Alp Arslan, born Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri, was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. He greatly expanded the Seljuk territory and consolidated his power, defeating rivals to the south and northwest, and his victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, in 1071, ushered in the Turkoman settlement of Anatolia.
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dynasty of Arab origin, trace their ancestry to Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the first Shi‘a imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful Imams by different Isma‘ili communities, as well as by denominations in many other Muslim lands and adjacent regions. Originating during the Abbasid Caliphate, the Fatimids conquered Ifriqiya and established the city of al-Mahdiyya. The Ismaili dynasty ruled territories across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included – in addition to Egypt – varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hijaz.
Abu Sa'id Taj al-Dawla Tutush or Tutush I, was the Seljuk emir of Damascus from 1078 to 1092, and sultan of Damascus from 1092 to 1094.
Abu Said Aq Sunqur al-Hajib was the Seljuk governor of Aleppo under Sultan Malik Shah I. He was considered the de facto ruler of most of Syria from 1087. He was beheaded in 1094 following accusations of treason by Tutush I, the ruler of Damascus.
Ridwan was a Seljuk emir of Aleppo from 1095 until his death.
Al-Afdal Shahanshah, born Abu al-Qasim Shahanshah bin Badr al-Jamali was a vizier of the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt. According to a later biographical encyclopedia, he was surnamed al-Malik al-Afdal, but this is not supported by contemporary sources.
Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn al-Mustanṣir, better known by his regnal name al-Mustaʿlī Biʾllāh, was the ninth Fatimid caliph and the nineteenth imam of Musta'li Ismailism.
Abuʾl-Ḥārith Arslān al-Muẓaffar al-Basāsīrī was a Turkish slave-soldier (mamlūk) who rose to become a military commander of the Buwayhid dynasty in Iraq. When the Buwayhids were ousted by the Seljuks in 1055, he transferred his allegiance to the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, in whose name he conquered Baghdad, which he ruled for almost a year.
The Complete History, is a classic Islamic history book written by Ali ibn al-Athir. Composed in ca. 1231AD/628AH, it is one of the most important Islamic historical works. Ibn al-Athir was a contemporary and member of the retinue of Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders and massively reduced European holdings in the Levant, leaving the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli much reduced and only a few cities on the coast to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Rukn al-Din Abu'l-Muzaffar Berkyaruq ibn Malikshah, better known as Berkyaruq (برکیارق), was the fifth sultan of the Seljuk Empire from 1094 to 1105.
Abū'l-Najm Badr ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Jamālī al-Mustanṣirī, better known as Badr al-Jamali was a vizier and prominent statesman for the Fatimid Caliphate under Caliph al-Mustansir. His appointment to the vizierate in 1073 restored the fortunes of the Fatimid state, which had faced collapse in the previous decades, but also began a period where the vizierate was dominated by military strongmen who held power through their military strength, rather than through the Caliph's appointment. An Armenian, Badr al-Jamali initiated a wave of Armenian migration into Egypt, and was the first of a series of viziers of Armenian origin, who played a major role in the fortunes of the Fatimid Caliphate over the subsequent century.
Zaheer-ul-Daulah Artuk Beg, known as Artuk Bey, was a Turkoman commander of the Seljuk Empire in the 11th century, chief of the Oghuz tribe of Döğer, and eponymous founder of the Artuqid dynasty. His father's name was Eksük. He was the Seljuk governor of Jerusalem between 1085–1091. Although the Artuqid dynasty was named after him, actually the dynasty was founded by his sons Sökmen and Ilghazi after his death. He was also father to Alp-Yaruq, Bahram, Abd al-Jabar, and three other sons.
Abu'l-Makarim Muslim ibn Qirwash also known by the honorific title Sharaf al-Dawla, was the Uqaylid emir of Mosul and Aleppo. He died in June 1085.
Nasir al-Dawla Abu Muhammad al-Husayn ibn Hamdan 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.
The Jarrahids were an Arab dynasty that intermittently ruled Palestine and controlled Transjordan and northern Arabia in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. They were described by historian Marius Canard (1888–1982) as a significant player in the Byzantine–Fatimid wars in Syria who "created for themselves, in their own best interests, a rule of duplicity, treason and pillage". They were the ruling family of the Tayy tribe, one of the three powerful tribes of Syria at the time; the other two were Kalb and Kilab.
Sharaf al-Maʿālī Abu Manṣūr Anūshtakīn al-Dizbarī was a Fatimid statesman and general who became the most powerful Fatimid governor of Syria. Under his Damascus-based administration, all of Syria was united under a single Fatimid authority. Near-contemporary historians, including Ibn al-Qalanisi of Damascus and Ibn al-Adim of Aleppo, noted Anushtakin's wealth, just rule and fair treatment of the population, with whom he was popular.
Irtash was a Seljuk emir of Damascus in 1104. Irtash was born to Taj ad-Dawla Tutush, the brother of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I who established a principality in Syria after his brother gave the region and the adjacent areas to him. Following the death of Malik-Shah, Tutush claimed the Seljuk crown, but he was killed by the forces of his nephew Berkyaruq near Ray. Subsequently, Irtash's brother Ridwan moved to Aleppo and proclaimed himself the new emir. Irtash's other brother Duqaq's declaration of a new emirate in Damascus separated the Syrian Seljuk state into two and started a rivalry between the two brothers. Duqaq then imprisoned Irtash for nine years in Baalbek.
The history of Jerusalem during the Early Muslim period covers the period between the capture of the city from the Byzantines by the Arab Muslim armies of the nascent Caliphate in 637–638 CE, and its conquest by the European Catholic armies of the First Crusade in 1099. Throughout this period, Jerusalem remained a largely Christian city with smaller Muslim and Jewish communities. It was successively part of several Muslim states, beginning with the Rashidun caliphs of Medina, the Umayyads of Syria, the Abbasids of Baghdad and their nominal Turkish vassals in Egypt, and the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo, who struggled over it with the Turkic Seljuks and different other regional powers, only to finally lose it to the Crusaders.
The battle of Ayn Saylam was a battle between the forces of Tutush, the Seljuk ruler of Syria and brother of the Seljuk sultan Malik Shah, and Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, the Seljuk ruler of Anatolia in June 1086 close to the city of Aleppo.
The Battle of al-Uqhuwana was fought at a place east of Lake Tiberias in May 1029 between the Fatimid Caliphate under general Anushtakin al-Dizbari and a coalition of Syrian Bedouin tribes. The latter was represented by the Tayy tribe of Palestine led by the Jarrahid emir Hassan ibn al-Mufarrij and the Kilab tribe of Aleppo under the Mirdasid emir Salih ibn Mirdas. The Fatimids were backed by one of the Bedouin coalition's former constituent tribes, the Kalb under the emir Rafi ibn Abi'l-Layl. The battle ended in the Fatimids' most decisive victory over the Bedouin tribes of Syria. Salih was slain and the Mirdasids' quickly lost several strategic towns, while Hassan and the Tayy long retreated from their traditional stomping grounds. Fatimid rule was consequently reasserted over Palestine and southern Syria, including Damascus after several years of Bedouin domination.
