In spite of these manifold activities Mamun did not forget the hereditary enemy of Islam. In the years 830, 831 and 832 he made expeditions into Asia Minor with such success that Theophilus, the Greek emperor, sued for peace, which Mamun haughtily refused to grant. Accordingly, he decided on marching in the following year against Amorium, and thence to Constantinople itself. Having sent before him his son Abbas to make Tyana a strong fortress, he set out for Asia Minor to put himself at the head of the army, but died of a fever brought on by bathing in the chill river, Pedendon, 40 m. from Tarsus, in Rajab 218 (a.d. August 833), at the age of forty-eight.
Mamun was a man of rare qualities, and one of the best rulers of the whole dynasty after Mansur. By him the ascendancy of the Persian element over the Arabian was completed. Moreover, he began to attract young Turkish noblemen to his court, an example which was followed on a much larger scale by his successor and led to the supremacy of the Turks at a later period.
8. Reign of Motasim.—Abu Isḥāk al-Mo’taṣim had for a long time been preparing himself for the succession. Every year he had bought Turkish slaves, and had with him in the last expedition of Mamun a bodyguard of 3000. Backed by this force he seems to have persuaded the ailing caliph to designate him as his successor. The chroniclers content themselves with recording that he himself wrote in the name of the caliph to the chief authorities in Bagdad and elsewhere that he was to be the successor. His accession, however, met at first with active opposition in the army, where a powerful party demanded that Abbas should take the place of his father. Abbas, however, publicly renounced all pretension to the Caliphate, and the whole army accepted Motasim, who immediately had the fortifications of Tyana demolished and hastened back to Bagdad, where he made his public entry on the 20th of September 833.
Motasim wanted officers for his bodyguard. Immediately after his coming to Bagdad, he bought all the Turkish slaves living there who had distinguished themselves. Among them were Ashnās, Itākh, Wasīf, Sīmā, all of whom later became men of great influence. The guard was composed of an undisciplined body of soldiers, who, moreover, held in open contempt the religious precepts of Islam. Tired of the excesses committed by these Turks, the people of Bagdad beat or killed as many of them as they could lay hands on, and Motasim, not daring to act with severity against either his guard or the citizens, took the course of quitting the city. Having bought in 834 territories at Sāmarrā, a small place situated a few leagues above Bagdad, he caused a new residence to be built there, whose name, which could be interpreted “Unhappy is he who sees it,” was changed by him into Sorra-man-ra‘ā, “Rejoiced is he who sees it.” Leaving the government of the capital in the hands of his son Hārūn al-Wāthiq, he established himself at Sāmarrā in 836. This resolution of Motasim was destined to prove fatal to his dynasty; for it placed the caliphs at the mercy of their praetorians. In fact, from the time of Wāthiq, the Caliphate became the plaything of the Turkish guard, and its decline was continuous.
In the time of the civil war the marshlands in Irak between Basra and Wāsit had been occupied by a large population of Indians, called yat, or, according to the Arabic pronunciation, Zoṭṭ, who infested the roads and levied a heavy tribute from the ships ascending and descending the Tigris. From the year 821 onwards Mamun had tried in vain to bring them to submission. When Motasim came back to Bagdad, after the death of his brother, he found the people in great distress, their supply of dates from Basra having been cut off by the Zoṭṭ, and resolved to put them down with all means. After seven months of vigorous resistance, they at last yielded on condition of safety of life and property. In January 835 the Zoṭṭ in their national costume and with their own music were conducted on a great number of boats through Bagdad. Thence they were transported to Ainzarba (Anazarba) on the frontier of the Greek empire. Twenty years later they entered Asia Minor, whence in a later period they came into Europe, under the name of Athinganoi (Ziganes) and Egyptians (gipsies).[35]
A far more difficult task lay before Motasim, the subjection of Bābak al-Khorramī in Azerbaijan. Though the name Khorramī is often employed by the Moslem writers to designate such extravagant Moslem sectaries as the Hāshimīya, the real Khorramī were not Moslems, but Persian Mazdaqites, or communists. The name Khorramī, or Khorramdīnī, “adherent of the pleasant religion,” seems to be a nickname. As they bore red colours, they were also called Mohammira, or Redmakers. Their object was to abolish Islam and to restore “the white religion.” We find the first mention of them in the year 808, when Harun al-Rashid sent an army against them. During the civil war their power was steadily increasing, and spread not only over Azerbaijan, but also over Media (Jabal) and Khorasan. The numerous efforts of Mamun to put them down had been all in vain, and they were now in alliance with the Byzantine emperor. Therefore, in the year 835, Motasim made Afshīn, a Turkish prince who had distinguished himself already in the days of Mamun, governor of Media, with orders to take the lead of the war against Bābak. After three years’ fighting, Bābak was taken prisoner. He was carried to Sāmarrā, led through the city on the back of an elephant, and then delivered to the executioners, who cut off his arms and legs. His head was sent to Khorasan, his body was crucified. For long afterwards the place where this happened bore the name of “Bābak’s Cross.”
