stipulated that Mamun should have as his share during the lifetime of his brother the government of the eastern part of the empire. Each of the parties concerned swore to observe faithfully every part of this deed, which the caliph caused to be hung up in the Kaʽba, imagining that it would be thus guaranteed against all violation on the part of men, a precaution which was to be rendered vain by the perfidy of Amīm.
It was in the beginning of the following year, at the very moment when the Barmecides thought their position most secure, that Hārūn brought sudden ruin upon them. The causes of their disgrace have been differently stated by the annalists (see Barmecides). The principal cause appears to have been that they abused the sovereign power which they exercised. Not a few were jealous of their greatness and sought for opportunities of instilling distrust against them into the mind of Hārūn, and of making him feel that he was caliph only in name. The secret dissatisfaction thus aroused was increased, according to some apparently well-informed authorities, by the releasing of the Alid Yahyā b. Abdallah, already mentioned. Finally Hārūn resolved on their destruction, and Jaʽfar b. Yahyā, who had just taken leave of him after a day’s hunting, was arrested, taken to the castle of Hārūn, and beheaded. The following day, his father Yahyā, his brother Fadl, and all the other Barmecides were arrested and imprisoned; all their property was confiscated. The only Barmecide who remained unmolested with his family was Mahommed the brother of Yahyā, who had been the chamberlain of the caliph till 795, when Fadl b. Rabiʽ got his place. This latter had henceforward the greatest influence at court.
In the same year a revolution at Constantinople overthrew the empress Irene. The new emperor Nicephorus, thinking himself strong enough to refuse the payment of tribute, wrote an insulting letter to Hārūn, who contented himself with replying: “Thou shall not hear, but see, my answer.” He entered Asia Minor and took Heraclea, plundering and burning along his whole line of march, till Nicephorus, in alarm, sued for peace. Scarcely had the caliph returned into winter quarters when Nicephorus broke the treaty. When the news came to Rakka, where Hārūn was residing, not one of the ministers ventured to tell him, until at last a poet introduced it in a poem which pleased the monarch. Notwithstanding the rigour of the season, Hārūn retraced his steps, and Nicephorus was compelled to observe his engagements. In 805 the first great ransoming of Moslem prisoners took place on the banks of the little river Lamus in Cilicia. But Nicephorus, profiting by serious disturbances in Khorasan, broke the treaty again, and overran the country as far as Anazarba and Kanīsat as-saudā (“the black church”) on the frontier, where he took many prisoners, who were, however, recovered by the garrison of Mopsuestia. Thus Hārūn was obliged to take the field again. He entered Asia Minor with an army of 135,000 regulars, beside volunteers and camp followers. Heraclea was taken, together with many other places, and Tyana was made a military station. At the same time his admiral, Homaid b. Maʽyūf, conquered Cyprus, which had broken the treaty, and took 16,000 of its people captive. Nicephorus was now so completely beaten that he was compelled to submit to very harsh conditions. In the year 808 the second ransoming between the Moslems and the Greeks took place near the river Lamus.
The disturbances in Khorasan were caused by the malversations of the governor of that province, Ali b. ʽĪsā b. Māhān. The caliph went in person to Merv, in order to judge of the reality of the complaints which had reached him. Ali b. ʽĪsā hastened to meet the caliph on his arrival at Rai (Rhagae), near the modern Teheran, with a great quantity of costly presents, which he distributed with such profusion among the princes and courtiers that no one was anxious to accuse him. Hārūn confirmed him in his post, and, after having received the chiefs of Tabaristān who came to tender their submission, returned through Bagdad to Rakka on the Euphrates, which city was his habitual residence. In the following year Rāfi’ b. Laith, a grandson of Nasr b. Sayyār, raised the standard of revolt in Samarkand, and, at the head of a numerous army, defeated the son of Ali b. ʽĪsā. Thereupon Ali fled from Balkh, leaving the treasury, which was plundered by the populace after his departure. The caliph on learning that the revolt was due to Ali’s tyranny, sent Harthama b. Aʽyan with stringent orders to seize Ali and confiscate his possessions. This order was carried out, and it is recorded that 1500 camels were required to transport the confiscated treasures. The caliph’s hope that Rāfi’ would submit on condition of receiving a free pardon was not fulfilled, and he resolved to set out himself to Khorasan, taking with him his second son Mamun. On the journey he was attacked by an internal malady, which carried him off, ten months after his departure from Bagdad, A.H. 193 (March 809), just on his arrival at the city of Tūs. Hārūn was only forty-five years of age. He was far from having the high qualifications of his grandfather Mansur; indeed he did not even possess the qualities of his father and his brother. When the latter asked him to renounce his right of succession, he was willing to consent, saying that a quiet life with his beloved wife, the princess Zobaida, was his highest wish, but he obeyed his mother and Yahyā b. Khālid. As long as the Barmecides were in office, he acted only on their direction. After their disgrace he was led into many impolitic actions by his violent and often cruel propensities. But the empire was, especially in the earlier part of his reign, in a very prosperous state, and was respected widely by foreign powers. Embassies passed between Charlemagne and Hārūn in the years 180 (A.D. 797) and 184 (A.D. 801), by which the former obtained facilities for the pilgrims to the Holy Land, the latter probably concessions for the trade on the Mediterranean ports. The ambassadors brought presents with them; on one of these occasions the first elephant reached the land of the Franks.
Under the reign of Hārūn, Ibrāhīm b. al-Aghlab, the governor of Africa, succeeded in making himself independent of the central government, on condition of paying a fixed annual tribute to his suzerain the caliph. This was, if we do not take Spain into the account, the first instance of dismemberment, later to be followed by many others.
In the days of this caliph the first paper factories were founded in Bagdad.
6. Reign of Amīn.—On the death of Hārūn his minister, Fadl b. Rabīʽ, with the view of gaining the new caliph’s confidence, hastened to call together all the troops of the late caliph and to lead them back to Bagdad, in order to place them in the hands of the new sovereign, Amīn. He even, in direct violation of Hārūn’s will, led back the corps which was intended to occupy Khorasan under the authority of Mamun. Aware, however, that in thus acting he was making Mamun his irreconcilable enemy, he persuaded Amīn to exclude Mamun from the succession. Mamun, on receiving his brother’s invitation to go to Bagdad, was greatly perplexed; but his tutor and later vizier, Fadl b. Sahl, a Zoroastrian of great influence, who in 806 had adopted Islam, reanimated his courage, and pointed out to him that certain death awaited him at Bagdad. Mamun resolved to hold out, and found pretexts for remaining in Khorasan. Amīn, in anger, caused the will of his father, which, as we have seen, was preserved in the Kaʽba, to be destroyed, declared on his own authority that Mamun’s rights of succession were forfeited, and caused the army to swear allegiance to his own son Mūsā, a child of five, on whom he bestowed the title of an-Nātiq bil-Haqq (“he who speaks according to truth”), A.H. 194 (A.D. 809–810). On hearing the news, Mamun, strong in the rightfulness of his claim, retaliated by suppressing the caliph’s name in all public acts. Amīn immediately despatched to Khorasan an army of 40,000 under the command of Ali b. ʽĪsā, who had regained his former influence, and told the caliph that, at his coming to Khorasan, all the leading men would come over to his side. Zobaida, the mother of the caliph, entreated Ali to treat Mamun kindly when he should have made him captive. It is said that Fadl b. Sahl had, through a secret agent, induced Fadl b. Rabīʽ to select Ali, knowing that the dislike felt towards him by the Khorasanians would double their strength in fighting against him. Mamun, on his side, sent in all haste an army of less than 4000 men of his faithful Khorasanians, and entrusted
