page_title: Abbasid–Carolingian alliance
section_title: Embassies
hierarchical_section_title: Abbasid–Carolingian alliance / Contacts under Pepin the Short and al-Mansur / Embassies
caption_attribution_description: English: water-clocks that Harun al-Rashid sent to the Emperor Charlemagne in 807 ADالعربية: صورة الساعة المائية التي أرسلها هارون الرشيد إلى الأمبراطور شارلمان عام 807 م
context_page_description: An Abbasid–Carolingian alliance was attempted during the 8th to 9th century through a series of embassies, rapprochements and combined military operations between the Frankish Carolingian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate and pro-Abbasid rulers in Al Andalus.
  The alliance is likely to have formed first between Pepin the Short and al-Mansur, and later to have continued under Charlemagne and Harun al-Rashid.
  These contacts followed the intense conflict between the Carolingians and the Umayyads of Al Andalus, marked by the Battle of Tours in 732, and were aimed at establishing a counter-alliance with the 'faraway' Abbasid Empire based in the Near East. Slightly later, another Carolingian-Abbasid alliance was attempted in a conflict against the Eastern Roman Empire.
context_section_description: Contacts between the Carolingians and the Abbasids started soon after the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate and the concommital fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in 751. The Carolingian ruler Pepin the Short had a powerful enough position in Europe to "make his alliance valuable to the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, al-Mansur". Former supporters of the Umayyad Caliphate were established firmly in southern Spain under Abd ar-Rahman I, and constituted a strategic threat both to the Carolingian on their southern border, and to the Abbasid at the western end of their dominion.
  Embassies were exchanged both ways, with the apparent objective of cooperating against the Umayyads of Spain: a Frankish embassy went to Baghdad in 765 which returned to Europe after three years with numerous presents, and an Abbasid embassy from Al-Mansur visited France in 768.
caption: Charlemagne Clock
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