Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Faḍl ibn al-Muqtadir (913/14 – September/October 974), better known by his regnal name of al-Muṭīʿ li-ʾllāh (lit. 'Obedient to God'), was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 946 to 974, ruling under the tutelage of the Buyid emirs.
Al-Muti's reign represented the nadir of the Abbasid caliphate's power and authority. In previous decades, the secular authority of the caliphs had shrunk to Iraq, and even there had been curtailed by powerful warlords; with the Buyid conquest of Baghdad, it was now abolished entirely. Al-Muti' was raised to the throne by the Buyids and was effectively reduced to a rubber-stamp figurehead, albeit with some vestiges of authority over judicial and religious appointments in Iraq. The very fact of his subordination and powerlessness helped restore some stability to the caliphal institution: in stark contrast to his short-lived and violently deposed predecessors, al-Muti' enjoyed a long and relatively unchallenged tenure, and was able to hand over the throne to his son al-Ta'i'.
Al-Muti's prestige as the nominal leader of the Muslim world sharply declined during his tenure. Regional rivals to the Buyids delayed their recognition of al-Muti's caliphate, seeing in him only a Buyid puppet, and his inability to respond effectively to Byzantine advances tarnished his reputation. More importantly, the rise of Shi'a regimes across the Middle East directly challenged Sunni and Abbasid predominance. The Buyids themselves were Shi'a, but they retained the Abbasid caliphate out of expedience. Further west, the expanding Fatimid Caliphate posed a direct ideological and political challenge to the Abbasids. During al-Muti's reign, the Fatimids conquered Egypt and started to expand into the Levant, threatening Baghdad itself.
The future al-Muti' was born in Baghdad in 913/14 as al-Fadl, a son of the Abbasid caliph, al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932), and a Slavic concubine, Mash'ala. He was the brother of caliphs al-Radi (r. 934–940) and al-Muttaqi (r. 940–944). Al-Muti' grew up in a time of crisis. Al-Muqtadir's reign was marked by factional strife, attacks by the Qarmatians, economic decline, and revenue shortages that led to military unrest, culminating in the murder of the caliph in 932. During the subsequent reigns of al-Radi and al-Muttaqi, the Abbasid central government lost control of the provinces to regional military strongmen. Even in the Abbasid metropolitan region of Iraq, military strongmen deprived the caliphs of real authority, and vied with one another for the title of amir al-umara (commander-in-chief, lit. 'chief emir') and the attendant control of the Abbasid government apparatus in Baghdad, that would allow them to pay their restive troops. Al-Muttaqi himself had been raised to the throne by the amir al-umara Bajkam, but attempted to play off the regional warlords—notably the Hamdanids of Mosul—to recover the independence and authority of his office. These attempts ended in failure, and resulted in his deposition and blinding by the amir al-umara Tuzun in September 944.
As the chief of the remaining sons of al-Muqtadir and brother of the two previous caliphs, al-Fadl was an obvious candidate for the throne. Tuzun instead chose al-Mustakfi (r. 944–946), a son of Caliph al-Muktafi (r. 902–908). The medieval sources report that al-Mustakfi and al-Fadl hated each other, and quarreled already during their stay in the Tahirid Palace as young princes. Not only were they members of two rival lines of succession, but their characters were diametrically opposed: though al-Fadl, like his father, was renowned for his piety, al-Mustakfi offended pious opinion by his association with the ayyarun militia—drawn from the poorer urban classes, they were often decried as troublemakers and suspected for their association with heterodox and sectarian groups like the Sufis—and his participation in 'vulgar' games. Once al-Mustakfi was enthroned, he sent his agents to capture al-Muti', but the latter had already gone into hiding, and the caliph had to satisfy himself with demolishing his house. This futile act only served to mark al-Fadl as a serious rival; on hearing of it, the veteran vizier, Ali ibn Isa, is said to have remarked that "This day he [al-Fadl] has been acknowledged heir to the throne."
