Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī said (1): “Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mahdī possessed abundant merit, deep refinement, a generous spirit, and an open hand. He was famed for the craft of singing and excelled at it.”

He likewise reports (2) that during Ibrāhīm’s brief caliphate in Baghdad the funds ran low. The Bedouins pressed him for their stipends, but he kept putting them off. His envoy finally emerged and announced, “He has no money today.” One of them retorted, “Then let the Caliph come out to us and sing three songs for the people on this side and three for those on the other.”

Over this incident Diʿbil ibn ʿAlī, al-Maʾmūn’s poet, composed a satire against Ibrāhīm (3):

O company of Bedouins, be not mistaken—
take your stipends and show no complaint.
Soon he will grant you a ḥunayniyya (4),
a sweet that fits in no purse and cannot be tied.
And Maʿbadiyyāt for your commanders (5)—
gifts for which no one would ever envy you.
Such is the way this Caliph feeds his followers:
his muṣḥaf is the lute (6).

When his concealment had dragged on, Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mahdī wrote to his nephew al-Maʾmūn:

“The blood-avenger is empowered to exact retribution, yet pardon is nearer to God-fearingness. Allah has placed the Commander of the Faithful above everyone who can show clemency, just as He has placed every sinner beneath him. If he forgives, it is out of his bounty; if he punishes, it is with full right (7).”

Al-Maʾmūn endorsed the letter with this reply:

“Power effaces rancor; regret suffices as repentance; and Allah’s pardon is more expansive than all things (8).”

When Ibrāhīm was finally admitted into his presence he recited (9):

If I have sinned, then my fortune betrayed me;
so forgo your excessive reproach.
Say what Joseph said to the sons of Jacob
when they came to him: ‘No blame this day.’

Al-Maʾmūn replied, “No blame.”