Ahmad ibn Tulun

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"Ibn Tulun" redirects here. For the Damascene historian, see Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Tulun.

Ahmad ibn Tulun
أحمد بن طولون
Emir of
Tulunid dynasty
FatherTulun
ReligionSunni Islam

Ahmad ibn Tulun (

Saffarids and the Zanj Rebellion. Ibn Tulun also took care to establish an efficient administration in Egypt. After reforms to the tax system, repairs to the irrigation system, and other measures, the annual tax yield grew markedly. As a symbol of his new regime, he built a new capital, al-Qata'i, north of the old capital Fustat
.

After 875/6 he entered into open conflict with al-Muwaffaq, who tried unsuccessfully to unseat him. In 878, with the support of al-Muwaffaq's brother, Caliph

Tarsus in particular proved tenuous. During his absence in Syria, his eldest son and deputy, Abbas, tried to usurp power in Egypt, leading to the imprisonment of Abbas and the nomination of Ibn Tulun's second son, Khumarawayh, as his heir. The defection in 882 of a senior commander, Lu'lu', to al-Muwaffaq, and the defection of Tarsus, forced Ibn Tulun to return to Syria. Now virtually powerless, al-Mu'tamid tried to escape from his brother's control to Ibn Tulun's domains but was captured by al-Muwaffaq's agents, and Ibn Tulun convened an assembly of jurists at Damascus
to denounce al-Muwaffaq as a usurper. His attempt in autumn 883 to bring Tarsus to heel failed, and he fell sick. Returning to Egypt, he died in May 884 and was succeeded by Khumarawayh.

Ibn Tulun stands out as the first governor of a major province of the Abbasid Caliphate to not only establish himself as its master independently of the Abbasid court, but to also pass power on to his son. He was thus also the first ruler since the

Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo
.

Primary sources

Several medieval authors wrote about Ahmad ibn Tulun. The two major sources are two biographies by two 10th-century authors,

Tulunid-era Egyptian society. Further information comes from Ibn Tulun's contemporary, the geographer and traveler Ya'qubi, whose works cover the first years of his rule in Egypt, and from later Egyptian authors, especially the 15th-century historians Ibn Duqmaq and al-Maqrizi, who drew on a variety of earlier sources to write on the history of the Tulunid state. Several other medieval Arabic chroniclers from the 13th to the 16th centuries mention Ibn Tulun or his officials, but most are of a later date and not very reliable, especially in comparison to Ibn Duqmaq and al-Maqrizi.[1][2]

Life

Early life and career

Ahmad ibn Tulun was born on the 23rd day of the month of

Khurasan.[6][7] After al-Ma'mun returned to Baghdad in 819, these Turkish slaves were formed into a guard corps of slave soldiers (ghilman, sing. ghulam) entrusted to al-Ma'mun's brother and eventual successor, al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842).[8] Tulun did well for himself, eventually coming to command the Caliph's private guard.[6] Ahmad's mother, called Qasim, was one of his father's slaves. In 854/5, Tulun died, and Qasim is commonly held to have married a second time, to the Turkish general Bayakbak or Bakbak. This report, however, does not appear in Ibn al-Daya or al-Balawi, and may be spurious.[6][9] According to al-Balawi, after his father's death Ahmad came under the tutelage of Yalbakh, a close companion of Tulun, who had been taken captive alongside him. At his deathbed, Tulun urged his friend to take care of his wife and son, and Bakbak thereafter treated the young Ahmad as his own son.[10]

The young Ahmad ibn Tulun received a thorough education, involving military training at the new Abbasid capital of

