Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya - Homicidal Reputation

Homicidal Reputation

As his emirate advanced, Ibrahim acquired a grisly reputation not only as a tyrant, but also more personally as a homicidal sadist. It is reported he took great pleasure in cruelty and killing, often conducting executions personally (as in the case of the Nafusa prisoners). Among other episodes of homicidal madness, Ibrahim is said to have ordered the execution of 300 palace servants after discovering at dinner that a napkin had been mislaid. On hearing accusations of a homosexual encounter among his bodyguards, Ibrahim personally smashed the accused's head in with a mace, and ordered a brazier to burn the others alive in his presence.

He was reportedly no more sparing of his family members. He executed eight brothers and his own son Abu al-Aghlab on a vague suspicion. He had several of his wives executed by strangulation, immurement, dismemberment and other means. He ordered the execution of every one of his daughters upon birth. When he learned that sixteen of his daughters had escaped notice and had grown to adulthood, he held a reception for them, greeted them kindly, and then had them immediately beheaded. When his mother gave him two cultured female slaves whom she hoped would please him, he sent her a note of thanks, accompanied by the girls' severed heads on a tray. Following rumors of a courtly plot to assassinate him and his mother in 900, he had all the pages of the palaces put to death.

These episodes are just a sample of the numerous gruesome stories that circulated about him – executions, abductions, rapes, tortures, conducted by him personally or on his orders.

It is impossible to determine how many of the reported stories are true, and how many were fabricated by his numerous enemies. Indeed, it is possible Ibrahim may have spread some of those tales himself, to terrify possible enemies into submission. He is often characterized as mentally deranged – chroniclers such as Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Khaldun summarize Ibrahim II's emirate as seven good years, before he became unhinged by "melancholia" (malihulia). However, as one historian notes, "the savagery of Ibrahim II seems not so much insane as intentional. His reign was a determined battle for absolutism at the expense of the nobility, the army, the cities and to a lesser extent the tribes, all the elements that threatened the survival of the monarchy." In motive and execution, Ibrahim is often compared to Ivan the Terrible of Russia.