At a glance
Era 3- Dates
- c. 714-775 CE; caliph 754-775 CE
- Who
- Second Abbasid caliph, who secured the dynasty and founded Baghdad in 762
- Era
- The Abbasids & the Golden Age
ProfileAl-Mansur
Abu Ja'far Abdullah was born around 714 at al-Humayma, the son of an Abbasid father and a Berber mother. He took part in the revolution against the Umayyads beside his brother Abu al-Abbas, and when his brother died in 754 he became caliph with the title al-Mansur, "the one granted victory".
His first years were a struggle to survive. His uncle Abdullah ibn Ali claimed the throne and was defeated. Abu Muslim, the general who had won Khurasan for the Abbasids, was too powerful and too popular for the caliph's comfort, and in 755 al-Mansur had him killed. In 762 Muhammad ibn Abdullah, a descendant of al-Hasan known as al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, rose in Madinah, and his brother Ibrahim rose in Basra. Both revolts were put down.
That same year al-Mansur chose a site on the west bank of the Tigris, near a village called Baghdad, and began a new capital. The Round City, with its double walls, four gates, and the palace and mosque at its centre, took about four years to build. He named it Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace, and within a generation it was one of the largest cities in the world.
He was a careful, hard-working ruler who watched every expense and had reports sent to him from each province. Scholars at his court began translating books of science into Arabic. He died in 775 near Makkah, on his way to Hajj, leaving a full treasury and an empire firmly in Abbasid hands.
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Further reading
SourcesSources for this profile
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