Then, in the year 165 AH, al-Maḥdī prepared his son al-Rashīd for the annual summer expedition (ṣāʿifa) and dispatched with him armies numbering 95,793 men. He supplied him with 194,450 gold dinars for expenses and, according to Ibn Jarīr, (1) with 21,018,800 silver dirhams.

Al-Rashīd pressed on until he reached the sea inlet opposite Constantinople. The ruler of the Byzantines at that time was Augusta, the widow of Emperor Leon; she carried her young son in her lap. She sought a treaty, agreeing to pay him a yearly tribute of 70,000 dinars, and he accepted. Before the truce he had, in successive engagements, slain 54,000 Byzantines, taken 5,640 of their dependants captive, executed 2,000 prisoners by beheading, captured 20,000 horses with their gear, slaughtered 100,000 head of cattle and sheep, and so flooded the market that a stallion sold for one dirham, a mule for less than ten, a coat of mail for under one, and twenty swords for a single dirham.

Marwān ibn Abī Ḥafṣa composed the following verses on the campaign: (2)

You circled Roman Constantinople, bracing your spears against it
Until its ramparts were clothed in the garments of disgrace;
You never quit her until her kings approached you with their tribute,
While the cauldrons of war were still boiling.

That same year the people’s pilgrimage was led by Ṣāliḥ ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr.

Those who died in this year include:
• Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah;
• ʿAbd Allah ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zabr; (3)
• ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Thābit ibn Thawbān; (4)
• and Wahb ibn Khālid.