Description
Book SynopsisAhmad ibn Tulun (835–884) governed Egypt on behalf of the Abbasid dynasty for sixteen years. An aggressive and innovative actor, he pursued an ambitious political agenda, including the introduction of dynastic rule over Egypt, that put him at odds with his imperial masters. Throughout, however, he retained close ties to the Abbasid house and at no point did he assert outright independence. In this volume, Matthew Gordon considers Ibn Tulun’s many achievements in office as well as the crises, including the betrayals of his eldest son and close clients, that marred his singular career.
Trade Review‘In the background of Ibn Tulun’s portrait, Matthew Gordon’s alert pen sketches a vivid landscape of ninth-century Egypt, transporting the reader into the heart of the major political and social issues of that transitional century. A book to be put in all hands, both enlightened amateurs and specialists of medieval Islam.’
-- Mathieu Tillier, Professor of History of Medieval Islam, Sorbonne University
‘Meticulously researched, this book offers the first book-length study in English dedicated to Ahmad son of Tulun, the ninth-century Turkish governor sent from the Abbasid capital to rule the rich province of Egypt. Moving between the person of Ibn Tulun and the historical circumstances that formed him and with which he had to wrestle, Mathew Gordon offers an exceptionally engaging study of a crucial period in the Islamic history of Egypt and the caliphate more broadly. Scholars and interested readers will be attracted to the precise yet accessible and delightfully lively image that Gordon presents of this unusual historical figure.’
-- Petra Sijpesteijn, Professor of Arabic, Leiden University
Table of ContentsMaps
Chronology
The Tulunid Household
INTRODUCTION
The Political and Military Setting
Ibn Tulun and Abbasid Politics
Governing Abbasid Egypt
1 THE FIRST DECADE IN OFFICE 868–877
The Appointment to Egypt
The Claim to Full Authority
Pacification and the Tulunid Military
The Imperial Stage
2 THE LAST YEARS IN OFFICE 877–884
The New Syrian Campaign
Father and Son
Tarsus and Damascus
The Question of Legacy
3 GOVERNING EGYPT
Representing Ibn Tulun
Egypt and the Samarran Command
Family and Household
The Tulunid Army and Police
The Tulunid Economy and its Administration
4 CITY AND CEREMONY
Al-Qata’i`
The City as Stage
The Military Command
The Religious Establishment
Damascus, the Abbasid Court, and the Frontier
CONCLUSION: TULUNID FORTUNES
The Amir’s Career
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
