They then dispersed. Shortly afterward, a shipment of funds—about ten million dirhams—reached the court from Fars. A rumor quickly spread among the populace that the Turks were determined to depose al-Muhtadī, whereupon the commoners and the senior officers rose up. They wrote slips of paper and scattered them in the mosques, proclaiming:

“O Muslims, pray for your just and upright caliph, the one who rivals ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. May Allah give him victory over his enemies.”

The residents of Karkh and al-Dūr also wrote to al-Muhtadī, urging him to strike first at Mūsā ibn Bugha. He thanked them and promised them fair treatment.

Meanwhile the Zanj were ravaging Basra, and Yaʿqūb al-Ṣaffār was doing the same in Khurāsān. Al-Muhtadī executed the emir Bākiyāl; his partisans rebelled, surrounded the Jawsak Palace, and the severed head was thrown out to them. The caliph’s supporters mounted up, and a major engagement ensued in which thousands of Turks were killed—others say only one thousand—in Rajab of the year 256 AH.

At dawn the fighting resumed. Al-Muhtadī rode out with Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī, a Qur’an hanging from his neck, shouting, “People, come to the aid of your imam!” Bākiyāl’s brother then charged him with five hundred men, and the Turks who had been with the caliph defected to the attacker. The battle grew fierce, al-Muhtadī’s ranks collapsed, and the carnage intensified. He turned to flee, still gripping his sword and calling out, “People, defend your caliph!”

He entered the house of Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad ibn Yazdād, threw down his weapons, and donned white garments, intending to escape over the roof. Bākiyāl’s chamberlain arrived; when informed of the caliph’s whereabouts, al-Muhtadī tried to flee, but someone shot him with an arrow and struck him with a sword. He was taken to the chamberlain, placed on a mule with a groom behind him, and beaten while they shouted, “Where is the gold?”

He admitted to six hundred thousand dinars deposited in Baghdad; they took a written acknowledgment from him. Then a Turk squeezed his testicles, and he died. Others relate that they demanded he abdicate, but when he refused they killed him—may Allah have mercy on him—and they pledged allegiance to al-Muʿtamid ʿalā Allah (1).