Ibn Abī al-Dunyā related: Abu al-Nadr al-Marwazī narrated to us. Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid told me, “I once brought up a certain issue with al-Muhtadī and remarked, ‘Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal held this opinion, though he was opposed’—as though I were hinting at the stance of your forefathers.”

He replied, “May Allah have mercy on Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal. If it were permissible for me, I would disown my own father. Speak the truth and uphold it, for when a man speaks the truth he is ennobled in my sight.” (1)

Nifṭawayh (2) said: A member of the Hāshimite family informed us that a small chest was found among al-Muhtadī’s belongings containing a woollen robe and a mantle he wore at night and used for prayer. He had done away with musical entertainments, prohibited singing, and curbed the officials of state from wrongdoing. He supervised the bureaus with exceptional diligence, sitting in person while the secretaries worked out the accounts before him, and he insisted on holding sessions every Thursday and Monday. He flogged a number of high-ranking men, exiled Jaʿfar ibn Maḥmūd to Baghdad for his Shiʿi leanings, took a dislike to Mūsā ibn Bugha when he arrived from Rayy and, sending ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Mūsā al-Hāshimī to order him back, received no compliance. He dismissed Ibn Abī al-Shawārib from the judiciary, imprisoned him, and appointed ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Nāʾil al-Baṣrī in his stead.

Early in al-Muhtadī’s rule, Mūsā ibn Bugha mustered his army and brandished arms in Sāmarrāʾ, determined to kill Ṣāliḥ ibn Waṣīf in retaliation for al-Muʿtazz’s blood and to seize the riches of his mother Qabīḥa and the state coffers. The rabble cried out against Ṣāliḥ, “O Pharaoh, your Moses has come!” Mūsā sought permission to enter upon al-Muhtadī bi-Allah, but the caliph refused. Mūsā therefore burst in with his men while al-Muhtadī was seated in the Hall of Justice; they forced him to rise, mounted him on an akadush (3), and began to plunder