Islamic World: Political History and Notable People

Includes Both Notable Religious and Non-Religious Figures | Images show Regimes at their territorial peak unless indicated otherwise

570 - 632 - Mohammed (All Facts)

• Born in Mecca

• Founder of Islam

• He was

  • Born to poor parents and eventually orphaned

• He was a preacher of the Quraysh tribe of the Bedouin

  • He called for an end to the demons and idols of Arab religion or Arab polytheism

    • He denounced the idols associated with the Kaaba

  • He called for conversion to the ways of the one true god, Allah

    • He urged people to turn to Allah, “the One and Only God” who had revealed Himself to the Jews and the Christians, but both of whom had misinterpreted his true word but then had revealed himself to the namesake

    • He urged people to help the poor

• In Mecca, he was married to a wealthy Qurayshi widow with money in the caravan business

• He became increasingly unpopular for his teachings and was eventually forced to leave Mecca and take refuge at Medina in what became known as the “Hegira”

  • He had done this due to his emphasis on helping the poor, which contrasted with the aims of the rich and powerful Meccans, who had become his enemies over the years

  • While in Medina, he continued to receive revelations from Allah, which began to be recorded

• He saw himself as an instrument of Allah and submitted to Allah’s will, and thus established his faith based on this principle, Islam, which is Arabic for “submission”

• He eventually left Medina and made a pilgrimage back to Mecca along with his followers for which they were granted permission by the authorities of the time, following the lifting of a siege of Medina by the Meccans

  • City which eventually accepted his authority as a preacher and Prophet of God

  • He eventually made peace with and took control of Mecca when they agreed to recognize him as Prophet of God

    • In exchange, he accepted that the Kaaba, the former temple of polytheism in Mecca, can remain a place of pilgrimage for the new faith of Islam

• Upon his death, his closest followers elected his father-in-law to succeed him as leader of the Islamic World

622 - 632 - First Islamic State (All Facts)

• Established by Mohammed, it culminated in the defeat of the Meccans and control of Mecca

632 - 661 - Rashidun Caliphate (All Facts)

• 1st Caliphate of the Islamic World

• Its capital was Medina, and then later the city of Kufa

• Caliphate of many notable Islamic leaders including

  • Abu Bakr

  • Umar

  • Uthman

  • Ali

632 - 634 - Abu Bakr (All Facts)

• 1st Caliph and Founder of the Rashidun Caliphate

  • He was a father-in-law and closest friend to Mohammed the Prophet

  • He was a mild and courteous old man

  • He was elected by Mohammed’s closest followers following the Prophet’s death

    • The claims of Ali being the most faithful follower and successor or caliph instead of his own were brushed aside

  • He ensured the survival of Islam and achieved much despite his short reign

• Under his reign, via his general Khalid ibn-al Walid, the Arab Muslims

  • Consolidated Arab tribes that rejected the new faith and authority of the Muslim leaders in Medina by launching military expeditions to bring them back into line

  • Invaded the Byzantine Empire in Syria

  • Invaded the Sassanid Empire in Mesopotamia

634 - 644 - Umar (All Facts)

• 2nd Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate

  • He was a stern and puritanical figure unlike his predecessor

  • He was a father-in-law and senior companion of the Prophet Mohammed

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims, via his general Khalid ibn-al Walid

  • Defeated the Byzantine Empire and took Byzantine-controlled Syria and Damascus in the Battle of Yarmuk

  • Defeated Yazdegerd III and the Sassanid Empire and took all of its territories in the Battles of al-Qadisiyyah and Nahavand

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims, via his general Abu Ubayda

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Damascus and Byzantine Syria

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims, via his general Amr ibn al-As

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Alexandria and Byzantine Egypt

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims reached Cyrenaica and Tripolitania and also proceeded south after their conquest of Egypt towards Nubia

• Under his reign, he oversaw a mass migration of Arab tribes into the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Levant or Sassanid Mesopotamia

  • Rather than mingle with the local people, the Arab armies set up military encampments in Kufa and Basra on the edge of the desert

