At a glance
Era 3- Dates
- c. 763-809 CE; ruled 786-809 CE
- Who
- Abbasid caliph whose Baghdad became a byword for splendour and learning
- Era
- The Abbasids & the Golden Age
ProfileHarun al-Rashid
Harun al-Rashid became caliph in 786 and ruled Baghdad at the height of its wealth. His court drew poets, scholars, musicians and merchants, and the city's markets were filled with goods from China, India and Africa. Later storytellers set many of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights in his reign.
He made the Hajj several times, and he led campaigns against the Byzantines himself. His wife Zubaydah paid for wells and rest houses along the pilgrim road from Iraq to Makkah, long remembered as Darb Zubaydah. He exchanged embassies with Charlemagne, the ruler of the Franks, and sent him gifts including an elephant.
For most of his reign the government was run by a Persian family of ministers, the Barmakids, until he suddenly brought them down in 803. He died in 809 at Tus, in Khurasan, on campaign. His sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun then fought over the throne.
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SourcesSources for this profile
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