Abu'l-Hasan Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn al-Mudabbir

Abu’l-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Mudabbir, commonly simply known as Ibn al-Mudabbir, was a senior courtier and fiscal administrator for the Abbasid Caliphate, serving in the central government, in Syria and Egypt. He is best known for his unsuccessful power struggle for control of Egypt against Ahmad ibn Tulun in 868–871.

Abu'l-Hasan and his brother, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, were possibly of Persian origin. Both were distinguished men of letters and rose to prominence at the court of the Abbasids at Samarra. Abu'l-Hasan first appears as director of the department of the army (dīwān al-jaysh) under Caliph al-Wathiq (ruled 842–847). Under al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861), he rose further. The Caliph esteemed his ability as a poet, and appointed him to oversee seven dīwāns, possibly as a sort of deputy vizier. In 854, however, the current vizier, Ubayd Allah ibn Khaqan, seeing in him a dangerous rival, had him imprisoned.

This disgrace did not last long, and soon he was released and appointed as fiscal administrator (ʿāmil al-kharāj, "supervisor of the land tax") for the Syrian districts of Damascus and Jordan. From there he moved, probably in 861, to the same post in Egypt. To boost the province's revenue, he took a series of measures, including doubling the kharāj and the jizya and raising new taxes (mukūs)—a move widely denounced as un-Quranic, demanding the payment of taxes each lunar year (instead of the longer solar year), imposing a state monopoly on caustic soda, and depriving the Christian clergy of their traditional tax privileges and exemptions. As a result, he became both the most powerful, as well as the most hated man in Egypt, and was constantly escorted by a hundred young bodyguards.

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