Abu al-Shīṣ composed the following elegy for him:
A sun has set in the East—its two eyes overflow with tears;
Never have we seen a sun that sets where it rises. (1)

Many other poets also lamented him in their odes.

Ibn al-Jawzī relates in al-Muntaẓam: “Al-Rashīd left behind an estate the like of which no caliph before him had amassed. Apart from his lands and residences, the jewels, furnishings, and movable goods he bequeathed were valued at one hundred million dinars, plus thirty-five million dinars.” (2)

Ibn Jarīr adds: “In the public treasury there were a little over nine hundred million dinars.” (3)

His Wives, Sons, and Daughters

He married Umm Jaʿfar Zubaydah, the daughter of his cousin Jaʿfar b. Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr, in 165 AH while his father al-Mahdī was still alive, and she bore him Muḥammad al-Amīn. Zubaydah died in 216 AH, as will be noted below.

He later married Amat al-ʿAzīz, an umm walad who had belonged to his brother Mūsā al-Hādī; she bore him ʿAlī b. al-Rashīd.

He also married Umm Muḥammad, the daughter of Ṣāliḥ al-Miskīn, and ʿAbbāsa, the daughter of his cousin Sulaymān b. Abī Jaʿfar; both were ushered into his household on the same night in 187 AH at al-Raqqa.

In addition, he wedded ʿAzīzah bt. al-Ghitrīf, his maternal cousin—the daughter of his mother al-Khayzurān’s brother.

He married as well the daughter of ʿAbd Allah b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allah b. ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān. She was known as al-ʿUthmāniyyah and also called al-Jurashiyyah because she had been born in Jurash, Yemen.

At his death he left four wives: Zubaydah, ʿAbbāsa, the daughter of Ṣāliḥ, and this al-ʿUthmāniyyah. As for favored slave-girls, they were exceedingly numerous; one report states that his palace contained four thousand beautiful concubines.

His male children were: Muḥammad al-Amīn, son of Zubaydah; ʿAbd Allah al-Maʾmūn, whose mother was a concubine named Marājil; Muḥammad Abū Isḥāq al-Muʿtaṣim, born to an umm walad named Māradah; al-Qāsim al-Muʾtamin, born to a concubine named Qaṣf; ʿAlī, whose mother was Amat al-ʿAzīz; Ṣāliḥ, born to a concubine named Riʾm; and four sons all named Muḥammad, each identified by his teknonym—Abū Yaʿqūb, Abū ʿĪsā, Abū al-ʿAbbās, and Abū ʿAlī—all of them born to slave mothers.