Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan
Nasir al-Dawla Abu Muhammad al-Husayn ibn Hamdan (
Arabic: ناصر الدولة بن حمدان) was a descendant of the Hamdanid dynasty who became a general of the Fatimid Caliphate
, ruing Egypt as a de facto dictator in 1071–1073.
Abu Muhammad al-Husayn was a grandson of Abu Abdallah al-Husayn ibn Nasir al-Dawla, a Hamdanid prince who had fled to the Fatimid Caliphate when Mosul had been taken over by the Uqaylid dynasty in 990.[1] He served as governor of Damascus from 1041 to 1048, succeeding Anushtakin al-Dizbari.[2][3]
He played a leading role in the civil war of 1067 to 1073 between the Fatimids'
Abbasids. He succeeded in becoming master of Cairo and reduced al-Mustansir to a powerless puppet, while his Turks plundered the palace and the treasury. These actions were blamed for the subsequent Mustansirite Hardship. His increasingly tyrannical regime led to a split and he was ousted for a time, but was able to regain control of Cairo in 1071/2. His rule was ended with the murder of himself and his family in March/April 1073. The anarchic conditions in the country continued until al-Mustansir called upon the governor of Palestine, Badr al-Jamali, for aid in late 1073.[3]
References
- ^ Canard 1971, pp. 128–129.
- ^ Canard 1971, p. 129.
- ^ a b Lev 1991, pp. 44–45.
Sources
- OCLC 495469525.
- ISBN 3-406-48654-1.
- Lev, Yaacov (1987). "Army, Regime, and Society in Fatimid Egypt, 358–487/968–1094". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 19 (3): 337–365. S2CID 162310414.
- Lev, Yaacov (1991). State and Society in Fatimid Egypt. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004093447.