Modern assessments of his reign can be found in Jean-Maurice Fiey's Chrétiens syriaques sous les Abbassides and David Wilmshurst's The Martyred Church.
At the order of the caliph he was succeeded by Mari bar Toba, a lawyer of Mosul, against the will of the bishops, who only wrote to give their consent after being beaten with rods.
He read the gospel after his consecration, but did not expound it, and on the same day he celebrated the eucharist but did not station an attendant by the entrance to the altar, as his predecessors had done.
Mari was in very poor health, and had only an elementary knowledge of ecclesiastical functions and ceremonies, but he was an outstanding and experienced administrator, and was also noted for his charity and generosity.
They say that when he first occupied the throne he found not a single zuze in the patriarchal treasury, but by working hard he was able to amass large sums of money, with which he bought several properties for the patriarchal seat (villas and that kind of thing) and added some spectacular buildings to the church and residence of the catholicus.