  • From those military encampments, they

    • controlled and taxed the region

    • Mounted Bedouin raids into the Sassanid Empire, which they ultimately defeated in the Battle of Nahavand

• He was assassinated in Media and succeeded by his successor

629 - 638 - Khalid ibn-al Walid (All Facts)

• Muslim General under Umar of the Rashidun Caliphate, he led the Arab Muslims

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Damascus and Byzantine Syria in the Battle of Yarmuk

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Yazdegerd III and Sassanid Mesopotamia in the Battles of al-Qadisiyyah and Nahavand

• He was nicknamed “the sword of Allah”

634 - 639 - Abu Ubayda (All Facts)

• Muslim General under Umar of the Rashidun Caliphate, he led the Arab Muslims

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Byzantine Jerusalem

640 - 646 - Amr ibn al-As (All Facts)

• Muslim General under Umar of the Rashidun Caliphate, he led the Arab Muslims

  • Invaded, defeated, and took control of Alexandria and Byzantine Egypt

644 - 656 - Uthman (All Facts)

• 3rd Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate

  • He was a son-in-law, second cousin, and senior companion of the Prophet Mohammed

• Under his reign, the Quran was written down for the first time

  • He feared that the conquests of Islam would not last if the new faith did not have a single, unifying sacred text like that of Judaism and Christianity

  • He appointed a committee under one of the Prophet Mohammed’s old secretaries to assemble the scattered texts

  • Thereafter, all non-standard versions of the Quran were banned from the namesake’s territories

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims

  • Had Yazdegerd III of the Sassanid Empire (already permanently destroyed) assassinated

  • Took the cities of Kabul and Kandahar

  • Via a man named Muawiya, had assembled a formidable fleet of sea ships and invaded Byzantine Cyprus

  • Invaded Nubia

  • Invaded Rhodes, systematically having pillaged the island

• He was assassinated and succeeded by his the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in law

  • He was hacked to death at 82 years of age by Muslim rebels from Mesopotamia who

    • blockaded his home throughout the hot Hijazi summer, which forced the namesake caliph to suffer from protracted hunger and thirst

    • broke into his home in Medina while he sat studying the Quran

  • His death as a notable Islamic scholar had thrown the Islamic World into confusion

656 - 661 - Ali (All Facts)

• 4th and Final Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate

  • He was a son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed

• He moved the capital of the Rashidun Caliphate from Medina to Kufa

• His forces defeated a rebellion against him which started with a dispute of his succession in the Battle of Basra / Battle of the Camel

• He fought against Muawiya and his forces in the Battle of Siffin, but later agreed to arbitrate the issue that caused the battle in the first place

  • His concession to negotiate with Muawiya after the battle instead of continuing to fight against him was seen as un-Quranic by some of his supporters, which eventually split off and called themselves Kharijites

    • They proceeded to rebel against him in the Battle of Nahrawan

• He was assassinated in Kufa by an ex-supporter turned Kharijite

  • Exiled Kharijite rebels assassinated him, in which he died after being stabbed with a poisoned sword as he left the mosque at Kufa in Mesopotamia

  • They did this after he attack them when they rebelled against him for negotiating rather than killing his opponent, Muawiya

661 - 750 - Umayyad Caliphate (All Facts)

• 2nd Caliphate of the Islamic World

  • It was the first Sunni Islamic Caliphate

• In the century since the death of Mohammed the Great Prophet, the Arab Muslims under the namesake caliphate carried their faith to the limits of the known world, with the exception of the Byzantine Empire and Northern Europe

• At its greatest territorial extent, it stretched from the Atlantic Coast to the Indus River and as far north as the Aral Sea

  • In this way, its boundaries by this point were wider than that of the Roman Empire

• They offered equality to any of their subjects of their invasions if they embraced the Quran, but their assurances were left in complete tatters when jealous conflicts among the Arab settlers and their armies arose

• By 740, Muslims from Arabia traded on the coasts with people from Persia

• Its capital was Damascus, and then later the city of Harran

• Caliphate of many notable Islamic leaders including

  • Muawiya

  • Marwan II

• Caliphate which fell because they had come to be seen as unworthy rulers

  • Their ancestors had been among the most bitter enemies of the Great Prophet Mohammed

