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The Fourth Fitna or Great Abbasid Civil War〔Kennedy (2004), p. 147〕 was a conflict between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun over the succession to the Abbasid Caliphate's throne. Their father, Harun al-Rashid, had named al-Amin as the first successor, but had also named al-Ma'mun as the second, with Khurasan granted to him as an appanage, while a third son, al-Qasim, had been designated as third successor. After Harun died in 809, al-Amin succeeded in Baghdad. Encouraged by the Baghdad court, al-Amin began trying to subvert the autonomous status of Khurasan; Qasim was quickly sidelined. In response, al-Ma'mun's sought the support of the provincial elites of Khurasan, and made moves to assert his own autonomy. As the rift between the two brothers and their respective camps widened, al-Amin declared his own son Musa to be his heir, and assembled a large army. Al-Amin's troops marched towards Khurasan, but al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn defeated them in the Battle of Rayy, and then invaded Iraq and besieged Baghdad itself. The city fell after a year, al-Amin was executed, and al-Ma'mun became Caliph, but he remained in Khurasan and did not come to Baghdad. This allowed the power vacuum, which the civil war had created in the Caliphate's provinces, to grow, and several local rulers sprang up in Jazira, Syria and Egypt. In addition, the pro-Khurasani policies followed by al-Ma'mun's powerful chief minister, al-Fadl ibn Sahl, and al-Ma'mun's espousal of an Alid succession, alienated the traditional Baghdad elites, who saw themselves increasingly marginalized. Consequently, al-Ma'mun's uncle Ibrahim was proclaimed rival Caliph at Baghdad in 817, forcing al-Ma'mun to intervene personally. Fadl ibn Sahl was assassinated and al-Ma'mun left Khurasan for Baghdad, which he entered in 819. The next years were taken up with consolidating al-Ma'mun's authority and re-incorporating the western provinces, a process that was not completed until 827. Some local rebellions, however, notably that of the Khurramites, dragged on for far longer. The conflict has been variously interpreted, in the words of the Iranologist Elton L. Daniel, as "a conflict over the succession between a rather incompetent, besotted al-Amin and his shrewdly competent brother al-Ma'mun; as the product of harem intrigues; as an extension of the personal rivalry between the ministers al-Fadl b. Rabi' and al-Fadl b. Sahl; or as a struggle between Arabs and Persians for the control of the government".〔Daniel (1979), p. 175〕 ==Background== The origins of the civil war lie in the succession arrangements of Harun al-Rashid (reigned 786–809), as well as the internal political dynamics of the Abbasid Caliphate. The two main contenders, Muhammad al-Amin and Abdallah al-Ma'mun, were born six months apart in AH 170 (786–787), with al-Ma'mun being the elder.〔Kennedy (2004), p. 142〕〔Rekaya (1991), p. 331〕 It was al-Amin however who was named first heir in 791 or 792, while al-Ma'mun followed in 797, a sequence which was influenced by their lines of descent and their political implications: al-Amin had a solidly Abbasid lineage, being Harun's son by Zubayda, herself descended from the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775), while al-Ma'mun's mother was Marajil, a Persian concubine from Badhgis in Khurasan.〔〔〔El-Hibri (2011), p. 282〕 While al-Ma'mun's origin was less prestigious than the purely Arab al-Amin, his ties to Khurasan and the Iranian-dominated eastern provinces were an important factor in his choice as heir.〔 In contrast to the exclusively Arab-ruled Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid state was under heavy Iranian, and particularly Khurasani, influence.〔El-Hibri (2011), p. 301〕 The Abbasid Revolution, which brouht the Abbasids to power, originated in Khurasan, and the Abbasid dynasty relied heavily on Khurasanis as military leaders and administrators. Many of the original Khurasani Arab army (''Khurasaniyya'') that came west with the Abbasids were given estates in Iraq and the new Abbasid capital, Baghdad, and became an elite group known as the ''abnaʾ al-dawla'' ("sons of the state/dynasty").