The reigns of the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his successor al-Ma'mun have long been viewed as the golden age of the medieval Islamic caliphate. Yet how did chroniclers represent this crucial period?

The caliph Harun al-Rashid (est 763/766–809), as painted by the Italian artist Gaspare Landi more than 1,000 years later in 1813 (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples) But it was also a landmark in ...