Al-Mutawakkil incited Abul Anbas to harm and disgrace...

Al-Mutawakkil incited Abul Anbas to harm and disgrace al-Buhturi who ran away saying, ‘Knowledge has been lost and literature has perished.’[^439] His Enmity Towards The Alawids Al-Mutawakkil’s heart was full of enmity and spite against the Prophet’s progeny. He tried his best to exhaust them. They met many misfortunes and distresses during his reign that they did not met from the unjust rulers before him. He imposed on them economical blockade and officially prohibited any help to them.

Whenever he was informed that someone helped them, he severely punished him and imposed a heavy fine on him.[^440] People refrained from helping or associating with the Alawids for fear of the severe punishment of this tyrant. The economical blockade harmed the Alawids and exhausted them to a degree that one dress was used by some women of them. One of them wore it and offered the prayer and then another one and so on. They always patched it.

They sat at their spindle semi naked with unveiled heads,[^441] whereas the tyrant al-Mutawakkil spent on his red nights millions of dinars, and donated, without measure, thousands to singers, drinking companions, and effeminates, but prevented the progeny of the messenger of Allah (a.s.) from receiving their rights and legal dues until he made them poor and wretched. Besides, he made all the media in his government defame and degrade the Alawids.

Mercenary poets, like Marwan bin Abul Janub, dispraised the Alawids and preferred the oppressive and tyrants to them. Al-Mutawakkil gifted those poets with gold and silver to go further in defaming the Alawids thinking that these procedures would take Muslims away from the progeny of their prophet (a.s.). He was too mistaken in that, for that made people believe more that the Ahlul Bayt (a.s) were the real leaders of the nation. All classes of people glorified and highly regarded them.

They preferred them to all other people. Al-Mutawakkil bore hatred and spite against Imam Ali (a.s.). He denied him and declared his hatred and despise towards him openly. He made one of his effeminate servants dance and compare himself to Imam Ali (a.s.). This ugly doing provoked al-Muntasir, al-Mutawakkil’s son, and made him kill his father.