Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya - Centralizing Ruler

Centralizing Ruler

At the beginning of his rule, Ibrahim II was well-regarded as a just and enlightened ruler, but this eventually gave way to a more tyrannical and gruesome reputation. A centralizing ruler, Ibrahim mistrusted the old Arab high aristocracy of Ifriqiya, which had often been a thorn in the side of prior Aghlabid emirs. He held open court in Raqqada every week, after Friday prayers, when the common poor people of Ifriqiya were invited to present petitions directly to the emir. Identifying himself with the people, Ibrahim treated any report of mistreatment of a commoner by a noble as a case of lese-majesty, and handed out severe penalties to the offender, even members of his own family.

An absolutist monarch by disposition, ascetic without distractions, Ibrahim seems to have kept counsel with himself, largely immune from the influence of courtiers and bureaucrats. Only a few names appear near the top — his learned and martial son, Abu al-Abbas Abdallah, his chamberlain (hajib) Muhammad ibn Korhob and his successor Hassan ibn Nakib, and two ruthless slave-generals known as Ma'imun and Rashid. Above everybody was his mother, whom the chronicles deferentially refer to merely as the Sayyida ("Supreme Lady") and characterize as the only person whose opinion Ibrahim respected or who had any influence upon him (although he was not above embarrassing her — in a public case over a 600 dinar debt she owed two merchants, he judged against her and forced her to pay up).

Ibrahim sought to undermine the semi-autonomous Arab regiments (junds) which were the basis of the aristocracy's power, by supplanting them with loyal black African slave-soldiers ("Abid" or "Sudan") at the core of the Ifriqiyan army. At the inauguration of Raqqada in 878, Ibrahim had the palace guard of his predecessor massacred at the tower of Abu al-Feth in order to make way for his own new Sudanese guard. Ibrahim expanded the Sudanese regiments (later supplemented by white European Slavs or Saqaliba) to as much as 10,000, much to the chagrin of the Arab jund commanders. The Arab nobility resented not only being eclipsed, but also the hefty taxes and requisitions imposed by Ibrahim to maintain such a large standing army.

In 893, when the Arab jund lords of Belezma (near Batna, in western Ifriqiya) revolted against his military reforms and requisitions, Ibrahim invited them to Raqqada to present their case. The Arab lords and their retinues were received with pomp and banquets. But during the night, while they slept in the Raqqada palaces, the entire Arab party – nearly one thousand people – were set upon and massacred by Ibrahim's guard.

The massacre of the Belezma lords provoked uprisings by other Arab lords, led by the junds of Tunis. The revolts spread throughout Ifriqiya in 893-94, and for a period of time, Ibrahim was practically reduced to his capital, Raqqada. But the revolts were ruthlessly and systematically crushed, with much bloodshed, by Ibrahim's Sudanese regiments.