The Abbasid caliph who founded the great Mustansiriya madrasa in Baghdad — one of the medieval world's premier institutions of learning — in the dynasty's last decades.
Life
Al-Mustansir (reigned 1226–1242) ruled Baghdad in the shadow of the advancing Mongols. He is best remembered for founding the Mustansiriya madrasa (1234), a lavishly endowed college teaching all four Sunni legal schools together, with a hospital and vast library — a landmark of Islamic education whose building still stands. He was the penultimate Abbasid caliph of Baghdad.