THE MILITARY-POLITICAL CRISIS AT SAMARRA (A.H. 247-256 / A.D. 861-870): THE DYNAMICS OF CALIPHAL POWER AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE TRANSOXANIAN MILITARY CONTINGENT
- Odinakhon Ravshanbekovna Rakhmanova
Abstract
The death of Caliph al-Mutawakkil in December 861 opened a period that has come to be known in the scholarly literature as the “Anarchy at Samarra” - a fixed designation for the decade in which the succession of rulers on the Abbasid throne was determined not by dynastic right but by the will of the military command of the guard stationed at Samarra. Although the leading role of the Turkish commanders in these events has been treated in reasonable detail in the historiography, the participation of military contingents recruited directly from Transoxania remains a less studied subject. This article accordingly sets out, first, to reconstruct the sequence of caliphal reigns of the decade in question, specifying the circumstances of each ruler's accession and loss of power, and, second, to bring into scholarly circulation a documented case of independent command exercised by a Ferghanan contingent at the crisis's culminating moment.Author Biography
Odinakhon Ravshanbekovna Rakhmanova
Senior Lecturer, Department of World History
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