He was fair-skinned, with a long, reddish-blond beard; of medium height, ruddy in complexion, endowed with strength, forcefulness, bravery, and an imposing presence—yet he possessed only scant learning. (1)

It is said that while he was still in the elementary Qur’an school he kept a servant boy with him there. When the boy died, his father asked him, “Muḥammad, has your servant died?” He replied, “Yes, my lord—and he is now relieved of the schoolmasters.” His father retorted, “Has your hatred of the schoolmasters reached this point? Leave him alone.” Consequently his reading remained weak. (2)

Khalīfah stated: He led the people on the ḥajj in the year 200 AH. (3)

Al-Riyāshī related: The tyrant of Byzantium wrote to al-Muʿtaṣim threatening him. The caliph ordered a reply to be drafted, but when it was brought before him he tossed it aside and said to the scribe, “Write: To proceed: I have read your letter and heard your address. The answer is what you will see, not what you merely hear. ‘Soon the unbeliever shall know to whom the final abode belongs.’” (4)

I comment: He put the populace to the test over the doctrine that the Qur’an was created, sending edicts to the provinces and imposing it even on the muezzins and the elementary-school instructors in jurisprudence. The ordeal continued until al-Mutawakkil abolished it fourteen years later.

In 218 AH there was a devastating plague and a severe famine in Egypt, in which most of the people perished. In that same year al-Muʿtaṣim ordered the demolition of Tuwana, whose construction al-Maʾmun had begun two years earlier as a housing project