  • Their later rulers became godless and debauched

  • Thus, many had felt that true Islam could only be restored when the family of the Great Prophet Mohammed held the reins of power again

661 - 680 - Muawiya (All Facts)

• 1st Caliph and Founder of the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He was initially the governor Syria, who laid waste to Cappadocia in Byzantine Anatolia, upon which he took the spoils back home to Damascus

  • Prior to his reign, he was known for having led the Arabs in an invasion of Cyprus, which they stormed after he had assembled a formidable fleet of sea ships for the Muslims for the first time

  • Under his direction, Abu al-Awar and the Rashidun Caliphate defeated Constans II and the Byzantines in the Battle of the Masts, which solidified the Arab Muslim control and command by sea of the Eastern Mediterranean

  • He fought against Ali and his forces in the Battle of Siffin, but later agreed to arbitrate the issue that caused the battle in the first place

• One of Islam’s most respected statesmen due to his

  • Political maneuvers, which he designed to secure oaths of allegiance from potential rivals for the succession

    • He insisted that his own son should succeed him

  • Remarkable flair for administration

  • Calm and intelligent disposition

• Upon his assumption to the throne, he moved the capital from Kufa to Damascus

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims completed their conquest of “Ifriqiyah,” which roughly comprised land stretching from Egypt to Eastern Algeria

  • By the end of his reign, the Islamic Empire stretched from Kairouan in Tunisia to Kabul in Afghanistan

• Under his reign, the Arab Muslims were repelled by the Byzantines from Constantinople from 674 to 678

666 - 683 - Uqba ibn Nafi (All Facts)

• General under Muawiya of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He led the Arab Muslims to invade, defeat, and control North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, spurring his horse into its waves; taking it from the Byzantine empire

670 - 680 - Husayn ibn Ali (All Facts)

• Social, political, and religious leader of Islam in Arabia

• He was the son of the Caliph Ali and grandson of the Prophet Mohammed; and rival of Muawiya

  • He was bought off for an unspecified but substantial sum of money in order not to succeed Ali

• He was killed in the Battle of Karbala

  • His death gave birth to Shia Islam

  • He is seen as a martyr by Shia Muslims

680 - 683 - Yazid (All Facts)

• 2nd Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He was initially the governor of Damascus in Islamic Syria

  • He was the son of his predecessor

  • His confirmation in office was seen as continuing evidence of the Umayyad Caliphate’s dynastic ambitions

• Under his reign, Husayn ibn-Ali led a revolt against him and advanced onto Kufa where his father Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law, has briefly been caliph

684 - 685 - Marwan (All Facts)

• 4th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He was a distant cousin of Muawiya

683 - 692 - Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr (All Facts)

• Leader of the Zubayrid Caliphate, a usurper Caliphate during the Second Fitna

  • He was supported by the people of Mecca and Medina

  • He was acclaimed caliph in Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt

  • He was supported and acclaimed caliph by the Qais tribe in Syria

686 - 691 - Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr (All Facts)

• Governor of Basra (Iraq), he was the brother of Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, the usurper or counter caliph that founded the Zubayrid Caliphate

• He was defeated and killed by Abd al-Malik and his Umayyad Caliphate forces in the Battle of Maskin during the Second Fitna

685 - 705 - Abd al-Malik (All Facts)

• 5th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He oversaw an even greater expansion of the Islamic Empire and the Arabization of the Islamic Empire

• Under his reign

  • The Dome of the Rock or “Qubat as-Sakrah” was built and completed in Jerusalem

    • It was the first such shrine to be constructed on the orders of an Islamic leader

    • It commemorates the “binding of Isaac” and the ascent to heaven of the Prophet Mohammed, which supposedly took place at the site on which it was built

  • The Quran was re-edited with vocalic symbols

• During his reign,

  • He made Arabic as the official language of the Umayyad Empire

    • He substituted Arabic for Greek as the official language of administration

  • He made the dinar the official currency, abolishing the previous Byzantine coinage

• He comes to an agreement with Constantine IV of the Byzantine Empire whereby they agree to share the taxes from Armenia, Georgia, and Cyprus

