Tulunids

Ṭūlūn, a Turkish slave soldier from Bukhara in Central Asia, who served in the Abbasid Caliph Ma'mūn's bodyguard, rising to become its captain, and was eventually granted his freedom.

• 1) Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, First Tulunid Emir of Egypt (see below)

868 – 884 Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, First Tulunid Emir of Egypt. Born 835, he was educated in Samarra and Tarsus, commanding expeditions against Bedouin raiders. In 868, his step-father, Bākbāk, was made Wali of Egypt. Bākbāk had no intention of leaving comfortable Samarra, so he sent Ibn Ṭūlūn to Fustat, capital of Egypt, to serve as his deputy. Having taken up residence in the Coptic Christian monastery of Quṣayr, he spent several years duelling with the unpopular fiscal administrator, Ibn al-Mudabbir, before he finally got him sent back to Syria in 871. He received control of Alexandria and Barka at around the same time. He then faced and defeated a number of rebellions led by various descendants of the Prophet and the Deputy Governor of Barka. The period coincided with yet another civil war and puppet regime in the Abbasid heartland, and Ibn Ṭūlūn took advantage of this to quietly recruit mercenaries and drift into independence. This was never formally declared, and he continued to send tribute to the Caliph and his regent (al-Muwaffaq). The fact that the caliph had a regent gave Ibn Ṭūlūn his opening; in 878 he challenged the regent's legitmacy, declaring himself Mawla Amir al-Mu'minin, Guardian of the Caliph, thereby claiming to be acting against the regent's government in the name of the caliph. He ignored a dismissal from the regent, fortified the towns of the southern Levant against his erstwhile replacement, and then seized Syria for himself. Ibn Ṭūlūn had intended to invade the Byzantine Empire on a jihad, but had to return to Egypt when his Vizier sent a message (at the cost of his life), telling Ibn Ṭūlūn that his son had revolted. He returned and crushed him.

878 also saw the beginning of work on a new quarter, al-Qaṭā'i', for the capital, Fustat (modern Cairo), complete with its own massive mosque, the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn, which stands to this day (pictured at right, courtesy Wikimedia Commons). The new quarter allowed him to move his soldiers out of central Fustat, where they regularly clashed with the townspeople. He then returned to Syria. The Caliph hoped to flee from his Regent to Ibn Ṭūlūn, but the Regent blocked this. Ibn Ṭūlūn gathered legal scholars in Damascus and attempted to get them to declare a jihad on the Regent (an impossibility – Jihads can only be declared against non-Muslims). Ibn Ṭūlūn nevertheless led a campaign against supporters of the Regent until he became sick and had to be returned to Fustat, where he died a few months later.

He married (first) a slave woman, gifted to him by the Caliph al-Musta'in. 

He married (second) the daughter of Yārjūkh, the absentee governor of Egypt from Bākbāk's death in 870 until his own in 872 or 873.

• 1) al-'Abbas ibn Aḥmad, Deputy Governor of Alexandria from 873, he revolted in 878 while his father was in Syria. When his father returned to Egypt, he fled west, attempting to seize control of Libya but was defeated and fled back to Egypt. His father ordered him to torture his own fellow conspirators, which he did (to Ibn Ṭūlūn's disappointment), and then threw him into prison. He was executed by his brother in 884.

• 2) Abūl-Jaysh Khumārawayh ibn Aḥmad, Second Tulunid Emir of Egypt (son of the slave woman) (see below)

• 3) Muḍar ibn Aḥmad, whipped to death at the order of his nephew Jaysh in 896. 

• 4) Rābi'a ibn Aḥmad, Deputy Governor of Alexandria under his brother, he revolted against his nephew Hārūn in 896, was defeated, and whipped to death.

• 5) Abūl-Manāqib Shaybān ibn Aḥmad, Fifth Tulunid Emir of Egypt (see below).

• 6)  'Alī ibn Aḥmad, who supported his brother Shaybān's successful revolt against Hārūn in 904.

884 – 896 Abūl-Jaysh Khumārawayh ibn Aḥmad, Second Tulunid Emir of Egypt. Born 864 in Samarra, he succeeded his father as Wali of Fustat & Alexandria, without seeking confirmation from the Caliph – an act which marked a definite step in the ongoing decline of the Abbasid Caliphate. Encouraged by a Tulunid general, the Abbasid Regent al-Muwaffaq dispatched an army led by his son, al-Mu'taḍid, to reconquer Egypt for the Abbasid Caliphate. The armies clashed in the Battle of the Mills (885), at which both commanders fled. Khumārawayh recruited a new army of Turks, Africans, Persians, Greeks and a bodyguard of Delta bedouin, and with it he conquered Tarsus and northern Mesopotamia, forcing the Regent to assent to his rule over Egypt & Syria for thirty years. The death of the Regent and the Caliph, saw a change in the balance of power – northern Mesopotamia was lost, and Khumārawayh only gained the Caliph's permission to rule Egypt and Syria by promising an immense tribute (including back-payments).

He lived in exceptional luxury with a massive harem, with hundreds of women and eunuchs. The latter assassinated him in Damascus in 896.

• 1) Abūl-'Asākir Jaysh ibn Khumārawayh, Third Tulunid Emir of Egypt (see below)

• 2) Abū Mūsā Hārūn ibn Khumārawayh, Fourth Tulunid Emir of Egypt (see below)

• 1) Qaṭr an-Nadā bint Khumārawayh, who married in 892, Aḥmad al-Mu'taḍid billāh ibn al-Muwaffaq al-'Abassī, Abbasid Caliph (the same man who had faced Khumārawayh at the Battle of the Mills) (see ABBASIDS)

896 Abūl-'Asākir Jaysh ibn Khumārawayh, Third Tulunid Emir of Egypt. Born 882, he came to the throne in 896, aged fourteen. A drunkard, he largely ignored matters of state, except to commit acts of cruelty. The legal scholars and judges deposed him within the year, and cast him into prison, where he died.

896 – 904 Abū Mūsā Hārūn ibn Khumārawayh, Fourth Tulunid Emir of Egypt. Born 882, he immediately he faced a revolt from his uncle Rābi'a in Alexandria, on his assent to the throne, which was quickly suppressed. Meanwhile, in Arabia, however, a much larger revolt arose, led by the Qarmatians. Allegedly, the Qarmatians wished to topple the Abbasid Caliph and return to a stricter Muslim regime, but much of the time they were little more than raiders, looking for gold. In pursuit of the latter goal, the Qarmatians attacked Syria in 902, making it all the way to Aleppo, which demonstrated the weakness of the Tulunid regime to the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Caliphate could not afford to have its west flank defended against the Qarmatians by a weak neighbour. An Abbasid army occupied Syria in 903, clearing the leftover Qarmatians out as it went. In 904, Hārūn was killed by two of his uncles, while drinking in the palace.

904 – 905 Abūl-Manāqib Shaybān ibn Aḥmad, Fifth Tulunid Emir of Egypt. Shaybān murdered his nephew and took control of Egypt in 904. Outraged, the last Tulunid general in Syria, Ṭughj ibn Juff, joined the Abbasids and led their army into Egypt.  Shaybān fled Fustat, which was captured by the Abbasids without a fight. Ibn Ṭūlūn's quarter, al-Qaṭā'i', was razed to the ground. An Abbasid governor, 'Isa ibn Muḥammad an-Nūsharī, was installed.