[Then the year 216 AH began]

During this year the Byzantine ruler—Tawfil (Theophilus) son of Michael—raided Muslim territory and killed about one thousand six hundred people in the region of Tarsus.

It is also said that he wrote to al-Maʾmun, placing his own name first. When al-Maʾmun read the letter he rose at once, mounted with the armies, and marched again toward Byzantine lands. His brother, Abu Ishaq ibn al-Rashid, the governor of Syria and Egypt, accompanied him. Al-Maʾmun captured many towns, some by treaty and others by force, while his brother seized thirty fortresses. Al-Maʾmun then dispatched Yahya ibn Aktham at the head of a sariyya (expedition) to Tuwānah (1); he took numerous towns, captured many women, children, and others, killed a great number of Byzantines, and burned several fortresses before returning to the camp safe, aided, and victorious. Al-Maʾmun remained in Byzantine territory from the middle of Jumada al-Akhirah until the middle of Shaʿban, after which he returned to Damascus.

In Shaʿban of this year a man called ʿAbdus al-Fihri rose up in Egypt, overpowered the deputies of Abu Ishaq ibn al-Rashid, and his strength grew until many people followed him. Consequently al-Maʾmun left Damascus on Wednesday, the fourteenth night of Dhu al-Hijjah that year, heading for Egypt; what befell him there will be mentioned later.

That same year al-Maʾmun wrote to Ishaq ibn Ibrahim, his governor in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces, instructing him to command the people to pronounce the takbīr (saying “Allāhu Akbar”) after the obligatory prayers. The practice was first introduced in the Congregational Mosque of the City and in al-Rusafah on Friday, the fourteenth night of Ramadan that year: when the prayer was concluded the people rose and said the takbīr three times, and thereafter they continued to do so after the remaining prayers.

This was an innovation introduced by al-Maʾmun without proof, precedent, or reliable basis, for no one before him had done it.

However, it is established in the authentic collections, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, that raising the voice with dhikr (remembrance of Allāh) occurred in the time of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ when the people departed from the obligatory prayer (2), and a number of scholars—among them Ibn Ḥazm—have considered it recommended.

Abu al-Ḥasan ibn Baṭṭāl (3) said: “The four legal schools and others hold that it is not recommended.”