—[the Commander of the Faithful] al-Rashid Abū Muḥammad Hārūn ibn [the Commander of the Faithful] al-Mahdī Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn [the Commander of the Faithful] al-Manṣūr Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim, the Hāshimite, the Abbasid.

He was born (1) in 609 AH. The oath of allegiance to him as caliph was sworn on the twentieth of Jumada al-Ula in 640 AH, and he was killed on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Ṣafar in 656 AH, making him forty-seven years old at the time of his death—may Allah Most High have mercy upon him.

Handsome in appearance and pure of heart, his creed was sound (2). He followed his father al-Mustanṣir in fairness, prolific charity, and the honoring of scholars and worshippers.

The ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Najjār (3) obtained for him an authorization (ijāza) from a group of Khurasani shaykhs, among them al-Muʾayyad al-Tūsī (4), Abū Rūḥ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad al-Harawī (5), and Abū Bakr al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṣaffār (6). A number of people transmitted from him, including his tutor, Shaykh al-Shuyūkh Ṣadr al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Nayyār (7). He himself granted ijāza to Imām Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn al-Jawzī (8) and to Shaykh Najm al-Dīn al-Bādirāʾī (9), and both narrated from him on the strength of that authorization.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was a Sunnī, upon the path of the early generations and the creed of the mainstream community, as were his father and grandfather. Yet (10) he was gentle-natured, lacking vigilance, and fond of wealth and its accumulation. Among the indications of this is that he appropriated a trust which al-Nāṣir Dāʾūd ibn al-Muʿaẓẓam had deposited with him, valued at about one hundred thousand dinars. This was deemed reprehensible in a caliph—and would indeed be reprehensible even in someone far below that rank. Allah says: “Among the People of the Book are those who, if you entrust them with a heap of gold, will return it to you; and among them are those who, if you entrust them with a single dinar, will not return it to you unless you keep standing over them” (Āl ʿImrān 3:75).

The Mongols killed him—wronged and oppressed—on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Ṣafar of this year. He was forty-six years and four months old. The duration of his caliphate was fifteen years, eight months, and a few days. May Allah have mercy upon him and honor