  • However, the Byzantines later break this agreement and he has them defeated at the Battle of Sebastopolis where the Umayyads take Armenia from the Byzantines

• He and his forces defeated Mus’ab ibn al-Zubayr of the Zubayrid Caliphate in the Battle of Maskin

• His general Al-Hajjaj ibn-Yusuf captured Medina

• Under his reign, a Berber revolt in the Aures mountains, in the region the Umayyads called “Ifriqiyah” on the North African coastline, was suppressed

• He died in Damascus

692 - 694 - Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (All Facts)

• General under Abd al-Malik of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He and his forces captured Medina during the Second Fitna

• He and his forces ultimately defeated Abdullah ibn-Zubayr and the Zubayrid Caliphate in the Siege of Mecca, thus ending the Second Fitna

• He was then made governor of Mesopotamia under Abd al-Malik of the Umayyad Caliphate

705 - 715 - Al-Walid (All Facts)

• 6th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

• Under his reign, he oversaw the construction of the Great Mosque of Damascus

  • This mosque was enormously expensive

  • It was built on the site of a Christian Church

670 - 720 - Tariq ibn Ziyad (All Facts)

• General under Al-Walid of the Umayyad Caliphate

• Sent by Musa ibn Nusayr, he led a small Arab Muslim expeditionary force and crossed the Straits of Gibraltar where he took up position on Mt. Calpe which was renamed after him, and defeated Roderic and the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete

  • After this battle, much of Visigothic Spain was given over to the Umayyad Caliphate

• After defeating Roderic in the Battle of Guadalete, he took

  • Toledo

  • Cordoba

  • Algeciras

  • Ecija

  • Alcala de Manares

712 - 715 - Mohammed ibn al-Kassim (All Facts)

• General under Al-Walid of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He led the Arab Muslim invasion of India, in which he and the Arab Muslims came to conquer Sind and part of the Punjab

  • His army was mustered by the governor of Mesopotamia from the restless Arabs of Kufa and Basra

  • From the mouth of the Indus River his troops spread over the plains to the capital of Multan

640 - 716 - Musa ibn-Nusayr (All Facts)

• General and governor under Abd al-Malik and Al-Walid of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He was governor of Ifriqiyah (Tunisia)

• He sent a small expedition across the Straits of Gibraltar led by Tariq ibn Ziyad

  • A few years later he followed Ziyad with new troops and took Spanish towns including

    • Seville

    • Merida

    • Saragossa

  • Under his watch, the Arab Muslims conquered all of Spain except its northern mountainous region which it had no desire to penetrate

669 - 716 - Qutayba ibn Muslim (All Facts)

• General of the Umayyad Caliphate

• During his command, the Umayyad Empire stretched from the Atlantic Coast in Spain to the Indus River and as far north as the Aral Sea

  • In this way, its boundaries were even wider than those of the Roman Empire

• Commanded Muslim armies to push east from the Persian plateau into the steppes of Turkestan and the valleys of the Oxus and Jaxartes, where they penetrated into and occupied many cities along the Silk Road from China including

  • Tashkent

  • Bokhara

  • Samarkand

  • Khwarazm (a fertile oasis on the Aral Sea)

    • Here, the Muslims first encountered the Turks

711 - 1492 - Al-Andalus (All Facts)

• Title used to refer to the state of Spain under Muslim control, it was the successor state to the Visigothic Kingdom

• The Arabs had pacified the country in a relatively enlightened fashion for the time, offering to grant religious freedom to Jews and Christians in return for a town’s capitulation to their rule

  • In the countryside of the namesake region, most of the peasants ended up adopting the faith of Islam

• It reached its greatest territorial extent under the Umayyad Caliphate

719 - 721 - Al-Samh ibn Malik (All Facts)

• General of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He was defeated by Duke Odo the Great and the Franks in the battle of Toulouse, preventing his attempted invasion of Gaul

695 - 740 - Zayd ibn Ali (All Facts)

• Great-grandson of Caliph Ali of the Rashidun Caliphate

• He tried and failed to revolt and overtake the Umayyad Caliphate in favor of his Rashidun ancestors

