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An-Nasir li-Din Allah (1158 – 1225) (Arabic: الناصر لدين الله) was the 34th Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1180 to 1225. His pious title means Defender of the Faith. He attempted to restore the Caliphate to its ancient dominant role. He not only held the Capital in strength, but extended his dominion into Mesopotamia and Persia. He reigned from 1180–1225, and is considered the last strong 'Abbasid caliph before the destruction of the dynasty by the Mongols.

In the early years of his caliphate, his goal was to crush the Seljuk power and replace it with his own. He incited rebellion against the Seljuk Sultan. The Khwarizm Shah, Tekish, at his instigation, attacked the Seljuk forces, and defeated them. Tekish, recognized now as supreme ruler of the East, bestowed on the Caliph certain provinces of Persia that had been held by the Seljuks.

An-Nasir sent his vizier to Tekish with some gifts, but the imprudent vizier so irritated the hot-tempered Tekish, that Tekish attacked the Caliph's troops and routed them. Thereafter hostile relations prevailed for many years. The Caliph assassinated a governor of Tekish by using an Ismaili emissary. Tekish responded by having the body of an-Nasir's vizier, who died on a campaign against him, exhumed, and the head stuck up at Khwarizm. Irritated at this and other hostile acts, the Caliph retaliated by treating with indignity the pilgrims who came from the East under Khwarizm's flag. But beyond such poor revenge, he was powerless for any open enmity.

Tekish's son, Muhammad II of Khwarezm, annoyed at the actions of the Caliph, set up a Shi'a caliph to paralyse an-Nasir's spiritual power. Following up this act, he turned his army on Baghdad. In response, an-Nasir appealed to Genghis Khan, the rising Mongol chief, to check Muhammad's progress, but it was too late: Muhammad had already taken Eastern Iraq. But before he could invade Baghdad, the weather forced him to return to Khorasan.

The caliph soon found his diplomacy bearing evil fruit. The steppes of Central Asia were set in motion by Genghiz Khan, and his hordes put to flight the Khwarizm Shah, who died an exile in an island of the Caspian. Meanwhile Saladin, when hard pressed by the Crusaders, appealed for help to an-Nasir, who, caring for little beyond his own aggrandizement, contented himself with sending a store of naphtha, with men to use it against the invaders in the field.

Besides his occasional conquests, he held Iraq from Tikrit to the Gulf without interruption. He is described as having been an oppressive ruler. There are instances, however, in which when appealed to, he interposed in favor of the weaker party — though partly from the fear of too powerful antagonists. His long reign of forty-seven years is chiefly marked by ambitious and corrupt dealings with the Tartar chiefs, and by his hazardous invocation of the Mongols, which so soon brought his own dynasty to an end. But in his day, there was comparative peace at Baghdad; learning flourished; schools and libraries were promoted; while refuges for the poor, and other works of public interest, were encouraged.

It should be noted that the global Muslim population had climbed to about 6 per cent as against the Christian population of 12 per cent by 1200.

• This text is adapted from William Muir's public domain, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.