He said: In that same year al-Rashīd reached Jurjān, and the treasuries of ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā were delivered to him there, borne on one thousand five hundred camels. This took place in Ṣafar of that year. He then moved on to Ṭūs, already in poor health, and remained there until he died.

In that year as well Harthama, the governor of Iraq, fought Rāfiʿ ibn al-Layth. Harthama defeated him, captured Bukhārā, and seized his brother Bishr ibn al-Layth. Bishr was sent to al-Rashīd, who was in Ṭūs and weary from travel. Brought before the caliph, Bishr began to beg for mercy, but al-Rashīd rejected his pleas, saying, “By Allah, even if all that remained of my life were the moment it takes my lips to order your death, I would still kill you.” He then summoned a butcher, who cut Bishr into fourteen pieces before his eyes. Al-Rashīd raised his hands to heaven and prayed that Allah would grant him power over Rāfiʿ as He had granted him power over Bishr.

The Death of al-Rashīd

While he was in al-Raqqa (1) he had seen a dream that terrified him. Gabriel ibn Bakhtīshūʿ entered and asked, “What troubles you, Commander of the Believers?” He replied, “I saw a hand holding red earth emerge from beneath this very couch, and a voice said, ‘This is the soil of Hārūn.’” Gabriel reassured him, saying, “This is but a confused dream, a whisper of the soul; forget it, Commander of the Believers.”

Later, when he set out for Khurasan and passed through Ṭūs, he fell ill there, and the dream returned to his mind. Greatly alarmed, he said to Gabriel, “Woe to you! Do you not remember the dream I told you?” Gabriel answered, “Indeed I do, Commander of the Believers—what of it?” The caliph then called for Masrūr the chamberlain and said, “Bring me some of this earth in your hand.” Masrūr returned with a handful of red soil, and when al-Rashīd saw it he exclaimed, “By Allah, this is the very hand I saw and the earth it held!”

Gabriel relates: “By Allah, not three days passed before he died.” Al-Rashīd had already ordered that his grave be dug in the house where he was staying—the residence of Ḥumayd ibn Abī Ghānim al-Ṭāʾī. He would look at the grave and say, “O son of Adam, you will come to this.” He instructed that the Quran be recited over the grave, and they recited it to completion while he lay in a litter at its edge.

When death approached he wrapped himself in a cloak, sat up holding his knees, and endured the pangs of death. Someone present said, “If you were to lie down it would be easier for you.” He laughed heartily and replied, “Have you not heard the poet’s words?
I am of a noble people whom calamities
Only make more defiant and more steadfast.”

He died on the night of Saturday—others say the night of Sunday, the first of Jumādā al-Ākhirah—in the year 193 AH, at the age of forty-five; others say forty-seven. His reign lasted twenty-three years. This is his biographical entry; he was