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ISLAMIC
– Ayyubids
Mayyafariqin & Jabal Sinjar. al-‘Adil I Sayf al-Din Ahmad, 589-596 A.H. / 1193-1200 A.D.
Bronze Dirham 29mm (8.22 grams) Type A, Mayyafariqin mint. Dated 591 A.H., struck 1194/1195 A.D.
Reference: Balog, Ayyubids, 337.
Draped facing bust, wearing headdress and mantle, held together by clasp, from which pendant hangs down; in field to left and right, as well as in outer margin, Legend in Kufic.
Legend in Kufic in five lines; around, legend in Kufic.
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 The Ayyubid dynasty (Arabic: الأيوبيون al-Ayyūbīyūn; Kurdish: ئەیووبیەکان ,Eyûbiyan) 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 Nur ad-Din of Syria, 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, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond the frontiers of Egypt to encompass most of the Levant (including the former territories of Nur ad-Din), 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.
After Saladin’s death in 1193, his sons contested control of the sultanate, but Saladin’s brother al-Adil ultimately became the Sultan in 1200. All of the later Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt were his descendants. In the 1230s, the emirs of Syria attempted to assert their independence from Egypt and the Ayyubid realm remained divided until Sultan as-Salih Ayyub restored its unity by subduing most of Syria, except Aleppo, by 1247. By then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hijaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by his son al-Mu’azzam Turanshah. However, the latter was soon overthrown by his Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt. Attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, to wrest back Egypt failed. In 1260 the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids’ remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341.
Despite their relatively short tenure, the Ayyubid dynasty had a transformative effect on the region, particularly Egypt. Under the Ayyubids, Egypt, which had previously been a formally Shi’a caliphate, became the dominant Sunni political and military force, and the economic and cultural centre of the region, a status that it would retain until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517. Throughout the sultanate, Ayyubid rule ushered in an era of economic prosperity, and the facilities and patronage provided by the Ayyubids led to a resurgence in intellectual activity in the Islamic world. This period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas (Islamic schools of law) in their major cities. Even after being toppled by the Mamluks, the sultanate built by Saladin and the Ayyubids would continue in Egypt, the Levant, Hijaz, and Yemen for another 267 years.
For his celebrated triumph over the Crusaders, the crowning achievement of which was the recapture of Jerusalem 99 years after the Crusaders themselves conquered the city from Fatimid Egypt, Saladin is today celebrated as a national hero in several countries that were part of his sultanate, chiefly Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and his birth place of Iraq, with each country, save for Syria, having his heraldic eagle as their national coat of arms.
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