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Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Talha al-Muwaffaq (854 or 861 – 5 April 902), better known by his regnal name al-Mu'tadid bi-llah ((アラビア語:المعتضد بالله), "Seeking Support in God") was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 892 until his death in 902. Al-Mu'tadid was the son of al-Muwaffaq, who was the regent and virtual ruler of the Abbasid state during the reign of his brother, Caliph al-Mu'tamid. As a prince, the future al-Mu'tadid served under his father in various military campaigns, most notably in the suppression of the Zanj Rebellion, in which he played a major role. When al-Muwaffaq died in June 891 al-Mu'tadid succeeded him as regent. He quickly sidelined his cousin and heir-apparent al-Mufawwad, and when al-Mu'tamid died in October 892, he succeeded to the throne. Like his father, al-Mu'tadid's power depended on his close relations with the army, first forged in the campaigns against the Zanj and reinforced in later expeditions which the Caliph led in person: al-Mu'tadid would prove to be the most militarily active of all Abbasid caliphs. Through his energy and ability, he succeeded in restoring to the Abbasid state some of the power and provinces it had lost during the turmoil of the previous decades. In a series of campaigns he recovered the Jazira, Thughur and Jibal, and effected a rapprochement with the Saffarids in the east and the Tulunids in the west that secured their—albeit largely nominal—recognition of caliphal suzerainty. These successes came at the cost of gearing the economy almost exclusively towards maintenance of the army, which resulted in the expansion and rise to power of the central fiscal bureaucracy and contributed to the Caliph's lasting reputation for avarice. Al-Mu'tadid was also renowned for his cruelty when punishing criminals, and subsequent chroniclers record his extensive and ingenious use of torture. His reign also saw the permanent move of the capital back to Baghdad, where he engaged in major building activities. Despite his successes, al-Mu'tadid's reign was ultimately too short to effect a lasting reversal of the Caliphate's fortunes, and the "Abbasid revival" that he spearheaded was too dependent on the presence of capable personalities at the helm of the state. The brief reign of his less able son and heir, al-Muktafi, still saw some major gains, but his later successors lacked his energy. In addition, the factionalism within the bureaucracy that had become apparent during the later years of al-Mu'tadid's reign would debilitate the Abbasid government for decades to come, leading to the subjugation of the Caliphate to a series of military strongmen, culminating in the conquest of Baghdad by the Buyids in 946. == Early life == Al-Mu'tadid was born Ahmad, the son of Talha, one of the sons of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861), and a Greek slave named Dirar. The exact date of his birth is unknown; as he is variously recorded as being thirty-eight or thirty-one years old at the time of his accession, he was born either in ca. 854 or ca. 861. In 861, al-Mutawakkil was murdered, beginning 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 had come to lie 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 soon became the effective ruler of the Caliphate, a position consolidated in 882 after a failed attempt by al-Mu'tamid to flee to Egypt led to his confinement in house arrest. Caliphal authority in the provinces collapsed during the "Anarchy at Samarra", with the result that by the 870s the central government had lost effective control over most of the Caliphate outside the metropolitan region of Iraq. In the west, Egypt had fallen under the control of Ahmad ibn Tulun, who also disputed control of Syria with al-Muwaffaq, while Khurasan and most of the Islamic East had been taken over by the Saffarids, who replaced the Abbasids' loyal clients, the Tahirids. Most of the Arabian peninsula was likewise lost to local potentates, while in Tabaristan a radical Zaydi Shi'a dynasty took power. Even in Iraq, the rebellion of the Zanj slaves threatened Baghdad itself, and further south the Qarmatians were a nascent threat. Al-Muwaffaq's regency was thus a continuous struggle to save the tottering Caliphate from collapse. His attempts to recover control of Egypt and Syria from Ibn Tulun failed, with the latter even able to expand his territory and obtain his recognition as hereditary ruler, but he succeeded in preserving the core of the Caliphate in Iraq by repelling a Saffarid invasion aiming to capture Baghdad, and by subduing the Zanj after a long struggle. It was against the Zanj that the future al-Mu'tadid—at this time usually referred to by his ''kunya'' of Abu'l-Abbas—would acquire his first military experience and establish the close ties with the army that would characterize his reign. Al-Muwaffaq gave his son a military training from an early age, and the young prince became "a keen horseman and took care to inspect both his troops and their mounts in person" (Hugh N. Kennedy). 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. In 879 the death of the founder of the Saffarid state, Ya'qub al-Saffar, allowed the Abbasid government to fully concentrate its attention against the Zanj rebellion, and Abu'l-Abbas' appointment in December 879 to command against the rebels at the head of 10,000 troops marks the turning-point of the war. In the long and hard struggle that followed, 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 eventually swelled with reinforcements, volunteers, and Zanj defectors, it was the few but elite ''ghilman'' who formed the army's backbone, filling its leadership positions and bearing the brunt of the battle, often under the personal command 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. The detailed account of the war, written by a former Zanj rebel and preserved in the history of al-Tabari, stresses the role of al-Muwaffaq and Abu'l-Abbas as the heroes who, in defence of the embattled Muslim state, suppressed the rebellion; the successful campaign would become a major tool in their propaganda effort to legitimize their ''de facto'' usurpation of the Caliph's power. Following the death of Ibn Tulun in May 884, the two caliphal generals Ishaq ibn Kundaj and Ibn Abu'l-Saj sought to take advantage of the situation and attacked the Tulunid domains in Syria, but their initial gains were rapidly reversed. In the spring of 885, Abu'l-Abbas was sent to take charge of the invasion. He soon succeeded in defeating the Tulunids and forcing them to retreat to Palestine, but after a quarrel with Ibn Kundaj and Ibn Abu'l-Saj, the latter abandoned the campaign and withdrew their forces. In the Battle of Tawahin on 6 April, Abu'l-Abbas confronted Ibn Tulun's son and heir, Khumarawayh, in person. The Abbasid prince was initially victorious, forcing Khumarawayh to flee, but was in turn defeated and fled the battlefield, while much of his army was taken prisoner. After this victory the Tulunids expanded their control over the Jazira and the borderlands (the Thughur) with the Byzantine Empire. A peace agreement followed in 886, whereby al-Muwaffaq was forced to recognize Khumarawayh as hereditary governor 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. During this period, the relations between Abu'l-Abbas and his father 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. Eventually, 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. Al-Muwaffaq, suffering from gout, was already visibly nearing his end; the vizier Isma'il ibn Bulbul and the city commander of Baghdad, Abu'l-Saqr, called al-Mu'tamid and his sons, including the heir-apparent al-Mufawwad, into the city, hoping to exploit al-Muwaffaq's imminent death for their own purposes. Nevertheless, the popularity of Abu'l-Abbas with the soldiers and the common people was such that he was set free, his opponents' houses were ransacked by the mob, and the attempt to sideline him failed. Thus, when al-Muwaffaq died in June 891, Abu'l-Abbas succeeded him immediately in his offices, with the title of al-Mu'tadid bi-llah and a position in the line of succession after the caliph and al-Mufawwad. Within a few months, in April 892, al-Mu'tadid had his cousin removed from the succession—and probably killed—so that when al-Mu'tamid died in October, possibly poisoned, he succeeded to the throne as Caliph. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Al-Mu'tadid」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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