Al-Mansur

Second Abbasid Caliph (714-775)

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Lived 713–775, aged 62

Wikipedia
50 languages
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Era
713–775
Aged 62

Summary

Updated 2026-08-31

The second Abbasid caliph who stabilized a dynasty his brother had started but couldn't hold. He built Baghdad from nothing — a perfect round city that became the center of an empire stretching farther than most maps could show.

Biography

About

Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr was born in 714 and took power in 754 after his brother al-Saffah died, inheriting a caliphate barely four years old. Where al-Saffah had seized the throne, al-Mansur made it last: he spent his reign turning a fragile takeover into institutions that could survive him. In that work he founded Madinat al-Salam, the Round City, which grew into imperial Baghdad. He ruled until his death on 6 October 775. Modern historians call him the real founder of the Abbasid Caliphate — one of the largest polities in world history — because he was the one who made i…

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