Tarsus, acquiring a reputation not only for his knowledge but also for his pious and ascetic way of life.[6][11] He became popular among his fellow Turks, who would confide secrets and entrust their money and even their women to him.[12] While at Tarsus, Ibn Tulun fought in the frontier wars with the Byzantine Empire.[13] There he also met another senior Turkish leader, Yarjukh, whose daughter, variously given as Majur or Khatun, became his first wife and the mother of his eldest son, Abbas, and his daughter Fatimah.[14][12] The sources also report that during his time at Tarsus, Ibn Tulun had ties to Caliph al-Mutawakkil's vizier Ubayd Allah ibn Yahya ibn Khaqan, and the latter's cousin Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khaqan.[12] On one occasion, while returning to Samarra, he saved a caravan bearing a caliphal envoy returning from Constantinople from a Bedouin raiding party, and accompanied it to Samarra. This act gained him the favour of Caliph al-Musta'in (r. 862–866), as well as a thousand gold dinars and the hand of the slave Miyas, the mother of his second son, Khumarawayh.[15][16] When the Caliph abdicated and went into exile at Wasit in 866, he chose Ibn Tulun to be his guard. Qubayha, the mother of the new caliph, al-Mu'tazz (r. 866–869), schemed to remove the deposed al-Musta'in, and offered Ibn Tulun the governorship of Wasit if he would murder him. Ibn Tulun refused and was replaced by another, who carried out the deed. Ibn Tulun himself played no part in the assassination, but gave his master a burial and returned to Samarra.[15][17][16]

Governor of Egypt

Photo of a minaret in four levels, with battlements in the foreground
Spiral Minaret of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo

Already under Caliph al-Mu'tasim, senior Turkish leaders began being appointed as governors of provinces of the Caliphate as a form of appanage. Thereby they secured immediate access to the province's tax revenue for themselves and their troops, bypassing the civilian bureaucracy. The Turkish generals usually remained close to the centre of power in Samarra, sending deputies to govern in their name.[18][19] Thus when al-Mu'tazz gave Bakbak charge of Egypt in 868, Bakbak in turn sent his stepson Ahmad as his lieutenant and resident governor. Ahmad ibn Tulun entered Egypt on 27 August 868, and the Egyptian capital, Fustat, on 15 September.[6][16]

Ibn Tulun's position after his appointment was far from undisputed within his province. As governor of Fustat he oversaw the province's garrison and was the head of the Muslim community as recognized in his title of 'overseer of the army and the

barid) and of correspondence with the caliphal government, came out to meet him with a gift of 10,000 dinars, he refused to accept it.[21] For the next four years, Ibn Tulun and his rivals fought via their emissaries and relatives at the caliphal court in Samarra to neutralize each other; in the end, Ibn Tulun managed to secure Ibn al-Mudabbir's transfer to Syria in July 871, and assumed collection of the kharāj himself. At the same time, Ibn Tulun also secured the dismissal of Shukayr, who died shortly after. Thus by 872 Ibn Tulun had assumed control of all branches of the administration in Egypt, becoming de facto independent of the Abbasid central government.[6][20][21]

At the time of Ibn Tulun's appointment, Egypt was undergoing a transformative process. In 834 its early Muslim elite, the Arab settler families (

Barqa, Muhammad ibn al-Faraj al-Farghani. Ibn Tulun tried to reconcile with him at first but was eventually forced to send an army to besiege and storm the city, although the reprisals were limited. The re-imposition of his authority over Barqa, however, led to the strengthening of ties with Ifriqiya to the west, including, according to Ibn al-Athir, the erection of a series of lighthouses and messaging beacons along the coast.[26]

In the meantime, in

Ghur.[35]

Ibn Tulun's stepfather Bakbak was murdered in 869/70, but luckily for him in the summer of 871 the supervision of Egypt passed to his father-in-law Yarjukh. Yarjukh not only confirmed Ibn Tulun in his post, but in addition conferred to him the authority over Alexandria and Barqa.[6][20] In 873, Ibn Tulun entrusted the government of Alexandria to his eldest son, Abbas.[20] Ibn Tulun's growing power was manifested in the establishment of a new palace city to the northeast of Fustat, called al-Qata'i, in 870. The project was a conscious emulation of, and rival to, the Abbasid capital Samarra. Just like Samarra, the new city was designed as quarters for Ibn Tulun's new army with the aim of reducing frictions with the urban populace of Fustat. Each unit received an allotment or ward (whence the city's name) to settle, after which the ward was named. The new city's centrepiece was the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, which was built in 878–880 under the supervision of the Mesopotamian Christian architect Ibn Katib al-Farghani. A royal palace adjoined the mosque, and the rest of the city was laid out around them. Beside government buildings, it included markets, a hospital (al-bimaristan) that provided services free of charge, and a hippodrome.[36][37][38] Nevertheless, Ibn Tulun himself preferred to reside in the Coptic monastery of Qusayr outside Fustat.[39]

