Harun al-Rashid

Harun al-Rashid was born in Rey, in present-day Tehran Province, around 763 (sources give dates from 763 to 766), to Caliph al-Mahdi and his wife al-Khayzuran, who exercised strong influence over court affairs and clearly favored him over his elder brother al-Hadi. As crown prince he nominally led campaigns against the Byzantines in 780 and 782, the latter reaching the Asian suburbs of Constantinople and bringing back, according to al-Tabari, riches carried by 20,000 mules. The raids earned him the laqab al-Rashid, "the Rightly-Guided One." When his brother al-Hadi died in 786 after a reign of barely over a year, Harun became caliph.

On his accession he made the Persian Yahya ibn Khalid - whose family the Barmakids had played a decisive role in establishing the Abbasid Caliphate - his vizier, and for the next seventeen years Yahya and his sons effectively ran the empire while Harun campaigned and patronised the arts. In 796 he moved his court and government to Raqqa in present-day Syria. He pursued domestic policies similar to those of his father, released many of the Umayyads and 'Alids his brother had imprisoned, and declared amnesty for all political groups of the Quraysh. Large-scale hostilities broke out with Byzantium, and under his rule the Abbasid Empire reached its peak.

Culturally his reign laid the foundation of the Islamic Golden Age. He established the legendary library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom") in Baghdad, and the city flourished as a world centre of knowledge, culture and trade. A Frankish mission came to offer him friendship in 799. In 802 Harun sent Charlemagne a present consisting of silks, brass candelabra, perfume, balsam, ivory chessmen, a colossal tent with many-coloured curtains, an elephant named Abul-Abbas, and a water clock that marked the hours with bronze balls dropping into a bowl as mechanical knights emerged from doors. These presents were unprecedented in Western Europe. Portions of the fictional One Thousand and One Nights are set in Harun's court and some of its stories involve Harun himself, cementing his popular fame.

In 803 he abruptly destroyed the Barmakids: Yahya and his son Fadl were imprisoned and Ja'far was executed, with the family's wealth confiscated. The purge ended seventeen years of capable Barmakid administration and shifted power toward military commanders, prefiguring the later Mamluk system.

Outward triumphs concealed strain at the periphery and the rise of strong commanders, and Harun's division of the empire between his sons al-Amin and al-Ma'mun would ignite civil war soon after his death. He made many pilgrimages to Mecca by camel, the last in 803, and died on 24 March 809. Al-Tabari notes that "when Harun ar-Rashid died, there were nine hundred million odd (dirhams) in the state treasury."