For the very first time in Arab history, a child became the umma’s caliph. The 13 year old had not yet left his royal harem and was totally under his mother’s control. She used her influence over al Muqtadir to to extend her personal wealth and authority. It was a fundamentally corrupt setup that...

After all our recent foreshadowing, we’ve finally arrived at the period of Abbasid collapse. It’s a relatively long period, stretching from the start of al Muqtadir’s reign in 908 until around the middle of that century, when the Abbasids were reduced to figureheads by a more commanding dynasty....