Ibn Tulun's new regime

The administration of Egypt was already well developed before Ibn Tulun's arrival, with a number of departments (diwans) responsible for the collection of the land tax, the supervision of the post, the public granaries (diwan al-ahra), the Nile Delta lands (diwan asfal al-ard), and possibly a privy purse (diwan al-khass) for the governor's personal use.[40] A chancery (diwan al-insha) possibly also already existed, or else was established under Ibn Tulun, when he remodelled the Egyptian administration after the Abbasid central government. Most of the officials employed by Ibn Tulun were like him trained in the caliphal court at Samarra. Ibn Tulun's chancellor was the capable Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Abd al-Kan (died 891), while other important positions in the administration were held by the four Banu al-Muhajir brothers and Ibn al-Daya.[40] Al-Balawi also reports several anecdotes about Ibn Tulun's extensive use of spies and his own ability to uncover spies sent against him, and claims that the chancery was established so that Ibn Tulun could check up on every piece of correspondence with the caliphal court.[41]

Unsurprisingly, given his own origins as a slave soldier, Ibn Tulun's regime was in many ways typical of the "ghulam system" that became one of the two main paradigms of Islamic polities in the 9th and 10th centuries, as the Abbasid Caliphate fragmented and new dynasties emerged. These regimes were based on the power of a regular army composed of ghilman, but in turn, according to

tax farming—which at the same time led to the rise of a new landholding class. Additional revenue was collected from commercial activities, most notably textiles and in particular linen.[44]

Ibn Tulun's regime was highly centralized, but also featured "consistent attempts to win the backing of Egypt's commercial, religious and social élite", according to Zaky M. Hassan. Notably, the wealthy merchant Ma'mar al-Jawhar functioned both as Ibn Tulun's personal financier and as the head of an informal intelligence network through his contacts in Iraq.[44] A further "notable characteristic" of Ibn Tulun's rule, according to historian Thierry Bianquis, was "the quality of relations it maintained with Christians and Jews";[46] according to a letter by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Elias III, when he took over Palestine, he appointed a Christian as governor of Jerusalem, and possibly even of the provincial capital, Ramla, thereby putting an end to the persecution of Christians and allowing the renovation of churches.[47]

Expansion into Syria

Geophysical map of the Eastern Mediterranean, with cities marked in black and provinces in red
Map of the Tulunid domains following the conquest of Syria, c. 881

In the early 870s, a major change took place in the Abbasid government, as the Abbasid prince

Saffarids in the east and by the Zanj Rebellion in Iraq itself, as well as with keeping in check the Turkish troops and managing the internal tensions of the caliphal government. This gave Ibn Tulun the necessary space to consolidate his own position in Egypt. Ibn Tulun kept himself out of the Zanj conflict, and even refused to recognize al-Mufawwad as his suzerain, who in turn did not confirm him in his position.[6][49]

Open conflict between Ibn Tulun and al-Muwaffaq broke out in 875/6, on the occasion of a large remittance of revenue to the central government. Counting on the rivalry between the Caliph and his over-mighty brother to maintain his own position, Ibn Tulun forwarded a larger share of the taxes to al-Mu'tamid instead of al-Muwaffaq: 2.2 million dinars went to the Caliph and only 1.2 million dinars to his brother.

amīr al-muʾminīn) in 878.[13]

Ibn Tulun now seized the initiative. Having served in his youth in the border wars with the Byzantine Empire at Tarsus, he now requested to be conferred the command of the frontier districts of

al-Muqaddasi, who provides a detailed description of the work.[54][55]

