8 – Al-Muntaṣir bi-Allah, Muḥammad son of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allah
The Caliph, Abū Jaʿfar—also Abū ʿAbd Allah—Muḥammad son of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allah Jaʿfar son of al-Muʿtaṣim Muḥammad son of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the Hāshimite, the ʿAbbāsid.

His mother was a Greek concubine named Ḥabashiyya.

He was large-eyed, brown-skinned, with an aquiline nose; handsome of face, well-built and of medium stature, big-bellied, attractive yet imposing.

When his father was slain, the Chief Judge, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Hāshimī, entered upon him and they said to him, “Pledge allegiance.”

He asked, “Where is the Commander of the Believers—meaning al-Mutawakkil?”
They replied, “Al-Fath ibn Khāqān killed him.”
He asked, “And where is al-Fath?”
They replied, “Bughā killed him.”
He said, “Then you are the heir to the blood and the one bound to avenge it.”

So he gave the pledge, and the vizier and the leading men followed suit. (1)

Al-Muntaṣir then settled his brothers’ shares of the inheritance for fourteen million dirhams, banished his uncle ʿAlī to Baghdad, and set guards over him.

Al-Muntaṣir was of keen intellect, inclined to good works, seldom oppressive, and kind to the Alids.

It is said that he would cry out, “O Bughā, where is my father? Who killed my father?!” He cursed the Turks, saying, “These people are the murderers of caliphs.” (2)

So Bughā the Younger said to those who had killed—