Zaidi View on Al Mamoon Rasheed

Salaam

What is the Zaidi view on the Abbasid Ruler Mamoon Rasheed?

I've seen the report in Maqatil al Talibeen, but in there are three reports in total. In one of them says al Mamoon says he is innocent of the case.

As for going after the imams, that again is questionable. The reason is I read report that once he defeated the Imams, he let them go. Also in another report Imam Ali Rida tells his brother Zayd to give up on the revolt.

Again I am not here to debate but I want to know if Zaidi scholars have any other views on this. Just like a minority Zaidi scholars believe that Abi Bakr and Umar should be included in Tardiyyah.

I was referring to Zayd bin Musa. He also led a revolt against Al Mamoon.

al-Ma'mun's policy was in fact quite in contrast to that of his predecessors. His appointment of `Ali ar-Rida to succeed him appears to have been genuine in that in doing so he faced major opposition from his own family who in turn appointed a counter-caliph in Baghdad. Keep in mind he had just gotten through a bloody war against his brother and so the family was not all on the same page by any means. Afterwards, while he did not belief in the exclusive right of the `Alids to rule, he criticized his predecessors' policy of oppression against them, and viewed the caliphate as a shared right between them (i.e. the Banu Hashim) as all being from the family of the Prophet (sawa). As part of this, we see things for instance with him publicly reversing the judgment of Abu Bakr in regards to Fadak and declaring that it was to go back to the `Alids. While one might not agree with all his policies, one gets the impression that he was actually genuinely motivated by a religious zeal, wanting to rule by the religion and spread righteousness in the land, such as with his aggressive policy against the Byzantines, his promotion of translations of ancient works, his attempts to push for what he regarded to be religious orthodoxy in the Mihna, and so on. It's also very unlikely he was responsible for ar-Rida's poisoning (if indeed he was poisoned), the Abna' who had sided with al-Amin in the civil war prior might be more likely culprits.

An excellent work that discusses this further, along with good discussion of the role of apocalyptic traditions that appear to be the product of this time period (i.e. much of the Mahdist narrations and such) is Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʻAbbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century by Hayrettin Yücesoy.