The Abbasid caliph who, in a remarkable late revival, restored real political power to the caliphate after centuries of tutelage — the last effective Abbasid sovereign.
Life
Al-Nasir (reigned 1180–1225) recovered genuine authority for the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq, playing the region's powers against one another and reorganizing the chivalric futuwwa brotherhoods under his patronage as an instrument of caliphal influence. His long reign was the dynasty's last real flourishing; within decades of his death the Mongols would end the Baghdad caliphate.