Al - Mu ' tadid Abu ' l - Abbas Ahmad ibn Talha al - Muwaffaq ( 857 – 5 April 902 ) , better known by his regnal name al - Mu ' tadid bi - Allah ( , " Seeking Support in God " ) was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 892 until his death in 902 . Prior to that , he had succeeded his father , al - Muwaffaq , as regent of the Caliphate under his uncle Caliph al - Mu ' tamid in 891 . Like his father , al - Mu ' tadid ' s power depended on his close relations with the army , which he led in person in several campaigns , beginning with the suppression of the Zanj Rebellion . Al - Mu ' tadid distinguished himself for his energy and ability , and succeeded in restoring to the Abbasid state some of the power and provinces it had lost during the turmoil of the previous decades , but his reign was too short to effect a lasting reversal of the Caliphate ' s fortunes . His reign also saw the expansion and rise to power of the central bureaucracy , and the permanent move of the capital back to Baghdad . Early life . Al - Mu ' tadid was born Ahmad , the son of Talha , one of the sons of the Caliph al - Mutawakkil ( r . 847 – 861 ) , probably around the year 860 . His mother was a Greek slave named Dirar . Al - Mutawakkil ' s murder in 861 began a period of internal turmoil known as the " Anarchy at Samarra " from the site of the Caliphate ' s capital , which ended in 870 with the rise to the throne of Ahmad ' s uncle , al - Mu ' tamid . Real power however lay with the elite Turkish troops and with Ahmad ' s own father , Talha , who , as the Caliphate ' s main military commander , served as the chief intermediary between the caliphal government and the Turks . Assuming the honorific name al - Muwaffaq in the style of the caliphs , Talha increasingly dominated the governance of the state , and from 882 until his death in 891 , was the effective ruler of the Caliphate . Caliphal authority in the provinces collapsed during the " Anarchy at Samarra " , with the result that by the 870s Baghdad had lost effective control over most of the Caliphate outside Iraq itself . Egypt had fallen under the control of Ahmad ibn Tulun , who also disputed control of Syria with al - Muwaffaq , Khurasan and most of the Islamic East had been taken over by the Saffarids , who replaced the Abbasids ' loyal clients , the Tahirids . Effective control over most of the Arabian peninsula was lost , while in Tabaristan a radical Zaydi Shi ' a dynasty took power . Even in Iraq , the rebellion of the Zanj slaves threatened Baghdad itself , and the Qarmatians were a nascent threat . Throughout his regency , al - Muwaffaq engaged in a long struggle to save the tottering Caliphate from collapse . His attempts to recover control of Egypt and Syria from the Tulunids failed , as the latter were able to expand their territory and force recognition of the new " status quo " , but he succeeded in preserving the core of the Caliphate in Iraq by repelling a Saffarid invasion aimed at Baghdad and subduing the Zanj , after a long struggle . Al - Muwaffaq gave his son a military training from an early age . Ahmad , usually known by his " kunya " of Abu ' l - Abbas , was " a keen horseman and took care to inspect both his troops and their mounts in person " ( Hugh N . Kennedy ) , and would soon acquire extensive military experience against the Zanj . Within a decade from the outbreak of the revolt in 869 , the Zanj had seized most of lower Iraq , including the cities of Basra and Wasit and expanded into Khuzistan as well . Abu ' l - Abbas ' appointment in December 879 to command against the Zanj , at the head of 10 , 000 troops , marks the turning - point of the war , as now , following the death of the first Saffarid ruler , Ya ' qub al - Saffar , the Abbasid government was able to fully concentrate its attention against the rebellion . In the long and hard struggle against the Zanj , which involved amphibious operations in the Mesopotamian Marshes , Abu ' l - Abbas and his own military slaves ( " ghilman " ) , of which the long - serving Zirak al - Turki was the chief , played the major role : although the Abbasid armies gradually swelled with reinforcements , volunteers , and Zanj defectors , it was the few but elite " ghilman " who provided the army