At a glance
Era 3- Dates
- 786-833 CE; caliph 813-833 CE
- Who
- Abbasid caliph who made Baghdad a centre of translation and science
- Era
- The Abbasids & the Golden Age
ProfileAl-Ma'mun
Abdullah al-Ma'mun was born in Baghdad in 786, a son of Harun al-Rashid by a Persian mother who died soon after his birth. Harun divided the succession between his sons: al-Amin was to rule in Baghdad, and al-Ma'mun was to govern Khurasan and follow him. After Harun's death the arrangement broke down, and a bitter civil war ended in 813 with Baghdad besieged and al-Amin killed.
Al-Ma'mun ruled at first from Merv. In 817 he named Ali al-Rida, a descendant of Ali and Fatimah, as his heir, which caused an uproar in Baghdad, and Ali al-Rida died the following year. In 819 the caliph came to Baghdad to stay.
His name is tied above all to learning. He supported the House of Wisdom, a library and centre of translation whose roots went back to earlier caliphs, and under him it drew scholars of many faiths. His agents searched for Greek manuscripts, his translators turned works of mathematics, medicine and philosophy into Arabic, and his astronomers watched the sky from observatories in Baghdad and near Damascus and measured the size of the Earth. Al-Khwarizmi worked at his court.
He also tried to force one view on a question of theology. In 833 he began the Mihna, ordering judges and scholars to declare that the Quran was created, as the Mu'tazila taught. Ahmad ibn Hanbal refused and suffered for it under the caliphs who came after. Al-Ma'mun died that August on campaign near Tarsus, on the Byzantine frontier.
Meet them inWhere they appear on the road
Further reading
SourcesSources for this profile
The books, lectures and maps behind this page are listed on our Sources page.