Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Musa ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Furat (; 855 – 18 July 924) was a senior official of the Abbasid Caliphate who served three times as vizier under Caliph al-Muqtadir. Ali emerged into prominence as an able fiscal administrator and deputy to his older brother Ahmad. Eventually he came to lead one of the two major and rival court factions during al-Muqtadir's caliphate, the Banu'l-Furat, the other being the group of officials around the commander-in-chief Mu'nis al-Muzaffar and the vizier Ali ibn Isa al-Jarrah.
He played an important role in the selection of al-Muqtadir as caliph in 908, going on to serve as vizier in 908–912, during which time he succeeded in re-incorporating Fars into the Caliphate and to restore a measure of authority over the Sajids of Adharbayjan. After a second tenure in 917–918 he was imprisoned by his successor, and was released in 923, becoming vizier for the third and last time soon after. His brutality towards his rivals during his third tenure, coupled with military failures against the Qarmatians, caused his deposition and execution, along with his son al-Muhassin, on 18 July 924.
Life
Ali's family had been of some prominence at Baghdad already in the early 9th century, but it was his father Muhammad ibn Musa who first occupied an important administrative post. Ali began his career alongside his brother Ahmad during the late caliphate of al-Mu'tamid (reigned 870–892) and the regency of al-Muwaffaq. Both were protégés of the fellow Shi'ite Isma'il ibn Bulbul, who, after becoming vizier to both al-Mu'tamid and al-Muwaffaq in 885, brought them into the administration as fiscal experts and entrusted them with the department of land revenue of the Sawad. Following Ibn Bulbul's dismissal, Ahmad was imprisoned for a while, but at the accession of al-Mu'tadid (r. 892–902) in 892, he was released and entrusted once more with the fiscal department of the Sawad, and later of all the land tax departments, with Ali as his deputy.
The Ibn al-Furat brothers and their supporters came to form one of the two major groups that would dominate the Abbasid bureaucracy over the next decades, the Banu'l-Furat or Furatids. Their main rivals were another group of secretarial families, the Banu'l-Jarrah or Jarrahids, headed by Muhammad ibn Dawud and his nephew Ali ibn Isa al-Jarrah, who replaced the Banu'l-Furat as heads of the fiscal departments in 899. The two groups represented simply different factions in a struggle for office and power, but there are indications of "ideological" differences as well: many of the Banu'l-Jarrah families hailed from converted Nestorian families and employed Christians in the bureaucracy, in addition to maintaining closer ties with the military, while the Banu'l-Furat tried to impose firm civilian control of the army and (not quite openly) favoured Shi'ism. The rivalry between the two groups was intense but mostly restrained as their fortunes shifted repeatedly, but torture and the forced confiscation of a deposed official's possessions were commonplace under the old-established system known as muṣādara, which forced deposed officials to return the money they had embezzled; in effect, however, it practically forced officials to embezzle while on office so as to be able to provide the requisite sums during the muṣādara inquest.
The two brothers continued to serve as heads of the fiscal departments in the caliphate of al-Muktafi (r. 902–908). After his brother's death in 904, Ali became the chief aide to the vizier al-Abbas ibn al-Hasan al-Jarjara'i. The death of al-Muktafi in 908 left the issue of the succession open, and the vizier al-Abbas sought the advice of the most important bureaucrats on the choice of a successor. Following Ali's advice, the senior bureaucrats opted for al-Muktafi's 13-year-old brother Ja'far, who was seen as week, pliable, and easy to be manipulated by the senior officials. The choice of al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) was, in the words of historian Hugh N. Kennedy, "a sinister development" and inaugurated one "of the most disastrous reigns in the whole of Abbasid history [...] a quarter of a century in which all of the work of [al-Muqtadir's] predecessors would be undone". Following the abortive coup by the supporters of Ibn al-Mu'tazz on 17 December, on 19 December 908 Ali was himself appointed vizier.