with leadership and the backbone and bore the brunt of the battle , often under the personal leadership of Abu ' l - Abbas . After years of gradually tightening the noose around the Zanj , in August 883 the Abbasid troops stormed their capital of al - Mukhtara , putting an end to the rebellion . Following the final victory over the Zanj , al - Muwaffaq ' s relations with his son Abu ' l - Abbas deteriorated , although the reason is unclear . Already in 884 , Abu ' l - Abbas ' " ghilman " rioted in Baghdad against al - Muwaffaq ' s vizier , Sa ' id ibn Makhlad , possibly over unpaid salaries . In 885 , following the death of Ibn Tulun , Abu ' l - Abbas was sent against Ibn Tulun ' s son and heir , Khumarawayh , but suffered a heavy defeat after which the Tulunids expanded their control over the Jazira and the borderlands ( Thughur ) with the Byzantine Empire . A peace agreement followed , whereby al - Muwaffaq was forced to recognize the Tulunids as governors over Egypt and Syria for 30 years , in exchange for an annual tribute . Over the next couple of years , Abu ' l - Abbas was involved in his father ' s ultimately unsuccessful attempts to wrest control of Fars from Saffarid control , but in 889 , Abu ' l - Abbas was arrested and put in prison on his father ' s orders , where he remained despite the demonstrations of the " ghilman " loyal to him . He apparently remained under arrest until May 891 , when al - Muwaffaq , already nearing his death , returned to Baghdad after two years he spent in Jibal . Abu ' l - Abbas was then released from captivity by his father ' s and his own troops , despite the attempt of the city commander , Abu ' l - Saqr , who hoped to secure his position by ridding al - Mu ' tamid and his son and heir al - Mufawwad of a dangerous rival , to prevent it . Thus , when al - Muwaffaq died in June 891 , Abu ’ l - Abbas succeeded him immediately in his offices , with the name of al - Mu ' tadid and a position in the line of succession after the caliph and al - Mufawwad . Within a few months , in April 892 , al - Mu ' tadid sidelined al - Mufawwad completely , and when al - Mu ' tamid died in October , he succeeded his uncle as Caliph . Reign . Campaigns of reunification . Like his father , al - Mu ' tadid ’ s power rested on his close relations with the military , and it was military activities which consumed his interest , especially as he usually led his army in person . According to Hugh Kennedy , " No Abbasid caliph , not even al - Mu ' tasim , spent as much time on campaign as did al - Mu ' tadid . He was also a skilful diplomat , always prepared to make compromises with those who were too powerful to defeat . " From the outset of his reign , al - Mu ' tadid set out to reverse the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate , by first securing firm control over its core territories in Iraq , the Jazira and western Persia ( Jibal ) . In the Jazira he struggled against the Shaybani ruler of Amid and Diyar Bakr , Ahmad ibn Isa al - Shaybani , and the Taghlibi chief Hamdan ibn Hamdun . Mosul was captured from the Shayban in 893 , and Hamdan ibn Hamdun was hunted down and captured , although his son Husayn ibn Hamdan managed to enter caliphal service and secure his father ' s release . Husayn became a prominent commander in the caliphal armies , marking the start of the gradual rise of the Hamdanid dynasty to power in the Jazira . Ahmad al - Shaybani died in 898 , and in the next year , al - Mu ' tadid invaded the Jazira , ousted Ahmad ' s son Muhammad from Amid , and re - imposed direct control over the province by installing his son and heir , Ali al - Muktafi , as governor . Al - Mu ' tadid was unable , however , to re - extend caliphal control into Transcaucasia , where Armenia and Azerbaijan remained in the hands of independent local dynasties like the Sajids . Towards the Tulunids , al - Mu ' tadid adopted a conciliatory attitude . He recognized the " status quo " in exchange for an annual tribute of 300 , 000 dinars and 200 , 000 in arrears , while the Tulunid ruler , Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun , agreed to hand back the two Jaziran provinces of Diyar Rabi ' a and Diyar Mudar . The pact was sealed by the marriage of Khumarawayh ' s daughter Qatr