Al-Husayn ibn al-Qasim
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Biography
Al-Husayn ibn al-Qasim was a senior official of the Abbasid Caliphate who served as vizier from September 931 until May 932.
Hailing from the Banu Wahb, a family of Nestorian Christian origin that had served in the caliphal bureaucracy since late Umayyad times, al-Husayn was the son, grandson and great-grandson of viziers. The family however had lost power after the death of al-Husayn's father al-Qasim in 904. He was appointed to the vizierate and the title of ʿAmid al-Dawla ("Mainstay of the State") by Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) in September 931, with the support of Ali ibn al-Furat and his faction against the rival faction around Ali ibn Isa al-Jarrah and the commander-in-chief Mu'nis al-Muzaffar. According to the scholar C.E. Bosworth, al-Husayn was "perhaps the last vizier to attempt to retain for the vizierate a measure of its former independence". He tried to restore the state finances, but fell from power due to the incessant court rivalries in May 932.