Abbasa bint al-Mahdi (Arabic: العباسة بنت المهدي, romanized: al-ʿAbbāsa; c. 765 – after 804) was a famous Abbasid princess. She was the daughter of Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi, sister of caliph Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid.
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Life
Abbasa was the daughter of the third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi, and a concubine of the Abbasid harem by the name of Rahim, thus she was the mother of his oldest surviving girl child, Abbasa. She was the half-sister of al-Hadi, Harun al-Rashid, Ulayya, and Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi.
She was born during her grandfather reign, her father became caliph in 775. When Abbasa was a young her father arranged her marriage to a cadet member of Abbasid House.
Her husband was Muhammad ibn Sulayman, a prominent member of a cadet branch of the Abbasid dynasty, who was a long-time governor of Kufa and Basra. however her husband died in mid-November 789 and Abbasa became a widow.
She married again another Abbasid member during the reign of her brother Harun al-Rashid. Her second marriage was with Ibrahim ibn Salih, a member of another cadet branch of the Abbasid dynasty: he was a first cousin to the first two Abbasid caliphs al-Saffah (r. 750–754) and al-Mansur (r. 754–775). He also became a son-in-law to the third Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) by virtue of his marriage to the latter's daughter Abbasa. Ibrahim died in 792, shortly after having been appointed governor of Egypt a second time.