Al-Muʿaẓẓam Tūrānshāh ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (c. 1181 – 1260) was a Kurdish military commander and Ayyubid prince, a son of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin). [1] For his long but undistinguished career, he has been described as "a courageous if not very gifted soldier". [2]
Al-Muʿaẓẓam was born around 1181. [3] He was named in honour of his uncle, al-Muʿaẓẓam Tūrānshāh, who died in 1180. [4] His full name was al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam Tūrānshāh Fakhr al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. [5] In 1186, he was living with his mother and his full brother, Malikshāh, in Damascus when the ill Saladin summoned the three of them to his bedside in Ḥarrān. [6] [7] Saladin had a house with a bath built for them for their stay in Ḥarrān. [6] According to Ibn Shaddād, al-Muʿaẓẓam was brought to witness the siege of Acre in 1191 as his initiation into the art of war, although he would not actually engage in combat for several years. [3] [8]
In 1234, al-Muʿaẓẓam led the army of the emir of Aleppo in Sultan al-Kāmil's war against the Seljukids. [9] When the remnants of the Khwarazmian army invaded Syria in 1240, he led the 1,500 available cavalry of Aleppo against them. Outnumbered eight to one, he was crushed in battle on 2 November. [10]
In 1250, al-Muʿaẓẓam and his only surviving brother, Nuṣrat al-Dīn, led contingents from Aleppo during al-Nāṣir Yūsuf's invasion of Egypt. [11] He and Nuṣrat al-Dīn were captured when the army was defeated by Aybak at the battle of Kurāʿ in 1251. [12] [13] They remained in honorable captivity in Cairo until a peace treaty was signed in 1253. [14]
Although over eighty years old, al-Muʿaẓẓam was governing Aleppo on behalf of al-Nāṣir when the Mongols invaded Syria in 1259. [2] [15] He sent a force to disrupt them before they could reach Aleppo, but it retreated in the face of the superior forces of the Mongol commander Hülegü, who offered al-Muʿaẓẓam generous terms to surrender. Al-Muʿaẓẓam refused and on 18 January 1260 the siege of Aleppo began. The walls were breached on 25 January and the city was plundered and its inhabitants massacred and enslaved. Al-Muʿaẓẓam held out in the citadel until 25 February, when he sought terms. [2] Impressed by al-Muʿaẓẓam's courage, given his age, Hülegü was unusually generous. [2] [15] The garrison was granted safe conduct, but al-Muʿaẓẓam died only a few days later. [2]
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
The Ayyubid dynasty, also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin had originally served the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din, leading Nur ad-Din's army in battle against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made Vizier. Following Nur ad-Din's death, Saladin was proclaimed as the first Sultan of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliphate, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond the frontiers of Egypt to encompass most of the Levant, in addition to Hijaz, Yemen, northern Nubia, Tarabulus, Cyrenaica, southern Anatolia, and northern Iraq, the homeland of his Kurdish family. By virtue of his sultanate including Hijaz, the location of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the first ruler to be hailed as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a title that would be held by all subsequent sultans of Egypt until the Ottoman conquest of 1517. Saladin's military campaigns in the first decade of his rule, aimed at uniting the various Arab and Muslim states in the region against the Crusaders, set the general borders and sphere of influence of the sultanate of Egypt for the almost three and a half centuries of its existence. Most of the Crusader states, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem, fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders reconquered the coast of Palestine in the 1190s.
The Zengid or Zangid dynasty, also referred to as the Atabegate of Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus, or the Zengid State was initially an Atabegate of the Seljuk Empire created in 1127. It formed a Turkoman dynasty of Sunni Muslim faith, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia, and eventually seized control of Egypt in 1169. In 1174 the Zengid state extended from Tripoli to Hamadan and from Yemen to Sivas. Imad ad-Din Zengi was the first ruler of the dynasty.
Al-Malik al-Kamil Nasir ad-Din Muhammad, titled Abu al-Maʽali, was an Egyptian ruler and the fourth Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated the Fifth Crusade. He was known to the Frankish crusaders as Meledin, a name by which he is referred to in some older western sources. As a result of the Sixth Crusade, he ceded West Jerusalem to the Christians and is known to have met with Saint Francis.
Al-Malik Al-Aziz Uthman ibn Salah Ad-Din Yusuf was the second Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt. He was the second son of Saladin.
Izz al-Din Usama was a 12th-century Ayyubid emir and a nephew of Saladin.
