Harun al-Rashid was the fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty who ruled Islam at the zenith of its empire with a luxury in Baghdad memorialized in The Thousand and One Nights. He is regarded as an enlightened patron of the arts who ruled over a generally open and tolerant court.
Background
Harun al-Rashid was born in February 766 (or perhaps March 763) in Rey near Teheran, the third son of the third Abbasid caliph, Mohammed al-Mahdi. His mother was Khayzuran, a former Yemeni slave girl. The elder prince, al-Hadi, was four when Harun was born. The princes were brought up in the court at Baghdad. In 782 Harun had been named as second in succession to the throne, but on his father's death in 785, the new caliph, his brother, treated him very badly. Al-Hadi, however, died mysteriously in September 786.
Education
Harun was educated in the Koran (the holy book of Islam), poetry, music, anecdotes about the Prophet Muhammad, early Islamic history, and current legal practice. He had as tutor Yaḥya the Barmakid, a loyal supporter of his mother.
Career
After his brother's death Harun was proclaimed caliph. He at once appointed Yahya the Barmakid as his vizier. For the first 17 years of his reign Harun relied to a great extent on his vizier and two of the vizier's sons, al-Fadl and Jafar. Yahya appeared to have been an exceptionally competent administrator and to have shown great wisdom in the selection and training of subordinates; his two sons had similar qualities. The Barmakid family fell from power suddenly with the execution of Jafar on the night of January 28/29, 803, and with the arrest of his father and al-Fadl. The fundamental reason was that they were too powerful and left too little scope to the caliph.
Although the caliphate was now mostly pacified and there were no major revolts, there was an almost constant series of local insurrections. In the earlier part of the reign there were troubles in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Yemen, and Daylam (south of the Caspian Sea), and in 806 a more serious revolt in Khurasan under Rafi ibn Layth. The difficulty of holding together an empire as vast as Harun's led to the establishment of an independent principality in Morocco by the Idrisid dynasty in 789 and of a semi-independent one in Tunisia by the Aghlabid dynasty in 800. These marked a loss of power by the central government. The danger of disintegration was increased by Harun's unwise arrangement for succession. It provided for one son, al-Amin, to become caliph and for another son, al-Mamun, to have control of certain provinces and of a section of the army.
Harun took a personal interest in the campaigns against the Byzantines, leading expeditions in 797, 803, and 806. In 797 the empress Irene made peace and agreed to pay a large sum of money. The emperor Nicephorus denounced this treaty but was forced to make an even more humiliating one in 806. Cyprus was occupied in 805. Though not mentioned in Arabic sources, there seemed to have been diplomatic contacts between Harun and Charlemagne, in which the latter was recognized as protector of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. Harun died at Tus in eastern Persia on March 24, 809 during an expedition to restore order there.
Achievements
During Harun's reign the power and prosperity of the dynasty was at its height, though it has also been argued that its decline began at that time. He was neither a great ruler nor a man of prepossessing character, though he was a lavish patron of the arts. He owes his fame to the wealth and luxury of his court, surpassing anything previously known, and to his place in Arabic legend.
Personality
R. A. Nicholson described Harun as a perfidious and irascible tyrant, whose fitful amiability and real taste for music and letters hardly entitle him to be described either as a great monarch or a good man.
Connections
Harun had three sons: al-Ma'mun, al-Amin, and al-Qasim.
Father:
Mohammed al-Mahdi
Mother:
Khayzuran
She came to have great political influence through her husband and son.
