Harun al-Rashid

Harun al-Rashid became the fifth Abbasid caliph in September 786, inheriting an empire on the edge of its golden age. He founded the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, turning the city into a nexus of knowledge and trade, and his reign is marked as the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age. In 796 he moved his court to Raqqa in present-day Syria; the Abbasid Empire reached its peak under his rule, though the Barmakid family that had helped install the dynasty began its decline. He exchanged embassies with Charlemagne in 799, sending gifts that included a clock the Frankish court thought was sorcery. He died in March 809, but his afterlife proved longer: One Thousand and One Nights set portions of its tales in his court, and the line between the historical caliph and the literary figure blurred into legend.