Editing Ali al-Rida (section)

==Martyrdom ==
When the Carvan reached Ṭus, Rida fell ill and died after a few days, according to the most reliable accounts on the last day of Safar, 203/September 818. Other dates mentioned range from Safar, 202/September, 817 to Dhu’l-qaʿda, 203/May, 819. The caliph asked a group of Alid relatives of Rida, including his uncle Muhammad b. Jaʿfar, to examine his body in order to have their testimony that he had died a natural death and ordered that he be buried next to the tomb of his own father, Harun al-Rashid, in the house of Homayd b. Qahtaba in Sanabad near Nawqan. He displayed extreme grief and is reported to have walked bareheaded in the funeral procession and to have stayed on the grave for three days. Nevertheless, most of the sources charge him with having poisoned Rida. The sudden demise of both the vizier and the heir-apparent, whose presence would have made any reconciliation with the powerful Abbasid opposition in Baghdad virtually impossible, must indeed arouse strong suspicion that Maʾmun had had a hand in the deaths.