During the reign of al-Ma'mun's successor al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842), Ishaq served as one of the closest advisors and confidants of the caliph.[9] Following al-Mu'tasim's transfer of his residence, together with the government bureaucracy and army, to his new capital of Samarra in 836, Ishaq was appointed to head the Samarran security (ma'unah) alongside the Turkish officer Itakh,[10] but he also retained his position as chief of the Baghdad shurtah and remained a resident of that city. For the rest of Ishaq's life, Samarra served as the seat of al-Mu'tasim and his successors, while Ishaq himself continued to act as their representative in Baghdad.[11]