An-Nasir Yusuf, fully al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn al-Aziz ibn al-Zahir ibn Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shazy, was the Ayyubid Kurdish Emir of Syria from his seat in Aleppo (1236–1260), and the Sultan of the Ayyubid Empire from 1250 until the sack of Aleppo by the Mongols in 1260.
Al-Ashraf or al-Ashraf Musa or Al-Ashraf Shah Arman, fully Al-Ashraf Musa Abu'l-Fath al-Muzaffar ad-Din, was a Kurdish ruler of the Ayyubid dynasty.
Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din (Arabic: الأفضل بن صلاح الدين, "most superior"; c. 1169 – 1225, generally known as Al-Afdal, was one of seventeen sons of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and thus of Kurdish descent. He succeeded his father as the second Ayyubid emir of Damascus. His career as a ruler was chequered and punctuated by repeated armed conflict with other prominent members of his family.
The siege of Aleppo lasted from 18 January to 24 January 1260.
Al-Ashraf Musa (1229–1263), fully Al-Ashraf Musa ibn al-Mansur Ibrahim ibn Shirkuh, was the last Ayyubid Kurdish prince (emir) of Homs, a city located in the central region of modern-day Syria. His rule began in June 1246, but was temporarily cut short in 1248 after he was forced to surrender Homs and then given Tall Bashir by his cousin an-Nasir Yusuf, the Emir of Aleppo. For a short period of time during Mongol rule in 1260, al-Ashraf served as Viceroy of Syria, although the position was largely nominal. He helped achieve the Mongols' defeat at the hands of the Egypt-based Mamluks by withdrawing his troops from the Mongol coalition during the Battle of Ain Jalut as part of a secret agreement with the Mamluk sultan Qutuz. Following the Mamluk victory, al-Ashraf was reinstated as Emir of Homs as a Mamluk vassal, but was stripped of his viceroy position. Since he left no heirs, after his death, Homs was incorporated into the Mamluk Sultanate.
Al-Ashraf Muzaffar ad-Din Musa was the last, albeit titular, Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt as the puppet of Izz ad-Din Aybak.
'Al-Malik al-Kamil Muhammad ibn al-Muzaffar Ghazi ibn al-Adil Abu Bakr was the son of al-Muzaffar Ghazi and the last Ayyubid emir (prince) of Mayyafariqin (1247–1260). He is also known as Al Kamil Muhammad II to distinguish from his uncle Al Kamil Muhammad I.
Al Malik Al-Mujahid Asad ad-Din Shirkuh II or ShirkuhII, was the Kurdish Ayyubid emir of Homs from 1186 to 1240. He was the son of An-Nasir Muhammad ibn Shirkuh, grandson of Shirkuh and first cousin once removed of Saladin. His domains also included Palmyra and ar-Rahba. Al Mujahid became emir at the age of thirteen when his father died unexpectedly in Homs on 4 March 1186.
Al-Mansur II Muhammad was the Ayyubid emir of Hama 1244–1284, son of al-Muzaffar II Mahmud and grandson of al-Mansur I Muhammad. He was the great-great grandson of Saladin’s brother Nur ad-Din Shahanshah. His mother was Ghaziya Khatun.
The siege of Damascus of 1229 was part of an Ayyubid succession war over Damascus that broke out following the death of al-Muʿaẓẓam I in 1227. The late ruler's son, al-Nāṣir Dāʾūd, took de facto control of the city in opposition to al-Kāmil, the Ayyubid sultan in Egypt. In the ensuing war, al-Nāṣir lost Damascus but preserved his autonomy, ruling from al-Karak.
The Khwarazmian army, also called the Khwarazmiyya, maintained itself as a force of freebooters and mercenaries between 1231 and 1246, following the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire (1221) and the death of the last Khwarazmshah, Jalal al-Din (1231). It was active in Upper Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Palestine and shifted its allegiance several times, often acting autonomously before it was defeated and destroyed by the Ayyubids.
Shams al-Dīn Luʾluʾ al-Amīnī was one of the regents of Aleppo for the Ayyūbid ruler al-Nāṣir Yūsuf and later his chief advisor and the commander-in-chief of his armies. He dominated the government of al-Nāṣir from 1242 until his death.
The Qaymariyya were a Kurdish tribe that formed an important military unit under the late Ayyubids and early Mamluks between the 1240s and 1260s. They played a secondary role in the Khwarazmian invasion of Palestine in 1244 and a leading role in the pro-Ayyubid coup d'état in Damascus in 1250.