʿAlī, ibn Muhammad ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fi al-Tārīkh, 6:233.Google Scholar
38 A further echo of the implicit caliph–governor relationship and al-Maʿmun's request for confirmation can be inferred from reports connected with al-Amin's discussion of possible ways for dealing with al-Maʾmun's mutiny. There are two distinct actions which al-Amin considers. The first involves the “dismissal” (ṣarf) of al-Maʿmun, while the second uses the word “deposition” (khalʿ). The difference in the two actions is significant, for here we have a textual reflection of the chronological escalation in the crisis as well as the implicit reflection in the dismissal order of the subordinate position of the governorship of Khurasan.
39 Muḥammad, ibn ʿAbdūs al-Jahshiyārī, al-Wuzarāʾ wa-al-Kurrāb, ed. Muṣṭafā, al-Saqqā (Cairo, 1938), 311.Google Scholar
40 Sourdel, D, “al-Faḍl b.Sahl,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Leiden, 1965), 731.Google Scholar
41 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:814.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., 816. An almost identically phrased response by al-Maʾmun, emphasizing the military attributes, is provided in Dīnawari's, al-A khbār, 390–91.Google Scholar
43 Ibn, al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fi al Tārīkh, 6:173.Google Scholar
44 Ṭabarī, , Tārākh, 3:604.Google Scholar
45 Omar, F., “Hārtūn al-Rashīd,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Leiden, 1971), 234.Google Scholar
46 Elton, Daniel, Khurasan under Abbasid Rule, 125–47.Google Scholar The danger of provincial revolts was coupled with the alarming retreat of caliphal influence in Central Asia; for example, Chinese records report the defeat of an Abbasid army under Tibetan command in 801; see Dunlop, D. M., “Arab Relations with Tibet in the 8th and early 9th centuries A.D.,” Islam Teikikieri Enstitüsü Dergisi 5 (1973): 309.Google Scholar
47 Yaʿqūbī, , Tārīkh, 2:445–46.Google Scholar
48 This rationale represents the basis for a recent examination of the protocol by R. Kimber, who views al-Rashid as moving towards the end of his reign to make al-Maʿmun his sole heir. This view reads the temporary assignments of a1-Maʿmun as permanent privileges and a sign of irreversible favor by al-Rashid. It must be said that al-Rashid's entrusting of new duties (seen as privileges) to al-Maʿmun and al-Muʿtamin after the Mecca Protocol is only logical, for it implies that the caliph was training both for future caliphal office. This does not, however, imply an infringement on the future caliphal prerogatives of al-Amin, since the latter's rank as successor belonged to a different category from al-Maʾmun and al-Muʾtamin's. Al-Amin does not figure in the grants given at Qarmasin because he—as heir apparent—was left in charge of Baghdad during the caliph's absence on campaign. Furthermore, Kimber's suggestion that the occasion on which al-Rashid later made al-Maʾmun his deputy at Raqqa in 806 (when he left on his campaign against the Byzantines) can be read as another sign of the caliph's raising his son closer to the caliphal succession is untenable since al-Rashid later in 808 appointed his other son al-Muʾtamin as deputy to the same post. One can hardly read the caliph's appointment of al-Muʾtamin as a sign of promotion for succession in place of al-Amin. See Kimber, R., “The Meccan Settlement of A.D. 802,” 63–65.Google Scholar
49 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:773;Google Scholaral-Jahshiyārī, , al-Wuzarāʾ wa-al-Kuuāb, 278.Google Scholar
50 Ṭabarā, , Tārākh, 3:765.Google Scholar
51 This likely progression of events had earlier been realized in the caliphate of al-Mansur, who put his son and nominated successor al-Mahdi in charge of the expedition that set out to Rayy in 760 to recall the unruly governor of Khurasan ʿAbd al-Jabbar al-Azdi. When the latter refused to comply, alMahdi advanced eastward and set up his base at Nishapur, while he dispatched Khazim ibn Khuzayma as the general in charge of the military operation against the rebel in Merv.
52 Ibn, al-Ṭiqṭaqā, Muḥammad, ibnʿAli ibn Ṭabāṭabā, al-Fakhri (Beirut, 1966), 212;Google ScholarṬabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:774.Google Scholar
53 Al-Jahshiyārī, , al-Wuzarāʾ wa-al-Kunāb, 304;Google ScholarAḥmad, ibn Aʿtham al-Kāfī, al-FutūḤ, vol. 4 (Beirut, 1986), 446.Google Scholar A more dramatic, but less convincing, sentiment is expressed by al-Maʾmun who reportedly laments: “I cannot but say what the Commander of the Faithful ʿAli [ibn Abi Talib] said when he received the news of ʿUthman's murder ‘By God I did not murder or order or sanction [the murder]. May God bring agony to Tahir's heart’” (Masʿūdī, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:298). Regardless of whether this statement is truly al-Maʾmun's or a fabrication, it is particularly revealing in that it creates the analogy between al-Amin's and ʿUthman's murder.Google Scholar
54 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:975.Google Scholar
55 Conversely, a division that does not authorize the prerogative of sikka for two different territorial- political entities as in this case is not one that is substantial enough to detract from the caliphate's sovereignty.
56 Tayeb, El-Hibri, “Coinage Reform under the ʿAbbāsid Caliph al-Maʾmūn” (paper presented at the American Numismatic Society Seminar, New York, 08 1989, forthcoming).Google Scholar
57 A lighter view of the caliph's motive for undertaking the journey in that year, according to one report in Masʿūildī, says that al-Rashid sought personally to verify the alleged existence of twin children from the marriage of his sister ʿAbbasa to Jaʾfar al-Barmaki. This popular tale is given as a background factor for the sack of the Barmakids upon the caliph's return to Baghdad a few months later (Masʿūdī, , Murūj al-Dhahab, 4:249).Google Scholar
58 Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, 3:663.Google Scholar
59 Azraqi gives the text of another document that was placed in the Kaʿba at the order of al-Maʾmun in 814. The document was placed along with the crown of the king of Kabul, which the latter sent as a sign of his submission to al-Maʿmun and/or conversion to Islam. The caliph, who was still residing in Khurasan at the time, sent the crown to Mecca to be placed inside the Kaʿba in order to exhibit to the Muslim community the conquests of Islam on the frontier; see Azraqī, , Akhbār Makka, 157–61.Google Scholar
