Al-Mansur

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…