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| 835 |
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| The capital of Samarra, 62 miles north of Baghdad, was founded by the caliph al-Mu’tasim to house his new Turkish guard. | 1 |
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| 838 |
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| The Byzantine city of Amorion was sacked by Abbasid troops. | 2 |
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| 845 |
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| Death of Muhammad ibn Sa'd (b. 784), author of the earliest extant collection of biographies of distinguished Muslims (Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir). His work contains more than 4,000 individual entries, with 600 devoted to women. Biographical dictionaries formed a distinct literary genre in the region, providing over the centuries a detailed treasury of information on noteworthy men and women. | 3 |
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| 847–61 |
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| AL-MUTAWAKKIL. He ended the mihna, persecuted Shi’ite Muslims, and harshly enforced disused codes designating special clothing and other tokens of social inequality for Jews and Christians. | 4 |
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| c. 847 |
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| Death of Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, a mathematician whose writings discussed the use of Arabic numerals—actually of Indian origin—in arithmetic calculations. The system of Indian reckoning by means of nine figures and a zero was first transmitted to Europe through a Latin translation of his work. | 5 |
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| c. 850 |
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| Yunus, a great-grandson of the Barghawata Berber and self-proclaimed prophet Salih, attempted to create a state south of Casablanca with a new religion that modified Islam and promoted a Qur'an written in the Berber language. The state, whose origins lay in the 8th-century Khariji Berber revolts, subsisted on booty obtained from raiding and did not survive the 9th century. | 6 |
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| c. 850 |
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| The Kitab al-hiyal (Book of Ingenious Devices), an illustrated manual of mechanics, was written by three brothers, known as the Banu Musa, for the caliph al-Ma’mun. The work was inspired by the Alexandrian school of engineering founded by Hero and Philo, but proved more sophisticated in its designs. | 7 |
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| 855 |
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| Death of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (b. 780), the revered religious scholar who had refused to accept the Mu’tazili doctrine promoted by the caliph during the mihna, for which he was subsequently tortured and imprisoned. He compiled a major work of hadith (the Musnad), and was the founder of the Hanbali school of law, which predominates today in Saudi Arabia. | 8 |
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| 861–70 |
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| The dominance of the Turkish military force at Samarra made virtual captives of a series of Abbasid caliphs. Coups, mutinies, and murders were easily provoked by the rulers' inability to pay the salaries of the army on time. Effective political power rested in the hands of the Turkish military, not the caliph. | 9 |
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| 862–63 |
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| The Great Mosque of Qayrawan in Tunisia built by the Aghlabid dynasty. | 10 |
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| 865 |
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| RISE OF THE SAFFARID DYNASTY. Ya’qub al-Saffar, who began as leader of a band of vigilantes (ayyarun), established his control over Sistan in eastern Iran. From this base he went on to build a large state that at its height included Khurasan (taken from the Tahirids in 873), parts of northern India, and western Iran. His brother and successor, Amr, lost Khurasan to the Samanids in 900, although Sistan remained in Saffarid possession for much of the 10th century. The dynasty represented a genuinely independent local force that advertised its Persian identity and even claimed descent from the Sassanian royal family. | 11 |
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| c. 868 |
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| Death of Amr al-Jahiz, a famed master of adab, or belles lettres. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, including philology and history. His masterpiece was The Book of Animals, a voluminous treasury of proverbs, jokes, and anecdotal material. | 12 |
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