• He was killed in a Shia revolt at Kufa

724 - 743 - Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (All Facts)

• 10th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He was shrewd and puritanical

743 - 744 - Al-Walid II (All Facts)

• 11th Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

• He was notorious for his impious extravagance, moving from one desert palace to another and spending a fortune on building, poets, and wine (despite wine being forbidden under Islamic law)

  • One story claims he dived into a pool of wine and drank himself unconscious

  • He loved hunting

  • He loved boys and girls

• Due to his immoral behavior, his shocked family had him murdered and various factions sought to take advantage of his death

744 - 750 - Marwan II (All Facts)

• 14th and Final Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He ruled from Egypt

• He imprisoned Michael, Patriarch of Alexandria, in retaliation for his and his Coptic Church’s resistance to Muslim rule in Egypt

  • In response, King Kyriakos of the Christian Makurian Kingdom of Nubia sent an army to Egypt, which picked up more troops on the way in Christian Axum (Ethiopia), and invaded Egypt, occupied Cairo, and released Michael from captivity

• He and the Umayyad Caliphate thus capitulated to Kyriakos and the Makurian Kingdom, thus ending the Umayyad Caliphate

• He was defeated by Al-Saffah and the Abbasid Caliphate in the Battle of the Zab

718 - 755 - Abu Muslim (All Facts)

• General

• His name means “Father of Muslims”

• He was sent by Al-Saffah (Abul-Abbas) to exploit the unrest and revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate

  • Taking advantage of the weakening of the Umayyad Caliphate due to the Makurian Invasion of Egypt, he led a revolt of the Abbasids against the Umayyads in Khurasan in what was northeast (Sassanid) Persia

  • He seized Merv, the capital of Khorasan

• Suppressed a revolt in Syria

• He was assassinated in Baghdad on the orders of Caliph al-Mansur

  • Following his death, his supporters in Khorasan revolted against the Abbasids, for whom the namesake had initially fought

731 - 788 - Abd al-Rahman (All Facts)

• He founded the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba in the Iberian Peninsula in retaliation of Abbasid rule following the death of Abu Muslim by Caliph al-Mansur of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • He was thus proclaimed Emir of Cordoba

• He was

  • A Syrian Prince

  • A member of a fanatical Muslim sect

• He led the Umayyad Caliphate in having sacked Bordeaux and Poitiers, and then advanced them towards Tours with eyes on its monastery of St Martin, one of Christendom’s wealthiest

• He and the Umayyad Caliphate were defeated by Charles Martel and the Franks in the Battle of Tours and he was among the dead after the battle

• He was the only member of the ousted Umayyad Caliphate to survive the Abbasid massacre of the Umayyads in the Abbasid Revolution

  • He fled from the Abbasid Revolution and took refuge in Egypt and Kairouan before finally settling down in Al-Andalus with other Arab clans

  • Profiting from division among Arab Muslims in Al-Andalus at the time, he made his way via Seville to Cordoba, the capital of Al-Andalus at the time

750 - 1258 - Abbasid Caliphate (All Facts)

• 3rd Caliphate of the Islamic World

  • They overthrew the preceding Islamic Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution, in which they gained political and spiritual control of most of the Islamic world

• Legitimized by claiming descent from Muhammad's uncle Abbas

750 - 754 - Al-Saffah (All Facts)

• First Caliph and Founder of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • He was also known as Abu’l-Abbas

  • He lived in obscurity in southern Jordan until he took advantage of unrest in Khorasan, in the east of the Umayyad Empire

  • He sent Abu Muslim to exploit the unrest under and begin an insurrection of the Umayyads during the Abbasid Revolution during the Third Fitna

    • He sent Abu Muslim, his brilliant but sinister envoy to inspire the people of Khorasan to march west and overthrow the Umayyad Caliphate

  • He and the Abbasids claimed legitimacy by citing that they were descendants of Mohammed the Great Prophet’s uncle, al-Abbas, upon which the Caliphate is named

  • At Kufa, he proclaimed himself caliph with the namesake title, which, in Arabic, means “Shedder of Blood”

