Jul 19, 2023
Today few people would know the name ʿArīb al-Ma’mūnīya. But during her lifetime, she may have been the most famous person in the world.
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Today few people would know the name ʿArīb al-Ma’mūnīya. But during her lifetime, she may have been the most famous person in the world.
Everyone say ‘thanks Hulegu’
On this day, (August 6, 1158 CE {1/2 Rajab, 553 AH}), the 34th Abbasid Caliph - Al-Nasir li-Din Allah or Al-Nasir - was born in the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate: Baghdad.
He was the son of the 33rd Abbasid Caliph Hassan al-Mustadi ibn Yusuf al-Mustanjid or Al-Mustadi, and ruled from 1180 CE until his death in 1225 CE.
His (regnal) name literally means "The One who Gives Victory to the Religion of God" and he attempted to restore the power of the Abbasids who at this point had been made subordinates/vassals of many various other dynasties.
He managed to achieve a degree of success and not only held the capital Baghdad but managed to expand into Mesopotamia and Persia. In fact, according to historians, Al-Nasir was the last effective Abbasid Caliph.
Pictured is the gold dinar of Caliph Al-Nasir.
Early Suppressions of Karbala Commemorations
Since the antagonistic and politically dominant Umayyads were eager to sweep the [Karbala] affair from public memory, their sentiments against the commemoration of Husayn's death seem to have prevented any possibility of public commemorations without inciting a government purge. Moreover, there appear to have been efforts on the part of the Umayyad dynasty to actually neutralize the commemoration of Ashura by the Muslim populace. Historical sources even indicate that during the reign of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65-86/685-705), the general al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi went so far as to institute a special festive holiday on the day of ashura.* It is quite likely that al-Hajjaj's deliberate institution of a festive holiday on the exact anniversary of Husayn's gruesome killing and decapitation only a year years earlier was a deliberate attempt to counteract what had by then become an increasingly disturbing trend: annual gatherings mourning the killing of Husayn and his family at the hands of the Umayyads. The annual gatherings during Ashura appear to have kept the memory of Husayn alive not only in terms of commemorating the anniversary of his battle and subsequent death but also by perpetuating the oral transmission of accounts of the battle, the events leading up to it, and its aftermath. Considering the Umayyad's antipathy toward any remembrance of Husayn and the Umayyads' repression of ‘Alid movements, the lack of documented written accounts of the battle in this period is completely understandable. Moreover, that the few Umayyad historical sources that do exist involve only the history of the Prophet seems to indicate Umayyad attempts at self-legitimation, whereby Umayyads reinforced their on piety by stressing the life of the Prophet and simultaneously averted focus from the internecine confrontations that occurred after his death. [...] The historical sources indicate that Husayn's grave site was by the third/ninth century so popular and, apparently, the commemoration of his battle and death so moving to the masses of visitors that the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-47/847-61) destroyed the shrine of Husayn, razed Karbala, and banned visitation of the site on pain of death. Though we have only a few textual references to this in historical sources, the lack of elaboration in Abbasid-era texts actually speaks volumes. This is particularly startling, since much of the corpus of early Islamic sources was authored or compiled in third/ninth century Baghdad. As such, the significance of this act on the part of the Abbasid caliph cannot be overlooked. On one level, it shows the extent to which ritual visitation of Husayn's shrine at Karbala had developed by that time, a possible indication that ziyarah [pilgrimage] was by then already fully developed. On another level, it seems to indicate the above-mentioned discrepancy that developed in the different points of view between the Abbasids and the ‘Alids with regard to Karbala. Although the Abbasids interpreted Husayn's battle at Karbala as an anti-Umayyad battle, the destruction of Husayn's shrine and subsequent ban on visitation indicate that the commemoration rituals had by then likely acquired rebellious antigovernment connotations that were just as threatening to the new Abbasid dynasty as they were formerly to the Umayyads. *Al-Maqrizi notes that the Ayyubids reinstituted this festive practice in a deliberate attempt to replace the Fatimid commemoration of Ashura as a day of mourning.
- Ali J. Hussain ("The Mourning of History and the History of Mourning: The Evolution of Ritual Commemoration of the Battle of Karbala")
An exploration of the ways in which the Abbasid court made sense of the past and, in general, of what 'historiography' means in a medieval A
Our Book of the Month for September is Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad, by Ibn al-Sāʿī and translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa.
The war between the sons of Harun al-Rashid caused irreparable damage to the economic, political, and military structure of the Abbasid caliphate. The struggle for the throne led to the caliphate’s eventual disintegration and the reduction of the Abbasid caliphs’ power and authority.
One of the most serious revolts against the still young Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th century was led by a man best known in the sources as al-Muqanna‘, or “the veiled one.”