Only then, in April 879, did Ibn Tulun return to Egypt. Abbas fled west with his supporters, and from Barqa tried to take over Ifriqiya. Defeated by the Ifriqiyans (probably in the winter of 880–881), he retreated back east to Alexandria, where he was finally confronted and captured by Ibn Tulun's forces. After being publicly paraded seated on a mule, Ibn Tulun ordered his son to execute or mutilate his companions, who had driven him to rebel. Ibn Tulun reportedly secretly hoped that his son would refuse to do such a dishonourable act, but he agreed. Weeping, Ibn Tulun had Abbas whipped and imprisoned. He then named his second son, Khumarawayh, as his heir-apparent.[56]

Final years and death

al-Mufawwad

Following his return from Syria, Ibn Tulun added his own name to coins issued by the mints under his control, along with those of the Caliph and heir apparent, al-Mufawwad.[57] In the autumn of 882, the Tulunid general Lu'lu' defected to the Abbasids.[34][58] At the same time, the Tulunid-appointed governor of Tarsus and the Thughur died, and his replacement, Yazaman al-Khadim, with popular backing, refused to acknowledge Tulunid rule.[59] Ibn Tulun immediately left in person for Syria—taking the chained Abbas with him as a precaution—and headed for Tarsus. At Damascus, he received a message from al-Mu'tamid informing him that the by-now nearly powerless Caliph had escaped Samarra and was heading for Syria.[59] Taking custody of al-Mu'tamid would have immensely boosted Ibn Tulun's standing: not only would the sole source of political legitimacy in the Muslim world reside under his control, but he would also be able to pose as the "rescuer" of the Caliph.[57] Ibn Tulun therefore decided to halt and await al-Mu'tamid's arrival. In the event, however, the Caliph was overtaken at al-Haditha on the Euphrates by the governor of Mosul, Ishaq ibn Kundaj, who defeated the caliphal escort and brought him back to Samarra (February 883) and thence south to Wasit, where al-Muwaffaq could better control him.[59][60] This opened anew the rift between the two rulers: al-Muwaffaq nominated Ishaq ibn Kundaj as governor of Egypt and Syria—in reality a largely symbolic appointment—while Ibn Tulun organized an assembly of religious jurists at Damascus which denounced al-Muwaffaq as a usurper, condemned his maltreatment of the Caliph, declared his place in the succession as void, and called for a jihad against him. Only three participants, including the chief qadi of Egypt, Bakkar ibn Qutayba, refused to pronounce the call for jihad publicly. Ibn Tulun had his rival duly denounced in Friday sermons in the mosques across the Tulunid domains, while the Abbasid regent responded in kind with a ritual denunciation of Ibn Tulun.[61] Despite the belligerent rhetoric, however, neither made moves to confront the other militarily.[34][57]

After his failure to take control of the Caliph, Ibn Tulun turned on Tarsus. He appointed Abdallah ibn Fath in Lu'lu's place in Aleppo, and marched in person to Cilicia. The Egyptian ruler laid siege to Tarsus in autumn 883, but Yazaman diverted the local river, inundating the Tulunid camp and forcing Ibn Tulun to retreat. Ibn Tulun fell ill on his return to Egypt, and was carried to Fustat on a wheeled vehicle.

Muqattam to implore God to save him", as Bianquis writes, but Ibn Tulun died at Fustat on 10 May 884 and was interred on the slopes of the Muqattam.[63] According to al-Balawi, Ibn Tulun left his heir 24,000 servants, 7,000 men and 7,000 horses, 3,000 camels, 1,000 mules, 350 ceremonial horses, and 200 fully equipped warships.[64]

Succession and aftermath

At Ibn Tulun's death, Khumarawayh, with the backing of the Tulunid elites, succeeded without opposition.

