Al-Mansur

Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (/ælmænˈsʊər/; Arabic: أبو جعفر عبد الله بن محمد المنصور‎; 714 – 6 October 775) usually known simply as by his laqab al-Manṣūr (المنصور) was the second Abbasid caliph, reigning from 754 to 775 succeeding his brother al-Saffah (r. 750–754). He is known for founding the 'Round City' of Madinat al-Salam, which was to become the core of imperial Baghdad.

Modern historians regard al-Mansur as the real founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, one of the largest polities in world history, for his role in stabilizing and institutionalizing the dynasty.

According to al-Suyuti's History of the Caliphs, al-Mansur lived 95 AH – 158 AH (714 CE – 6 October 775 CE). Al-Mansur was born at the home of the Abbasid family in Humeima (modern-day Jordan) after their emigration from the Hejaz in 714 (95 AH). His mother was Sallamah, a slave woman. Al-Mansur was a brother of al-Saffah. Both were named Abd Allah, and to distinguish between them, al-Saffah was referred to by his kunya Abu al-Abbas.

Al-Mansur was a great great-grandson of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Al-Mansur's brother al-Saffah began asserting his claim to become caliph in the 740s and became particularly active in Khorasan, an area where non-Arab Muslims lived. After the death of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743 a period of instability followed. Al-Saffah led the Abbasid Revolution in 747 and his claim to power was supported throughout Iraq by Muslims. He became the first caliph of the Abbasid caliphate in 750 after defeating his rivals.

Shortly before the overthrow of the Umayyads by an army of rebels from Khorasan that were influenced by propaganda spread by the Abbasids, the last Umayyad Caliph Marwan II, arrested the head of the Abbasid family, Al Mansur's other brother Ibrahim. Al-Mansur fled with the rest of his family to Kufa where some of the Khorasanian rebel leaders gave their allegiance to his brother al-Saffah. Ibrahim died in captivity and al-Saffah became the first Abbasid Caliph. During his brother's reign, al-Mansur led an army to Mesopotamia where he received a submission from the governor after informing him of the last Umayyad Caliph's death. The last Umayyad governor had taken refuge in Iraq in a garrison town. He was promised a safe-conduct by al-Mansur and the Caliph al-Saffah, but after surrendering the town, he was executed with a number of his followers.

According to The Meadows of Gold, a history book in Arabic written around 947 CE, al-Mansur's dislike of the Umayyad dynasty is well documented and he has been reported saying:

The Umayyads held the government which had been given to them with a firm hand, protecting, preserving and guarding the gift granted them by God. But then their power passed to their effeminate sons, whose only ambition was the satisfaction of their desires and who chased after pleasures forbidden by Almighty God...Then God stripped them of their power, covered them with shame and deprived them of their worldly goods.

Mansur's first wife was a Yemeni woman from a royal family; his second was a descendant of a hero of the early Muslim conquests; his third was an Iranian servant. He also had a minimum of three concubines: an Arab, a Byzantine, nicknamed the “restless butterfly," and a Kurd.