In the hope of creating a diversion in Bābak’s favour, Theophilus in 837 fell upon and laid waste the frontier town of Zibatra. There and in several other places he took a great number of prisoners, whom he mutilated. The news arrived just after that of the capture of Bābak, and Motasim swore to take exemplary vengeance. He assembled a formidable army, penetrated into Asia Minor, and took the city of Amorium, where he gained rich plunder. During his return the caliph was informed of a conspiracy in the army in favour of ‘Abbās the son of Mamun, of which ‘Ojaif b. ‘Anbasa was the ringleader. The unfortunate prince was arrested and died soon after in prison. The conspirators were killed, many of them with great cruelty. (For the campaign see Bury in J.H.S., 1909, xxix. pt. i.)
Motasim had just returned to Sāmarrā when a serious revolt broke out in Tabaristan, Māziyār, one of the hereditary chiefs of that country, refusing to acknowledge the authority of Abdallah Ibn Ṭāhir, the governor of Khorasan, of which Tabaristan was a province. The revolt was suppressed with great difficulty, and it came out that it was due to the secret instigation of Afshīn, who hoped thereby to cause the fall of the Ṭāhirids, and to take their place, with the ulterior object of founding an independent kingdom in the East. Afshīn, who stood at that moment in the highest favour of the caliph, was condemned and died in prison. Motasim died a year later, January 842.
9. Reign of Wāthiq.—His son Wāthiq, who succeeded, though not in the least to be compared with Mamun, had yet in common with him a thirst for knowledge—perhaps curiosity would be a more appropriate term—which prompted him, as soon as he became caliph, to send the famous astronomer Mahommed b. Mūsā into Asia Minor to find out all about the Seven Sleepers which he discovered in the neighbourhood of Arabissus,[36] and Sallām the Interpreter to explore the situation of the famous wall of Gog and Magog, which he reached at the north-west frontier of China.[37] For these and other personal pursuits he raised money by forcing a number of high functionaries to disgorge their gains. In so vast an empire the governors and administrators had necessarily enjoyed an almost unrestricted power, and this had enabled them to accumulate wealth. Omar had already compelled them to furnish an account of their riches, and, when he found that they had abused their trust, to relinquish half to the state. As time went on, nomination to an office was more and more generally considered a step to wealth. During the reign of the Omayyads a few large fortunes were made thus. But with the increasing luxury after Mansur, the thirst for money became universal, and the number of honest officials lessened fast. Confiscation of property had been employed with success by Hārūn al-Rashīd after the disgrace of the Barmecides, and occasionally by his successors, but Wāthiq was the first to imprison high officials and fine them heavily on the specific charge of peculation.
The caliph also shared Mamun’s intolerance on the doctrinal question of the uncreated Koran. He carried his zeal to such a point that, on the occasion of an exchange of Greek against Moslem prisoners in 845, he refused to receive those Moslem captives who would not declare their belief that the Koran was created. The orthodox in Bagdad prepared to revolt, but were discovered in time by the governor of the city. The ringleader Ahmad b. Naṣr al-Khozā‘ī was seized and brought to Sāmarrā, where Wāthiq beheaded him in person. The only other event of importance in the reign of Wāthiq was a rising of the Arabian tribes in the environs of Medina, which the Turkish general Boghā with difficulty repressed. When he reached Sāmarrā with his prisoners, Wāthiq had just died (August 846). That the predominance of the praetorians was already established is clear from the fact that Wāthiq gave to two Turkish generals, Ashnās and Itākh respectively, the titular but lucrative supreme government of all the western and all the eastern provinces. In his days the soldiery at Sāmarrā was increased by a large division of Africans (Maghribīs).