ABSTRACT
From a long line of gifted caliphs, Harun ar-Rashid emerged as the greatest leader of the Abbasid Caliphate, or dynasty, as well as its most sumptuous and charitable ruler. On September 14, 786, Harun ar-Rashid became caliph, that is, the spiritual and civil leader of Islam. He immediately set about rectifying some of the doubt Hadi had created about the ability of the Abbasids to rule, ordered a stiffening of Koranic law so that no imperial subject doubted under whose authority he or she was held. Despite constant infighting and intrigue, Harun ar-Rashid maintained a peace throughout his reign that brought enormous material and intellectual prosperity to millions of people while unknowingly sowing the seeds for disunity and collapse throughout the Near and Middle East. Harun ar-Rashid became the inspiration for 1,200 years of leadership in the Near and Middle East, and legends of his luxurious court informed Western notions of Arab culture as exotic, fantastical, and decadent.