〔El-Hibri (2011), p. 274〕〔Kennedy (2004), pp. 133–134〕 Khurasan retained a privileged position among the Caliphate's provinces,〔Kennedy (2004), p. 135〕 and Harun al-Rashid in particular was careful to cultivate his ties with the Iranian element of the Caliphate, not least through his promotion of the Khurasani Barmakid family to positions of power.〔El-Hibri (2011), pp. 281–282〕 Both al-Amin and al-Ma'mun had been tutored in their youth by the Barmakids, al-Amin by al-Fadl ibn Yahya and al-Ma'mun by Ja'far ibn Yahya. While al-Amin would distance himself from the Barmakids and become closely associated with the ''abnaʾ'' aristocracy of Baghdad, al-Ma'mun remained influenced by Ja'far and his associates.〔 In 802, Harun and the most powerful officials of the Abbasid government made the pilgrimage to Mecca, where the definitive succession arrangement was drawn up: al-Amin would succeed Harun in Baghdad, but al-Ma'mun would remain al-Amin's heir and would additionally rule over an enlarged and practically independent Khurasan. A third son, al-Qasim (al-Mu'tamin), was also added as third heir and received responsibility over the frontier areas with the Byzantine Empire.〔〔〔Daniel(1979), pp. 175–176〕 The stipulations of the agreement, extensively recorded by the historian al-Tabari, may however have been distorted by later apologists of al-Ma'mun, especially as regards the extent of the autonomy granted to al-Ma'mun's eastern viceroyalty.〔El-Hibri (2011), pp. 282–283〕 Almost immediately after it returned to Baghdad, in January 803, the Abbasid court witnessed the abrupt fall of the Barmakid family from power. On the one hand, this decision may reflect the fact that the Barmakids may have become indeed too powerful for the Caliph's liking, but its timing suggests that it was tied to the succession issue as well: with al-Amin siding with the ''abnaʾ'' and al-Ma'mun with the Barmakids, and the two camps becoming more estranged every day, if al-Amin was to have a chance to succeed, the power of the Barmakids had to be broken.〔〔Kennedy (2004), pp. 142–143〕〔El-Hibri (2011), p. 283〕 Indeed, the years after the fall of the Barmakids saw an increasing centralization of the administration and the concomitant rise of the influence of the ''abnaʾ'', many of whom were now dispatched to take up positions as provincial governors and bring these provinces under closer control from Baghdad.〔 This led to unrest in the provinces, especially Khurasan, where, according to Elton L. Daniel, "Abbasid policies () between two extremes. One governor would attempt to extract as much wealth as he could from the province for the benefit of Iraq, the central government, and, not infrequently, himself. When the people protested loudly enough, such governors would be temporarily replaced by ones who would attend to local interests".〔Daniel (1979), p. 168〕 The Khurasani elites had a long-standing rivalry with the ''abnaʾ''. Although the latter now resided chiefly in what is now Iraq, they insisted on retaining control of Khurasani affairs and demanded that the province's revenues be sent west to supply their salaries, something strongly resisted by the local Arab and Iranian elites. The resulting tension was eased when al-Fadl ibn Yahya, universally praised as a model governor, was appointed to Khurasan in 793, but was re-fanned in 796, when a member of the ''abnaʾ'', Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan, was placed in charge of the province.〔Daniel (1979), pp. 169–171〕〔Kennedy (2004), p. 144〕 His harsh taxation measures provoked increasing unrest, which expressed itself in Kharijite uprisings and, finally, a rebellion by the governor of Samarkand, Rafi ibn al-Layth. This uprising forced Harun himself, accompanied by al-Ma'mun and the powerful chamberlain (''hajib'') and chief minister al-Fadl ibn al-Rabi, to travel to the province in 808. Al-Ma'mun was sent ahead with part of the army to Marv, while Harun stayed at Tus, where he died on 24 March 809.〔〔〔Daniel (1979), pp. 171–175〕〔Kennedy (2004), pp. 144–145〕 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「Fourth Fitna」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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