786-833

Persian Caliph

Al-Ma'mun was the seventh Abbasid caliph and a great patron of the sciences in the Islamic world. He established an influential scientific academy in Baghdad where Arab scholars made important contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and others fields. Under Al-Ma'mun's sponsorship, the translation of Greek and Hellenistic scientific texts into Arabic reached its peak.

Al-Ma'mun was born in Baghdad in 786 to the celebrated Caliph Harun ar-Rashid and an Iranian concubine. Al-Ma'mun's younger half-brother, al-Amin, was born to one of ar-Rashid's Arabic wives. Ar-Rashid selected al-Amin as his successor to the caliphate in Baghdad; but Al-Ma'mun was to have suzerainty over the eastern provinces, wielding his power from Merv in Khorasan (now Turkmenistan). However, at the death of ar-Rashid in 809, Al-Ma'mun rejected al-Amin's right of succession and a merciless...