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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

Gold dinar of al Amin, minted in 811. Pintrest

39. The Caliph’s Kids Go At It

Harun al Rashid’s eldest son al Ma’mun (786 – 833) was born to a Persian concubine, which counted against him when it came to the pecking order of royal offspring. So when al Rashid died in 809, the caliphate went not to the eldest son, but to a younger one, al Amin (787 – 813), who was born to al Rashid’s favorite wife, Zubayda, an Arab of royal blood.

As a consolation prize, al Ma’mun was designated next in line for the Caliphate, and given Khurasan – corresponding to modern Afghanistan, parts of Iran, plus much of Central Asia – as a semi-independent realm. However, he felt slighted. His brother gave him an excuse to do something about it when he tried to curb Khurasan’s independence, and remove al Ma’mun from the line of succession in favor of al Amin’s son. So al Ma’mun rebelled.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.