He was born in the month of Ramadan, 502 AH. It is said that he came into the world without an outlet, so one was opened for him with a golden instrument; his mother was an umm walad (a slave-concubine who had borne a child). His name was mentioned in the Friday sermon as heir apparent in 513 AH, and he succeeded to the caliphate in Dhu al-Qaʿda, 529 AH.

Fair-skinned and comely, perfectly proportioned and strong-armed, he is reported to have once encountered a huge stag in the palace garden. The servants shrank back, but he rushed at the animal, seized its antlers, threw it down, asked for a saw, and cut off its horns (1).

He was upright in conduct, devoted to justice, eloquent, sweet of expression, cultured, poetic, and generous. His days, however, were few: he marched to Mosul, then to Azerbaijan, and returned to Isfahan, where—together with Sultan Dāwud—he laid siege to the city. There the Assassins (al-Mulāḥida) killed him. After he had left Baghdad, Sultan Masʿūd ibn Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh arrived; the notables gathered, deposed al-Rāshid, and gave their allegiance to his uncle al-Muqtafī.

Abū Ṭālib ibn ʿAbd al-Samīʿ relates that al-Rāshid once said: “We loathe civil strife out of compassion for the subjects, and we prefer justice and security throughout the land, yet destiny refuses except…”