Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, better known as Ibn al-Zayyāt (), was a wealthy merchant who became a court official and served as vizier of the Abbasid caliphs al-Mu'tasim, al-Wathiq, and al-Mutawakkil, from 836 until his downfall and death by torture in 847.
Life
Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat belonged to a wealthy family of merchants. The family was probably Persian. His father, Abd al-Malik, had made a fortune as an oil trader (whence his sobriquet al-Zayyāt) in Baghdad at the time of al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833), and became involved in the lucrative government contracts for tents, ceremonial parasols (al-mushammas), and riding equipment. Muhammad succeeded his father in these activities. By the end of al-Mamun's reign, Ibn al-Zayyat had become secretary in the caliphal chancellery.
Career under al-Mu'tasim and al-Wathiq
According to al-Tabari, al-Mu'tasim's first vizier, al-Fadl ibn Marwan, upbraided Ibn al-Zayyat for daring to appear at court in ceremonial garb, with the black Abbasid robes (durrāʿah) and girt sword, although he was "only a trader". Al-Fadl also tried to have Dulayl ibn Ya'qub al-Nasrani examine Ibn al-Zayyat's financial activities for irregularities, but Dulayl was lenient and did not confiscate anything from Ibn al-Zayyat. In 836, however, al-Mu'tasim dismissed al-Fadl, and appointed Ibn al-Zayyat in his place. He would continue to hold the vizierate for the remainder of al-Mu'tasim's reign, as well as the reign of al-Wathiq (r. 842–847), and into the reign of al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861), who had him executed.
As vizier, Ibn al-Zayyat became one of the leading men of the state, and the chief civilian minister alongside the head qādī, Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, with whom he entertained a fierce personal rivalry. He was responsible for much of the construction work on al-Mu'tasim's new capital, Samarra. In 840 he was the chief prosecutor in the show trial against al-Afshin, prince of Ushrusana and until then one of the leading military commanders of the regime; al-Afshin was accused, among other things, of being a false Muslim, and of being accorded divine status by his subjects in his native Ushrusana. Despite putting up an able and eloquent defence, al-Afshin was found guilty and thrown into prison. He died soon after, either of starvation or of poison; his body was publicly gibbeted in front of the palace gates, burned, and thrown in the Tigris.
When al-Mu'tasim died in January 842, the throne passed to his son, al-Wathiq. Real power however lay with al-Mu'tasim's coterie of leading officials, Ibn al-Zayyat, Ibn Abi Duwad, and the Turkish generals Ashinas, Itakh, and Wasif. In 843/4, he is said by some sources to have been responsible for the heavy fines imposed by the Caliph on several of the secretaries in the central government, in an effort to raise money to pay the Turkish troops, and at the same time reduce the power of the leading Turkish commanders, such as Itakh and Ashinas, since most of the secretaries arrested and forced to pay were in their service. In the process, Ibn al-Zayyat became notorious for the severity and cruelty with which he treated the prisoners, torturing them with a device of his own invention, the tannur ("oven"), a kind of iron maiden. In 845, he received a Byzantine embassy, with whom he negotiated about a prisoner exchange, which was held in September of the same year under the auspices of Khaqan al-Khadim.
Ibn al-Zayyat was also an ardent patron of learning and science, and promoted the translation movement of Greek authors then under way; thus he commissioned Ishaq ibn Hunayn to translate works of Galen. Like al-Ma'mun, he was rumoured to be a zindīq, which normally meant "Manichaean", but was also used a shorthand by orthodox Sunni writers to denounce those with heterodox (pro-Shi'ite) beliefs. During his ascendancy, he was also the main patron of the theologian al-Jahiz.
Accession of al-Mutawakkil, downfall and death
When al-Wathiq died unexpectedly in August 847, Ibn al-Zayyat, Ibn Abi Duwad, Wasif, Itakh, and a few other leading officials assembled to determine his successor. Ibn al-Zayyat initially proposed al-Wathiq's son Muhammad (the future al-Muhtadi), but due to his youth he was passed over, and instead the council chose another of al-Mu'tasim's sons, the 26-year-old Ja'far, who became the caliph al-Mutawakkil.