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Posted at Nov 18/2007 06:15PM:
Audrey: Audrey: Harun al-Rashid was the fifth Abbasid caliph. He was in power from approximately 780 until 805. His reign is considered a golden age for the Muslim Empire.

At the time that al-Rashid came to power, Baghdad was already becoming massively overcrowded with people, including Turks fighting in the army, who were considered lesser Muslims by some because they didn't speak the language. For this reason, al-Rashid moved his court outside of Baghdad, to the isolated steppe. The city became the horseshoe-shaped Samarra.

During his reign, al-Rashid focused less on his territories within Mesopotamia and instead concentrated on fortifying the frontier with Byzantium. This was necessary to control trade and arable land, as well as to keep the army from getting antsy. After al-Rashid died, his three sons fought over the caliphate. Al-Rashid wanted to split the Abbasid Empire three ways between them, which did not go smoothly and instead resulted in 15-20 years of political infighting within the empire.

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Posted at Dec 10/2007 08:40AM:
ian: Aside form his love of big hats al-Rashid was a consumate politician that sponsored not only major building projects such as al-Raqqa/ar-Rafiqa but elsewhere in the dar al-Islam including areas that would later become Samarra. It was during his reign the their is increasing cross fertilization of ideas, technology, and peoples with places further east such as India and china that sparked new styles as well as things like an "agricultural revolution" with the introduction of many new crops to the core lands of the Muslim world.