Jaysh was a drunkard who executed his uncle, Mudar ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun; he was deposed after only a few months and replaced by his brother Harun ibn Khumarawayh. Harun too was a weak ruler, and although a revolt by his uncle Rabi'ah in Alexandria was suppressed, the Tulunids were unable to confront the attacks of the Qarmatians which began at the same time. In addition, many commanders defected to the Abbasids, whose power revived under the capable leadership of al-Muwaffaq's son, Caliph al-Mu'tadid (r. 892–902). Finally, in December 904, two other sons of Ibn Tulun, Ali and Shayban, murdered their nephew and assumed control of the Tulunid state. Far from halting the decline, this event alienated key commanders in Syria and led to the rapid and relatively unopposed reconquest of Syria and Egypt by the Abbasids under Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Katib, who entered Fustat in January 905. With the exception of the great Mosque of Ibn Tulun, the victorious Abbasid troops pillaged al-Qata'i and razed it.[68][69][70]

Offspring

According to al-Balawi, from his various wives and concubines, Ibn Tulun had 33 children, 17 sons and 16 daughters. The only modern edition of al-Balawi provides the following list:[71]

  • Male children: Abū al-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās (the eldest), Abū al-Jaysh Khumārawayh, Abū al-Ashāʾir Muḍar, Abū al-Mukarram Rabīʿah, Abū al-Maqānib Shaybān, Abū Nāhiḍ 'Iyāḍ, Abū Maʿd ʿAdnān, Abū al-Karādīs Kazraj, Abū Ḥabshūn ʿAdī, Abū Shujāʿ Kindah, Abū Manṣūr Aghlab, Abū Lahjah Maysarah, Abū al-Baqāʾ Hudā, Abū al-Mufawwaḍ Ghassān, Abū al-Faraj Mubārak, Abū ʿAbdallāh Muhammad, and Abū al-Fataj Muẓaffar.
  • Female children (note that only 15 names are listed): Fāṭimah, Lamīs, (unreadable), Ṣafiyyah, Khadījah, Maymūnah, Maryam, ʿĀʾishah, Umm al-Hudā, Muʾminah, ʿAzīzah, Zaynab, Samānah, Sārah, and Ghurayrah.

Legacy

Map of the fragmented Abbasid empire, with areas still under direct control of the Abbasid central government (dark green) and under autonomous rulers (light green) adhering to nominal Abbasid suzerainty, c. 892

Despite the brief duration of his dynasty, Ibn Tulun's rule was a seminal event not only for Egypt, but for the entire Islamic world.

Mamluk Sultanate.[53]

According to the historian Matthew Gordon, Ibn Tulun's relations with, and quest for autonomy from, the Abbasids is a "central problem of Tulunid history". Modern scholars see in Ibn Tulun's policies a "careful balancing act" and notice that he never fully severed himself from the Caliphate, remaining conspicuously loyal to the person of al-Mu'tamid, who, after all, was a powerless figurehead. Nevertheless, the move towards increasing autonomy is evident throughout his reign.[76] His relations with the Abbasid government were dominated by his conflict with al-Muwaffaq, resulting from the latter's attempts to establish control over Egypt—whose wealth was direly needed during the costly war against the Zanj—and prevent the further rise of Ibn Tulun. In a certain sense, writes Matthew Gordon, many of Ibn Tulun's measures "were as much the means by which imperial interests were protected against the ambitions of al-Muwaffaq and his (largely Turkish) military coterie in Iraq as they were efforts to secure Tulunid authority". Given that Ibn Tulun at least twice (in 871 and 875/6) remitted huge sums to the caliphal treasury, it remains an open question whether without the conflict with al-Muwaffaq, this would have been a more regular occurrence.[76]

Nevertheless, in retrospective, Ibn Tulun's role in the wider context of Islamic history is as the herald of the Abbasid Caliphate's disintegration and the rise of local dynasties in the provinces. This became particularly evident with the succession of Khumarawayh: as Thierry Bianquis explains, "this was the first time in Abbasid history with regard to the government of so large and rich a territory, that a wāli, whose legitimacy derived from the caliph who had designated him, was succeeded openly by an amīr who claimed his legitimacy by inheritance".[77] Thus Zaky M. Hassan calls Ibn Tulun a "typical example of the Turkish slaves who from the time of Harun al-Rashid were enlisted in the private service of the caliph and the principal officers of state, and whose ambition and spirit of intrigue and independence [eventually made] them the real masters of Islam".[6]