al - Nada to the Caliph , who brought a further million dinars as her dowry . In the event , the accord did not survive the murder of Khumarawayh in 896 ( his daughter died soon after her marriage ) : with the Tulunid state in the unsteady hands of Khumarawayh ' s under - age sons , in 897 al - Mu ' tadid extended his control over the border emirates of the Thughur , and in the words of Michael Bonner , " assumed , after a long hiatus , the old caliphal prerogative of commanding the annual summer expedition and arranging the defence against the Byzantine empire " . To secure recognition , the new Tulunid ruler Harun ibn Khumarawayh ( r . 896 – 904 ) was forced to more concessions , handing back all of Syria north of Homs , and increasing the annual tribute to 450 , 000 dinars . In the Tulunid domains , increasing domestic turmoil and the mounting Qarmatian attacks led to the increasing defection of many of the Tulunids ' followers to the resurgent Caliphate . In Persia , the Caliph was forced to acknowledge the reality of the Saffarids ' control over the Islamic East , and reached a " modus vivendi " with them , perhaps hoping , according to Hugh Kennedy , to harness them in a partnership analogous to that which the Tahirids had enjoyed in previous decades : the Saffarids were recognized in their possession of Khurasan and eastern Persia as well as Fars , while the Abbasids were to exercise direct control over Jibal , Rayy and Isfahan . This policy gave the Caliph free hand to recover the territories of the Dulafids , a semi - independent dynasty centred on Isfahan and Nihavand . When the Dulafid Ahmad ibn Abd al - Aziz ibn Abi Dulaf died in 893 , al - Mu ' tadid moved swiftly to install his son al - Muktafi as governor in Rayy , Qazvin , Qum and Hamadan . The Dulafids were confined to the region of Karaj and Isfahan , before being deposed outright in 896 . Nevertheless , Abbasid hold over these territories remained precarious , especially due to the proximity of the Zaydi emirate in Tabaristan , and in 897 Rayy was handed over to the Saffarids . The Abbasid – Saffarid partnership in Iran was most clearly expressed against the intrepid general Rafi ibn Harthama , who had made his base in Rayy and posed a threat to both caliphal and Saffarid interests in the region . Al - Mu ' tadid sent Ahmad ibn Abd al - Aziz to seize Rayy from Rafi , who fled and made common cause with the Zaydis of Tabaristan in an effort to conquer Khurasan from the Saffarids . With Amr mobilizing anti - Alid sentiment against him and the expected assistance from the Zaydis failing to materialize , Rafu was defeated and killed in Khwarazm in 896 . Amr , at the pinnacle of his power , sent the defeated rebel ' s head to Baghdad , and in 897 the Caliph transferred control of Rayy to him . The partnership finally collapsed after Mu ' tadid appointed the Saffarid ruler Amr ibn al - Layth as governor of Transoxiana in 898 , which was ruled by his rivals the Samanids . In the event , Amr was crushingly defeated and captured by the Samanids in 900 . The Samanid ruler , Isma ' il ibn Ahmad , sent him in chains to Baghdad , where he was executed in 902 , after al - Mu ' tadid ' s death . Al - Mu ' tadid conferred Amr ' s titles to Isma ' il ibn Ahmad , but the Saffarid remnant under Tahir proved sufficiently resilient to thwart the caliphal attempts at regaining Fars and Kirman for several more years . It was not until 910 that the Abbasids managed to regain the coveted Fars province from them . From 897 on , the Caliphate faced a new threat , that of the Qarmatians . Originally a sporadic and minor nuisance in the Sawad , their power grew swiftly to alarming proportions : under Abu Sa ' id al - Jannabi , in 899 they seized Bahrein , and in the next year defeated a caliphal army under al - Abbas ibn Amr al - Ghanawi . Following al - Mu ' tadid ' s death , the Qarmatians " were to prove the most dangerous enemies the Abbasids had faced since the time of the Zanj " ( Kennedy ) . The same period also saw more anti - Abbasid regimes established on the periphery of the Islamic world : the Fatimids seized power in Ifriqiya , and another Zaydi dynasty established itself in Yemen . Domestic government . The Caliphate ' s recovery under al - Muwaffaq and al - Mu ' tadid relied on a strong army , and the state was in need of ever more money to pay for the " ghilman " and the mercenaries who comprised it . According to Hugh Kennedy , based on a treasury document from the time of al - Mu ' tadid ' s accession , " out the total expenditure of 7915 dinars per day , some 5121 are entirely military , 1943 in areas ( like riding animals and stables ) which served both military and non - military and only 851 in areas like the bureaucracy and the harem which can be described as truly civilian ( though even in this case , the bureaucrats ’ main purpose seems to have been to arrange the payment of the army ) . It seems reasonable to conclude that something over 80 per cent of recorded government expenditure was devoted to maintaining the army . " At the same time , many of the former tax - paying provinces had been lost to the central government , either to autonomous dynasties or to semi - autonomous governors who held them by way of " muqata ' a " , a form of tax farming , in exchange for a fixed tribute , which they often failed to pay . To maximise their revenue from the territory remaining to them , the Abbasids increased the breadth and complexity of the central bureaucracy , dividing the provinces into smaller tax districts as well as increasing in the number of the fiscal departments ( " diwan s " ) , allowing for a far closer oversight of both revenue collection and the activities of the officials themselves . This policy strengthened the position of the civil bureaucracy , which now reached the apogee of its influence , and especially the vizier , whom even the army came to respect as the spokesman of the caliph . In terms of personnel , al - Mu ' tadid ' s reign was marked by continuity among the senior leadership of the state : Ubayd Allah ibn Sulayman ibn Wahb remained vizier from the start of the reign until his death in 901 , and was succeeded by his son , al - Qasim ; Badr , a veteran who had served under al - Muwaffaq and whose daughter married the Caliph ' s son , remained commander of the army ; and the finances of Iraq were managed first by the Banu ' l - Furat , and after 899 by their rivals , the Banu ' l - Jarrah . These two rival bureaucratic dynasties would dominate the Abbasid government over the next years , alternating in office while often fining and torturing their predecessors to the benefit of the treasury . Al - Mu ' tadid also completed the return of the capital from Samarra to Baghdad , which had already served as his father ' s main base of operations . The city ' s centre , however , was relocated on the eastern bank of the Tigris and further downstream of the original city , where he and al - Muktafi engaged in major construction activities . The new town of al - Mu ' tadid has remained Baghdad ' s centre to this day . He also took care to restore the city ' s irrigation network , cleaning up the silted - up Dujayl canal , paying for it with money from those landholders who stood to profit from it . At the same time , he changed the start of the tax year so that the land tax ( " kharaj " ) was now collected after the harvest instead of before , easing the farmers ' burden . Death and legacy . Al - Mu ' tadid died in April 902 , and was succeeded by his designated heir , al - Muktafi , whom his father had taken care to prepare for his role as governor in Rayy and the Jazira . Al - Mu ' tadid ' s reign is credited with having arrested the Abbasid Caliphate ' s decline for a while , but his successes were too dependent on the presence of an energetic ruler at the helm , and " his reign was too short to reverse long - term trends and re - establish Abbasid power on a long - term basis " ( Kennedy ) . His son , al - Muktafi , tried to follow his father ' s policies , but he lacked his energy . As Michael Bonner writes , " in his character and comportment he did not , being a sedentary figure , instil much loyalty , let alone inspiration , in the soldiers " . The Caliphate was still able to secure major successes over the next few years , including the reincorporation of the Tulunid domains in 904 and victories over the Qarmatians , but with al - Muktafi ' s death in 908 , the so - called " Abbasid restoration " passed its high - water mark .