Al-Jahshiyari
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdūs al-Jahshiyārī was a prominent Abbasid bureaucrat and scholar. He authored Kitab al-wuzara wa'l-kuttab.
Life
Al-Jahshiyari was born in Kufa, a center of scholarship in the Islamic world. He was called "al-Jahshiyari" after one of his father's employers, Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Jahshiyari, the hajib of the Abbasid prince and commander-in-chief al-Muwaffaq.A katib, al-Jahshiyari became a top bureaucrat of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 10th century. He succeeded his father Abdus as the hajib of Ali ibn Isa ibn al-Jarrah, the vizier of Caliph al-Muqtadir in 913–917. In 918 al-Jahshiyari led Ali ibn Isa's haras and afterward served as the hajib for Hamid ibn al-Abbas, who served as vizier in 918–923, though Ali ibn Isa continued to wield real power. Al-Jahshiyari's support for Ibn Muqla, a rival of Hamid's for the viziership, causing tensions with Hamid which may have been the reason he discontinued serving under him. Ibn Muqla became vizier in 928–930, 932, and 934–936, and al-Jahshiyari protected him when fell into disgrace. In 930 Ibn Muqla awarded al-Jahshiyari with the honor of transporting the kiswa, the black cloth used to cover the Kaaba in Mecca, during the Hajj from Iraq that year. Five or six years later Ibn Muqla gifted him 200,000 dinars, according to the 13th-century historian Ibn al-Athir. His frequent involvement in court intrigues led to him being jailed and fined a number of times by unfriendly viziers and the amirs al-umara Ibn Ra'iq and Bajkam.
Al-Jahshiyari died in political obscurity in the Abbasid capital, Baghdad.