See also

  • List of rulers of Egypt

References

  1. ^ Swelim 2015, pp. 9–13.
  2. ^ See also Swelim 2015, pp. 13–23 on modern scholarship regarding Ibn Tulun and his works.
  3. ^ Becker 1987, p. 190.
  4. ^ Gordon 2001, p. 63.
  5. ^ Gordon 2001, p. 20.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hassan 1960, p. 278.
  7. ^ Gordon 2001, pp. 19–20, 26.
  8. ^ Gordon 2001, pp. 15–26.
  9. ^ Gordon 2001, pp. 20, 63–64, 238 (note 128).
  10. ^ Gordon 2001, pp. 20, 68–70.
  11. ^ Swelim 2015, pp. 26–27.
  12. ^ a b c Gordon 2001, p. 117.
  13. ^ a b c d e Bianquis 1998, p. 95.
  14. ^ Swelim 2015, pp. 27–28.
  15. ^ a b Corbet 1891, p. 529.
  16. ^ a b c Swelim 2015, p. 28.
  17. ^ Becker 1987, pp. 190–191.
  18. ^ Corbet 1891, p. 528.
  19. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 172, 308.
  20. ^ a b c d e Bianquis 1998, p. 92.
  21. ^ a b Swelim 2015, p. 29.
  22. ^ Brett 2010, pp. 550–556.
  23. ^ Brett 2010, p. 557.
  24. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 92–93.
  25. ^ Brett 2010, p. 558.
  26. ^ a b c Bianquis 1998, p. 93.
  27. ^ Cobb 2001, pp. 38–39.
  28. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 94.
  29. ^ Brett 2010, p. 559.
  30. ^ Gil 1997, p. 300.
  31. ^ Cobb 2001, pp. 39–41.
  32. ^ Kennedy 2004, p. 308.
  33. ^ a b c Bianquis 1998, p. 98.
  34. ^ a b c Becker 1987, p. 191.
  35. ^ a b c Gordon 2000, p. 617.
  36. ^ Brett 2010, pp. 559–560.
  37. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 99–100.
  38. ^ Corbet 1891, pp. 530–531.
  39. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 100.
  40. ^ a b c Bianquis 1998, p. 97.
  41. ^ Swelim 2015, pp. 32–33.
  42. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 206–208.
  43. ^ a b c Brett 2010, p. 560.
  44. ^ a b c Gordon 2000, p. 618.
  45. ^ Gil 1997, p. 307.
  46. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 103.
  47. ^ Gil 1997, p. 308.
  48. ^ Bonner 2010, pp. 320–321.
  49. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 94–95.
  50. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 95, 98–99.
  51. ^ Hassan 1960, pp. 278–279.
  52. ^ Corbet 1891, p. 533.
  53. ^ a b c d Bianquis 1998, p. 96.
  54. ^ Gil 1997, p. 252.
  55. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 99.
  56. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 96–97.
  57. ^ a b c Hassan 1960, p. 279.
  58. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 100–101.
  59. ^ a b c Bianquis 1998, p. 101.
  60. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 174, 177.
  61. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 101–102.
  62. ^ a b Bianquis 1998, p. 102.
  63. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 102–103.
  64. ^ Swelim 2015, p. 34.
  65. ^ a b c Bianquis 1998, p. 104.
  66. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 104–106.
  67. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 181, 310.
  68. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 106–108.
  69. ^ Gordon 2000, pp. 616–617.
  70. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 184–185, 310.
  71. ^ Al-Balawi 1939, p. 349.
  72. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 89.
  73. ^ Bianquis 1998, p. 90.
  74. ^ Kennedy 2004, pp. 312ff.
  75. ^ Brett 2010, pp. 565ff.
  76. ^ a b Gordon 2000, pp. 617–618.
  77. ^ Bianquis 1998, pp. 89–90, 103–104.

Sources

Further reading
Preceded by
governor of Egypt for the Abbasid Caliphate
Egypt (de jure for the Abbasid Caliphate
,
de facto autonomous)
15 September 868 – 10 May 884 		Succeeded by
Preceded byas governor of Syria for the Abbasid Caliphate
Tulunid emir of Syria (de jure for the Abbasid Caliphate
,
de facto autonomous)
877/8 – 10 May 884
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