Abul-Abbas

Abul-Abbas ( – 810) was an Asian elephant brought back to the Carolingian emperor Charlemagne by his diplomat Isaac the Jew. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and symbolizes the beginning of Abbasid–Carolingian relations. The elephant's name and events from his life are recorded in the Carolingian Annales regni Francorum, and he is mentioned in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni. However, no references to the gift or to interactions with Charlemagne have been found in Abbasid records.

==Contemporary accounts== ===From the Orient to Europe=== Abul-Abbas was probably born during the 770s or 780s (based on the average age of Asian elephant maturity) and was brought from Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, by Charlemagne's diplomat Isaac the Jew, who along with two other emissaries, Lantfrid and Sigimund, had been sent to the caliph on Charlemagne's orders. That the only surviving member of the group of three, Isaac, was being sent back with the elephant was heralded as advance news to Charlemagne from two emissaries he met in 801: one was sent by the caliph Harun al-Rashid himself, another by Abraham (Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab), who was governor of Africa. Charlemagne then ordered a man to Liguria (the province around Genoa) to commission a fleet of ships to carry the elephant and other goods.