after
the Prophet, and forbade the praise of Moawiya. In A.H. 218 (A.D. 833) a
new edict appeared by which all judges and doctors were summoned to
renounce the error of the uncreated word of God. Several distinguished
doctors, and, among others, the celebrated Ahmad b. Hanbal (q.v.),
founder of one of the four orthodox Moslem schools, were obliged to
appear before an inquisitorial tribunal; and as they persisted in their
belief respecting the Koran, they were thrown into prison. Mamun, being
at Tarsus, received from the governor of Bagdad the report of the
tribunal, and ordered that the culprits should be sent off to him.
Happily for these unfortunate doctors, they had scarcely reached Adana,
when news of the caliph's death arrived and they were brought back to
Bagdad. The two successors of Mamun maintained the edicts--Ahmad b.
Hanbal, who obstinately refused to yield, was flogged in the year
834--but it seems that Motasim did not himself take much interest in the
question, which perhaps he hardly understood, and that the prosecution
of the inquisition by him was due in great part to the charge which was
left him in Mamun's will. In the reign of Motawakkil the orthodox faith
was restored, never to be assailed again.[34]

In spite of these manifold activities Mamun did not forget the
hereditary enemy of Islam. In the years 830, 831 and 832 he made
expeditions into Asia Minor with such success that Theophilus, the Greek
emperor, sued for peace, which Mamun haughtily refused to grant.
Accordingly, he decided on marching in the following year against
Amorium, and thence to Constantinople itself. Having sent before him his
son Abbas to make Tyana a strong fortress, he set out for Asia Minor to
put himself at the head of the army, but died of a fever brought on by
bathing in the chill river, Pedendon, 40 m. from Tarsus, in Rajab 218
(A.D. August 833), at the age of forty-eight.

Mamun was a man of rare qualities, and one of the best rulers of the
whole dynasty after Mansur. By him the ascendancy of the Persian element
over the Arabian was completed. Moreover, he began to attract young
Turkish noblemen to his court, an example which was followed on a much
larger scale by his successor and led to the supremacy of the Turks at a
later period.

8. _Reign of Motasim._--Abu Ishak al-Mo'tasim had for a long time been
preparing himself for the succession. Every year he had bought Turkish
slaves, and had with him in the last exped