  • From there, he had consolidated his power and mopped up the remnants of the preceding caliphate, thoroughly earning the aforementioned title

    • His armies swept west, obliterating members of the Umayyad family wherever they had found them

    • His armies even dug up the bodies of the Umayyad caliphs and publicly flogged their remains before scattering their bones back into the earth

    • He even gruesomely invited the remaining male members of the Umayyad families that survived to a dinner party, where he had them massacred and feasted over their corpses

• During his reign,

  • The Battle of Talas occurred, in which

    • Islamic influence expanded into Central Asia

    • The Abbasids learned from Tang Chinese POWs (from the battle) how to make paper, contributing to the Islamic Golden Age under the Abbasid Caliphate and the establishment of the first paper mills in the Islamic World

754 - 775 - Al-Mansur (All Facts)

• 2nd Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • He was the brother of his predecessor

  • He was tall, gaunt, and swarthy

  • He showed no mercy to his rivals, including the general Abu Muslim who had fought with and for the Abbasids

    • However, he was supportive to servants and loyal commanders

  • He ruled during a time when the Abbasids were under pressure from outside and from those who wanted to make the Caliph a puppet

• He moved the capital of the Abbasid Empire from Kufa to Baghdad

  • He had built there a formal and ceremonial round city for his court and army with four vast gates and a mosque and palace at its center

• He had Abu Muslim assassinated in Baghdad

775 - 785 - Al-Mahdi (All Facts)

• 3rd Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • He was the son of his predecessor

777 - 909 - Rastumid Imamate (All Facts)

• Founded by Ibn Rustum

• Its capital was at Tahert

777 - 788 - Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustam (All Facts)

• First Ruler and Founder of the Rastumid Imamate

  • He established the Imamate’s capital at Tahert

785 - 786 - Al-Hadi (All Facts)

• 4th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

756 - 1031 - Umayyad Emirate / Caliphate of Cordoba (All Facts)

• Arab Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad Dynasty during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • In 756, it was founded by Abd al-Rahman

  • By 929, it proclaimed itself a caliphate but until then was an emirate

• Its territory comprised most of Al-Andalus, the Balearic Islands, and parts of North Africa

788 - 974 - Idrisid Dynasty (All Facts)

• Ruled most of modern-day Morocco and Western Algeria

• They were an Alid dynasty that descended from the Great Prophet Mohammed through his grandson Hasan

  • They were one of many Alid dynasties that vied for power after Al-Saffah had negated the Alids from the Abbasid Caliphate

• Dynasty which played an important role in the early Islamization of Morocco

• Dynasty which was founded by its namesake ruler

788 - 791 - Idris (All Facts)

• First Emir and Founder of the Idrisid Dynasty

  • Located in modern-day Morocco and Western Algeria

• He was

  • Originally from Medina in Arabia

  • A descendent of the Great Prophet Mohammed through Mohammed’s grandson Hasan

• He fought in the Battle of Fakhkh

  • When the Alids were defeated by the Abbasid Caliphate, he fled in disguise to Egypt and then to Morocco

  • When he arrived, the Awraba Berbers there hailed him as their Imam (leader)

• He established himself in Volubilis, an old Roman town

• He established his dynasty’s capital at Fez, which won over the Berber tribes

• He died after being poisoned by a toothpick sent by Caliph Harun al-Rashid of the Abbasid Caliphate back in Baghdad

• He left no son but one of his concubines was heavily pregnant upon his death

786 - 809 - Harun al-Rashid (All Facts)

• 5th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

• He granted the Franks a decree protecting the Holy Places in Jerusalem

• Died at Tus in Eastern Persia

800 - 909 - Aghlabid Dynasty (All Facts)

809 - 813 - Al-Amin (All Facts)

• 6th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

  • He was the son of his predecessor

• He died fleeing from the Siege of Baghdad by his brother and successor

813 - 833 - Al-Mamun (All Facts)

• 7th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

833 - 842 - Al-Mutasim (All Facts)

• 8th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

847 - 861 - Al-Mutawakkil (All Facts)

• 10th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate

892 - 902 - Al-Mutadid (All Facts)

• 16th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate