Al-Mustazhir

During his twenty-four year incumbency he was politically irrelevant, despite the civil strife at home and the appearance of the First Crusade in Syria. An attempt was even made by crusader Raymond IV of Toulouse to attack Baghdad, but he was defeated near Tokat. The global Muslim population had climbed to about 5 per cent as against the Christian population of 11 per cent by 1100.

Gold Dinar minted with Caliph Al-Mustazhir and Muhammad I Tapar name with the Kalima (492-511 AH/1105-1118 CE). (Citing Al-Mustazhir as the overlord over Seljuk Sultanate)

In the year 492 AH (AD 1099), Jerusalem was captured by the crusaders and its inhabitants were massacred. Preachers travelled throughout the caliphate proclaiming the tragedy and rousing men to recover from infidel hands the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the scene of the Prophet's heavenly flight. But whatever the success elsewhere, the mission failed in the eastern provinces, which were occupied with their own troubles, and moreover cared little for the Holy Land, dominated as it then was by the Fatimid faith. Crowds of exiles, seeking refuge in Baghdad, joined there with the populace in crying out for war against the Franks (the name used by Muslims for the crusaders). For two Fridays in 1111 the insurgents, incited by Ibn al-Khashshab, the qadi of Aleppo, stormed the Great Mosque, broke the pulpit and throne of the caliph in pieces, and shouted down the service, but neither the sultan nor the caliph were interested in sending an army west.

Al-Mustazhir died in the year 1118 at the age of 40. He was succeeded by his son Al-Mustarshid as the 29th Abbasid Caliph.

• Al-Ghazali prominent and influential Muslim philosopher, theologian, jurist of Sunni Islam.

• This text is adapted from William Muir's public domain, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.