eighth ʿAbbāsid caliph, a younger son of Hārūn ar-Rashīd.

Succeeding his brother al-Maʾmūn in 833, al-Muʿtaṣim was the first caliph to employ the Turkish mercenaries who later came to dominate the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. In 837 he crushed a revolt of Persian schismatics led by the rebel Bābak, who was cooperating with the Greeks. After the Byzantine emperor Theophilus had laid waste the Muslim town of Zibaṭra (known to the Byzantines as Sozopetra), al-Muʿtaṣim invaded Asia Minor, defeated Theophilus, and destroyed the fortresses of Ancyra (Ankara) and Amorium (August 838).