The Death of the Caliph al-Muʿtazz bi-Llāh
With three days remaining in Rajab of this same year, the Caliph al-Muʿtazz bi-Llāh was deposed; and when two nights had passed in Shaʿbān (1) news of his death was made public.
The reason for his removal was that the troops gathered and demanded their stipends, yet he had nothing with which to pay them. He therefore asked his mother to lend him some money that he might appease them, but she refused and claimed she possessed nothing. The Turkish guards thereupon agreed to depose him. They sent word for him to come out to them, but he excused himself, saying he had taken medicine and was weak, and suggested that a few of them enter instead. Some commanders went in, seized clubs, beat him, dragged him by the leg, and hauled him out wearing a torn shirt spattered with blood. They set him in the center of the palace courtyard under the blazing sun until he began shifting (2) from one foot to the other from the intense heat. Some of them slapped him while he tried to shield himself (3), and the one striking him kept saying, “Renounce it—the people are assembled.” They then took him into a cramped room and shut him in. They continued to torture him in various ways until he abdicated the caliphate, after which al-Muhtadī bi-Llāh assumed the office, as will be mentioned.
Next they handed him over to men charged with subjecting him to vile torments and brutal punishments (4). He was denied food and drink for three days, until he even begged for a single draught from the well but was not given it. They then placed him in an underground chamber (5) lined with thick plaster, forced him inside, and by morning he was dead. They drew his body out of the plaster, intact, and summoned a group of notables to witness that he had died with no visible injury.
This occurred on the second day of Shaʿbān of that year, a Saturday. Al-Muhtadī bi-Llāh led the funeral prayer over him, and he was buried beside his brother al-Muntaṣir near the Palace of the Minarets, at the age of twenty-four.
His caliphate had lasted four years, six months, and twenty-three days. He was tall, well-built, and handsome, with an aquiline nose and a round face; his laughter was pleasant (6). He was fair-skinned, with thick, curly black hair and a full beard; his eyes and features were good-looking, his forehead narrow, and his cheeks rosy. May Allah have mercy on him.
Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal praised his sharp intellect, sound understanding, and fine manners when he visited him during the lifetime of his father al-Mutawakkil, as we have already noted (7) in the biography of Imām Aḥmad.