In December 945, the Daylamite troops of the Buyid ruler Mu'izz al-Dawla (r. 945–967) seized Baghdad. Mu'izz al-Dawla became the de facto 'protector' of the Abbasid caliph, although the title of amir al-umara apparently passed to his older brother, Imad al-Dawla, who was reckoned as the chief Buyid emir. On 29 January 946 (or 9 March, according to other accounts), al-Mustakfi was deposed, and on the same day, Mu'izz al-Dawla raised al-Fadl to the caliphate, with the regnal name of al-Muti' li-'llah (lit. 'Obedient to God'). The sudden reappearance of al-Muti', and his rise to the throne, was apparently a surprise to contemporaries, and led to stories that he had conspired with the Buyids already since the time of al-Muktafi's accession.
Medieval sources tended to justify this change on religious grounds. The Buyids and their followers were Shi'a sympathizers, and two later chroniclers, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik al-Hamadhani (d. 1127) and Ibn al-Athir (d. 1233), report that Mu'izz al-Dawla toyed with the idea of deposing the Abbasids outright and installing an Alid on the throne of Baghdad, only to be dissuaded by his secretary, Abu Ja'far al-Saymari, who pointed out that in a clash between himself and a Shi'a caliph, the Daylamite soldiery were likely to side with the latter. This is clearly a later anachronistic interpolation, and the historian John Donohue disclaims any religious motivation in al-Mustakfi's deposition. Other chroniclers offer different reasons, such as the caliph's intrigues with the Hamdanids or al-Fadl's emerging from hiding and inciting the Buyid ruler against his cousin, but the chief reason was likely simply that Mu'izz al-Dawla wished to have a caliph under his full control, with no external sources of support.
The deposed al-Mustakfi was blinded, apparently as a revenge act initiated by al-Muti', and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner in the caliphal palace, where he died in September 949.
Role and relations with the Buyids
Al-Muti' was a weak figure, for all intents and purposes a puppet ruler of the Buyid ruler of Iraq, first Mu'izz al-Dawla, and then his son, Izz al-Dawla (r. 967–978). As a result of his lack of real power, al-Muti' himself barely figures in the chronicles of his reign, and medieval historians generally considered his tenure as the lowest ebb of the Abbasid caliphate, an opinion shared by modern scholars as well.
In theory, the Buyids and all their officials in Iraq continued to act in the name of the Abbasid caliph, and all appointments and legal acts continued to be made in his name. In practice, al-Muti' was deprived of any meaningful authority. In exchange for being allowed to lead a comfortable and secure life in the vast caliphal palaces, he served to provide legitimacy to the upstart Buyid regime in the eyes of the Muslim world. The options of abolishing the caliphate or installing an Alid as caliph were quickly rejected, if they were ever seriously entertained: such an act would cause widespread opposition, another Sunni caliphate might easily be set up elsewhere, but a docile caliph under Buyid control would help maintain the obedience of the Sunni majority to the new regime, as well as lend its symbolic weight to the Buyids in their relations with the other Muslim princes. Furthermore, there was a lack of suitable Alid candidates: the last imam of the Twelver Shi'a, who represented the main strand of Shi'a followers in the Buyid domains, was held to have gone into occultation seventy years earlier, and Zaydi doctrine held that the imams had to seize power themselves if they were to be legitimate.
The Buyids quickly integrated themselves into the traditional Abbasid system and eagerly sought the legitimacy conferred by the caliph, in the form of honorific titles and diplomas of governorship, or in his signature in treaties. At the same time, al-Muti' was effectively reduced to a salaried state official, and his responsibility was curtailed to the oversight over the judiciary, religious institutions, and the affairs of the members of the wider Abbasid clan. The caliph's chief secretary was no longer termed 'vizier' (wazir), but merely 'secretary' (katib), and his role was limited to the management of the diwan al-khilafa, a department managing the caliph's properties, the formal conferment of titles and offices and certificates in the name of the caliph, and the appointment of judges and jurors. In reality, judicial appointments too were under the purview of the Buyid emir, but at least for the more senior ones, such as the chief qadi of Baghdad, the caliph was expected to provide his assent, the robe of honour and the requisite diploma. With one known exception, al-Muti' generally complied with the emir's appointments.