He then released him and took from him a binding promise that he would neither drink wine nor seek out beardless male youths. Abu Nuwās kept to that pledge and, after al-Amīn’s admonition, refrained from all such conduct. He had studied literature under al-Kisāʾī and had recited the Quran to him.

Al-Khaṭīb relates through his chain of transmission ⦗1⦘ a ḥadīth that he recorded on Abu Nuwās’s authority when the poet was offered condolences for a slave-boy of his who had died in Mecca. He said: “My father told me from his father, from al-Manṣūr, from his father, from ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from his father, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say, ‘Whoever dies while in a state of iḥrām will be raised on the Day of Resurrection chanting the talbiyah.’ ⦗2⦘”

We have already recounted the discord that arose between al-Amīn and his brother—discord that led to his deposition and removal from office, then to his being hemmed in, and finally to his death. In his last days he was so hard-pressed that he tried to placate Harthama. He was placed in a fireship and then cast from it; he swam across to the opposite bank and entered the house of an ordinary townsman, terrified, bewildered, hungry, and naked. The man counselled him to be patient and to seek Allah’s forgiveness, and al-Amīn occupied himself with that for part of the night. Presently the search party sent by Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Muṣʿab arrived. They forced their way in through the narrow door, jostling one another. Al-Amīn rose and tried to fend them off with a cushion he held in his hand, but they did not reach him until they had hamstrung him; then they struck his head—or his side—with their swords, slaughtered him, and carried off his head and body. They brought both to Ṭāhir, who rejoiced greatly, and ordered the head to be raised aloft on a lance until morning. When the people awoke they saw it mounted on the lance at the gate of al-Anbār, and crowds gathered to gaze at it.

Ṭāhir then sent al-Amīn’s head with his cousin Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab, together with the mantle, the staff, and the sandals—the last made of padded palm-fibre. Muḥammad delivered them to Dhū l-Riyāsatayn, who brought them before al-Maʾmūn on a shield. When al-Maʾmūn saw the head he prostrated himself and ordered that the bearer be given one million dirhams.

When Dhū l-Riyāsatayn presented the head he tried to stir up resentment against Ṭāhir, saying, “We instructed him to bring the man to us in bonds, but he has sent him to us butchered!” Al-Maʾmūn replied, “What is done is done.”

Ṭāhir wrote a detailed report to al-Maʾmūn describing everything that had occurred and how matters had finally ended. Once al-Amīn was killed, the disturbances subsided, strife was extinguished, the people felt secure, and spirits were lifted. Ṭāhir entered Baghdad on a Friday and delivered an eloquent sermon in which he cited many verses from the Quran, affirmed that Allah does whatever He wills and judges as He pleases, and urged the congregation to unity, to attentive listening, and to obedience. He then returned to his camp and remained there.

He ordered that Zubaydah be moved from Abu Jaʿfar’s palace to the Palace of Khuld, and she left on Friday, the twelfth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal of that same year. He also dispatched al-Amīn’s two sons, Mūsā and ʿAbd Allāh, to their uncle al-Maʾmūn in Khurasan, a sound decision indeed.

Five days after al-Amīn’s death a group of soldiers rose up against Ṭāhir, demanding their stipends. He had no funds at that moment, so they banded together, pillaged some of his belongings, and shouted, “O Mūsā! O Manṣūr!”—imagining that Mūsā ibn al-Amīn, nicknamed “al-Nāṭiq,” was present, though he had already been sent to his uncle. Ṭāhir withdrew with the commanders who supported him, determined to fight them if necessary. They soon returned, however, apologised, and expressed their remorse, whereupon he ordered that they be given rations for four