1. Al-Mansur is known for founding the 'Round City' of Madinat al-Salam, which was to become the core of imperial Baghdad.
29 Facts About Al-Mansur
1. 2.
Al-Mansur was born at the home of the Abbasid family in Humeima after their emigration from the Hejaz in 714.
3.
Al-Mansur was a great great-grandson of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.
4.
Al-Mansur became the first caliph of the Abbasid caliphate in 750 after defeating his rivals.
5.
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.
6.
Al-Mansur 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.
7.
Al-Mansur was proclaimed Caliph on his way to Mecca in the year 753 and was inaugurated the following year.
8.
Al-Mansur gained many supporters from Jibal and Tabaristan, including the Dabuyid ruler, Khurshid, who was paid with money from the treasures.
9.
Al-Mansur sent an official to take inventory of the spoils collected from the battle as a precautionary measure against its distribution to the army.
10.
Al-Mansur's troops defeated the rebels first in Medina and then in Basra.
11.
Al-Mansur laid the foundations of Baghdad near the old capital of al-Mada'in, on the western bank of the Tigris River, a location acceptable to him and his commanders.
12.
Al-Mansur had built Baghdad in response to a growing concern from the chief towns in Iraq, Basra, and Kufa that there was lack of solidity within the regime after the death of Abu'l 'Abbas.
13.
Al-Mansur pursued his vision of a powerful centralized caliphate in the new Muslim imperial capital of Baghdad.
14.
Al-Mansur pursued Islamization by staffing his administration with Muslims of varied backgrounds.
15.
Al-Mansur's rule was largely peaceful as he focused on internal reforms, agriculture and patronage of the sciences, thus he paved the way for Baghdad to become a global center of learning and science under the rule of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun.
16.
Al-Mansur had cultivated support for his son's accession since 754, while undermining Isa ibn Musa's position within the Abbasid military.
17.
Al-Mansur would be the first Abbasid caliph to uphold Islamic orthodoxy as a matter of public policy.
18.
Al-Mansur was the first Abbasid caliph to sponsor the Translation Movement.
19.
Al-Mansur was particularly interested in sponsoring the translations of texts on astronomy and astrology.
20.
Al-Mansur called scientists to his court and became noted as patron of astronomers.
21.
Al-Mansur had Persian books on astronomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and other sciences translated in a systematic campaign to collect knowledge.
22.
Al-Mansur was greatly interested in the quality of the translation and paid al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Matar to translate Euclid's Elements twice.
23.
Al-Mansur paid for the physician Jabril ibn Bukhtishu to write Arabic translations of medical books, while the first Arabic translations of medical texts written by Galen and Hippocrates were done by al-Mansur's official translator.
24.
Al-Mansur's delegations were known in China as Heiyi Dashi.
25.
Al-Mansur was the first Abbasid caliph to hold a ransom meeting with the Byzantine Empire.
26.
Al-Mansur withdrew and thereafter focused his troops of holding the eastern part of his empire on lands that were once part of Persia.
27.
Al-Mansur's father was Muhammad, one of the descendants of Talhah ibn Ubaydullah.
28.
Al-Mansur was the mother of al-Mansur's son Ja'far 'Ibn al-Kurdiyyah'.
29.
Al-Mansur was a Greek, and was the mother of al-Mansur's son Salih al-Miskin.