The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid ruled a vast and mighty empire from his capital, the city of Baghdad (now in Iraq).  His lands stretched from the Chinese border in the east to Morocco in the west.  He presided over an era when the Islamic world, his domain, led the world in science, medicine, art, philosophy, and astronomy.  al-Rashid, meaning "the Just," maintained a kingdom so splendid and advanced that it inspired the fantastical tales we now know as the "1001 Arabian Nights."


Harun al-Rashid's birth year is debated, but most sources give his birth date as March 17, 763.  He was born in Rey, near Tehran in what is now Iran, to al-Mahdi, the third Abbasid caliph and a former slave girl from Yemen called al-Khayzuran.  Harun's mother had a powerful personality and wielded considerable control over the reigns of her husband and her son in turn.  Perhaps it was fortunate that she passed away when Harun was 26, just four years into his tenure as caliph.

In 780, when Harun was still a teenager, he led his first military campaign against the Abbasids' rival, the Byzantine Empire.  His father al-Mahdi died in 785, likely in a hunting accident, and Harun became the fourth Abbasid caliph at the (probable) age of 22.  He immediately appointed a number of very able advisers to his court, including his vizier Yahya bin Khalid bin Barmak.  Yahya and his sons, particularly Jafar ibn Yahya, took care of much of the day-to-day administration of the caliphate until they fell out of favor in 798.

  Perhaps because they over-reached their power, Harun al-Rashid had them arrested and thrown into prison, and confiscated their property.  He ordered his good friend Jafar beheaded.

Under al-Rashid's rule, the city of Baghdad (which was founded by his grandfather) grew into the cultural and artistic center of the Islamic world.  It became the world's most populous city outside of China, and was famed for the library that al-Rashid founded called the Bayt al-Hikma or "House of Wisdom."  The library was a center for translation and study of texts in Greek, Persian, and Indian languages; its scholars are credited with preserving and advancing much classical knowledge while Europe languished in the Dark Ages.  Tragically, the Bayt al-Hikma was destroyed when the Mongols besieged and sacked Baghdad in 1258.

Among the many elements of his legacy, Harun al-Rashid is remembered for his diplomacy.  He established diplomatic ties with a number of foreign powers, including the Tang Chinese and the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.  He even sent Charlemagne an elephant as a gift in 801 - the first seen in Europe, reportedly, since Hannibal's invasion in 218 BCE. 

al-Rashid continued to use force effectively, as well.  In 802, the Byzantine empress Irene was deposed.  She had been paying tribute to the Abbasids after losing battles to al-Rashid's forces.  The new Byzantine emperor, Nikephoros I, sent a notice to al-Rashid that he would not pay tribute, and that in fact he demanded back-payments of tribute from the Abbasid Empire!  Furious, al-Rashid set out on a punitive campaign that soon cowed Nikephoros, who agreed to pay 50,000 coins immediately and a yearly tribute of 30,000 coins thereafter.

In the year 808, Harun al-Rashid led his army north toward Transoxiana, roughly modern Uzbekistan.  The Abbasid governor there was becoming insubordinate.  However, al-Rashid became ill and died in Mashhad, now in Iran.  He is buried there in a little-regarded tomb, a Sunni ruler resting in a Shi'a city.

Harun al-Rashid's earthly remains may be virtually ignored today, but he left a significant impact on the world.  His library, the Bayt al-Hikma, was the largest book collection in the world by 850, and attracted the most brilliant scholars from across the Islamic world.  It sponsored the work of al-Khwarizmi, the mathematician who invented the algorithm and coined the word "algebra."  The Banu Musa brothers invented the first programmable machine there.  Other great ideas and inventions that came out of the Bayt al-Hikma included chemistry, the idea of infinity, and the discipline of sociology.  Even more than the fictional tales of the "1001 Arabian Nights," these advances are Harun al-Rashid's true legacy.