This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past..
10th December – 16th December
11th December 861 – Assassination of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil by the Turkish guard, who raise al-Muntasir to the throne. Start of the “Anarchy at Samarra”.
The assassination of the Abbasid Caliph in 861 would set off a period of chaos, which would ultimately see the end of Arab dominance of the Middle East for centuries and the rise in power of Turkish slave soldiers and Turkic nomads. (You can read more about the rise to power of the Abbasid dynasty in a previous “This Week In History”)
From the earliest explosion of Islam out of the Arabian desert until the 860s, the Islamic world had been dominated by an Arab Caliph (translated as successor to the prophet Mohammed) and whilst the last 100 years had seen some of the western-most reaches of the Islamic world slip out of the Caliph’s grasp, the vast majority was still ruled by the Caliph from his Capital in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).
Whilst the Abbasids had established their capital at Baghdad, in 836 this had been moved north to the new town of Samarra as part of a Caliph’s attempts to establish a power base for himself separate from Baghdad and to find a place to house the growing number of Turkic soldiers who served as a growing part of his army. The Turks were despised by the city-dwelling Persians and Arabs of Baghdad who saw them as barbarians, the Turks having only recently left behind their lives on the steppe as nomads to serve as mercenaries for the Caliphs.
The movement of the capital to Samarra helped to cement the power of the Turkic soldiers in the caliphate and over the next few decades they would grow more and more powerful.
Whilst the Caliphate had previously been focused primarily on its external enemies such as the Byzantine Empire, starting in the 800s, the Caliphate began to look increasingly inwards. As internal squabbles began to dominate, the Turkic elite soldiers of the Caliph formed factions and exserted increasing control over the Caliphs.
In the year 847, a new Caliph rose to power called Al-Mutawakkil. Al-Mutawakkil was heavily involved in internal court politics and took revenge against many who he felt had disrespected him in the years prior to his rise to power. He also took a hard-line in religious matters, heavily persecuting the Mu’tazila Islamic school (who believed the Koran was created, not revealed and therefore have a more flexible interpretation of the Koran), who until that time had been dominant. He also cracked down on non-Muslims, excluding Christians and Jews from government and insulting the Zoroastrian subjects of the Caliphate by chopping down their sacred trees and using them to build his new palace.
In 861 the caliphs would move towards becoming nothing more than puppets for Turkic warlords, when Al-Mutawakkil, after angering his Turkic bodyguards, by cracking down on Shia Muslims and executing their leader, they decided to murder him. On the 11th of December 861 a group of Turkic soldiers burst into the chambers of the Caliph and hacked him to death.
Hi son Al-Muntasir, was immediately declared the new Caliph (possibly having been involved in the plot). Whilst it seemed the trouble might now be over, Al-Muntasir died a few months later at the age of 24, possibly being murdered or possibly simply dying from some unknown illness. As he had no successor, his Turkic army commanders met and amongst themselves elected a new Caliph called Al-Musta’in who was a cousin of the previous Caliph.
Al-Muntasir’s brother Al-Mu’tazz, was outraged that he had been skipped after his brother’s death and rioting soon broke out in support of him. Al-Musta’in was so disturbed by the riots he moved the capital back to Baghdad and soon a civil war broke out with Al-Mu’tazz based in Samarra and Al-Musta’in based in Baghdad.
In 866 Al-Musta’in was defeated and Al-Mu’tazz was declared sole caliph. However, within 3 years he was unable to pay his Turkic troops and they revolted against him overthrowing him and murdering him in favour of a new Caliph Al-Muhtadi, a cousin of Al-Mu’tazz. Al-Muhtadi, lasted only a year before being murdered and replaced with his cousin Al-Mu’tamid.
With this final murder, some stability was found in the Caliphate, however, the chaos and civil war had greatly weakened the Abbasids Pieces of their empire were now breaking off, and the Caliphs themselves were now little more than puppets of their Turkish troops.
To make matters worse in 869 a massive rebellion broke out in lower Iraq known as the Zanj Rebellion. The Zanj were Bantu-speaking slaves who had been sold into slavery by East Africans and sold to the Caliphate. In Southern Iraq, Muslim nobles had imported large numbers of Zanj slaves to work the land and make it productive.
A minor Islamic preacher began preaching that “that the most qualified man should reign, even if he was an Abyssinian slave.” and so began attracting many slaves to his cause. With the Abbasid central authority weakened the rebellion broke out and would go down in history as one of the most destructive revolts in the Early Islamic world.
The Anarchy at Samarra, led to the decline of Arab influence, as the Arabs were replaced in positions of power by Turkic warlords. Turkic warlords and Slave Soldiers such as the Mamluks would increasingly dominate the Islamic world until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1919.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend