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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.
Asad ad-Dīn Shīrkūh bin Shādhī, also known as Shirkuh, or Şêrko was a Kurdish Mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty, then the Fatimid Caliphate and uncle of Saladin. His military and diplomatic efforts in Egypt were a key factor in establishing the Ayyubid dynasty in that country.
Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.
Al-Adil I was the fourth Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and brother of Saladin, who founded both the Sultanate of Egypt, and the Ayyubid dynasty. He was known to the Crusaders as Saphadin, a name by which he is still known in the Western world. A gifted and effective administrator and organizer, Al-Adil provided crucial military and civilian support for the great campaigns of Saladin. He was also a capable general and strategist in his own right, and was instrumental in the transformation of the decayed Fatimid Caliphate of Cairo into the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt.
The Rasulids or the Rasulid dynasty was a Sunni Muslim Arab dynasty who ruled Yemen from 1229 to 1454.
Islam came to Yemen around 630 during Muhammad's lifetime and the rule of the Persian governor Badhan. Thereafter, Yemen was ruled as part of Arab-Islamic caliphates, and became a province in the Islamic empire.
al-Malik al-Afdal Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb ibn Shādhi ibn Marwān, or simply Najmadin, was a Kurdish Mercenary and politician from Dvin, and the father of Saladin. He is the eponymous ancestor of the Ayyubid dynasty.
Saladin arrived in Egypt in 1163 and ruled it from 1171 until his death in 1193. Egypt was in a state of decay prior to Saladin's rise to power with the political and social situation in shambles. Saladin first arrived in Egypt alongside his uncle Shirkuh on a campaign launched by Nur al-Din. He would rise to prominence under Shirkuh eventually succeeding him as vizier of Egypt. When the Fatimid Caliphate fell in 1171, Saladin was the only remaining authority in Egypt, he would use his increased power and independence to expand his realm and influence.
Shams ad-Din Turanshah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din known simply as Turanshah was the Ayyubid emir (prince) of Yemen (1174–1176), Damascus (1176–1179), Baalbek (1178–1179) and finally Alexandria where he died in 1180. He is noted for strengthening the position of his younger brother, Sultan Saladin, in Egypt and playing the leading role in the Ayyubid conquests of both Nubia and Yemen.
Abu Aziz Qatada ibn Idris al-Hasani al-Alawi al-Yanbu'i al-Makki was the Sharif of Mecca, reigning from 1201 to 1220/1221. He also founded the Banu Qatadah dynasty and established a tradition of sharifs descended from him to rule Mecca which lasted until the office was abolished in 1925. Regarding his sectarian denomination, Qatadah ibn Idris was a Zaidi Shi'ite.
Saiful Islam or Saif al-Islam, may refer to:
The Yemeni Hamdanids was a series of three families descended from the Arab Banū Hamdān tribe, who ruled in northern Yemen between 1099 and 1174. They were expelled from power when the Ayyubids conquered Yemen in 1174. They were a Shia Ismaili dynasty that followed the Fatimid Caliphs based in Egypt. They were also Hafizi Ismaili as opposed to the Taiyabi Ismaili.
Najm al-Dīn Umāra al-Ḥakamī al-Yamanī was a Sunni historian, jurist and poet of Yemen of great repute who was closely associated with the late Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. He was executed by order of Saladin at Cairo on April 6, 1174 for his part in a conspiracy to restore Fatimid rule. His Tarikh al-Yaman is the earliest, and in respects the most important, history of Yemen from the Islamic era.
Muhyi al-DinAbu Ali Abd al-Rahim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Lakhmi al-Baysani al-Asqalani, better known by the honorific name al-Qadi al-Fadil was an official who served the last Fatimid caliphs, and became the secretary and chief counsellor of the first Ayyubid sultan, Saladin.
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.
The Ayyubid conquest of Nubia took place in 1173, between the Nubians of upper Egypt and the Kurdish forces of the Ayyubid commander, Turan-Shah.
In 1173–1174, a conspiracy took place in Cairo in favour of restoring the Isma'ili Shi'a Fatimid Caliphate, which had been abolished by Saladin and replaced with the Ayyubid dynasty in 1171. The conspiracy, which is known only from sources favourable to Saladin, was led by elites of the fallen Fatimid regime, and aimed to seize control over Cairo by taking advantage Saladin's absence from the city on campaign. To this end, they are reported to have contacted the Crusaders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, inviting them to invade Egypt in order to lure Saladin away. The conspirators reportedly also contacted the Nizari Isma'ili Order of Assassins to assassinate Saladin. The veracity of these claims is disputed by modern historians, who consider them inventions aimed to discredit the conspirators. In the event, the conspiracy was betrayed to Saladin, although the sources differ on how exactly. Some even hold that the conspiracy was precipitated by Saladin as a political purge, or as a means of demonstrating to his increasingly hostile nominal master, the emir of Aleppo and Damascus, Nur al-Din Zengi, that Egypt was still unruly and that Saladin was indispensable to keep the opposition in check. The Ayyubid ruler struck on 31 March 1174 and arrested the conspiracy's ringleaders, among them the celebrated poet Umara al-Yamani. The chief conspirators were executed at the Bayn al-Qasrayn square from 6 April until 23 May, while others were exiled. A pro-Fatimid revolt in Upper Egypt followed, but was suppressed in September by Saladin's brother, al-Adil.