al-Mustadi bi-Amr Allah al-Hasan ibn al-Mustanjid
Abbasid caliph [566–575], born 536 to an Armenian umm walad; Ibn al-Jawzi: 'he proclaimed the lifting of tolls and the righting of wrongs, showed a justice and largesse we never saw in our days' — 1,300 silk robes cut in his first khil'a. In his reign the Ubaydid state ended and the khutba ran his name from Yemen to Aswan; he died at Shawwal's end, 575.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 8 in the chain · 1170–1180 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ moved to Aleppo — Saʿd al-Dīn Kumashtakīn seizes the regency
In Muharram Saʿd al-Dīn Kumashtakīn fetched the child-king al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl from Damascus to Aleppo, seized Ibn al-Dāya and his brothers and the raʾīs Ibn al-Khashshāb, and made himself sole regent — «براقش على نفسها تجني». Damascus's emirs, fearing the same, offered the city to Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī; on Zulfandār's counsel he refused, suspecting a trap — and so it came to Saladin.
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The battle of the Ford of Sorrows (Jacob's Ford, 575 AH)
The Franks built a strong castle by Jacob's Ford near Banias at the 'Ford of Sorrows'; in 575 Saladin, holding Banias, sent out a foraging escort that the Frankish king's whole host fell upon — he raced up, the Muslims were nearly flung from their stands, then broke the Franks: their king escaped alone while Balian 'ibn Barzan' of Ramla and Nablus, his brother of Jubayl, the lord of Tiberias, the masters of the Templars and Hospitallers and the lord of Janin were taken. Ibn Barzan ransomed himself for 150,000 Tyrian dinars and a thousand Muslim captives; the day's work was Izz al-Din Farrukhshah's, who recited al-Mutanabbi's two verses and threw himself on death — then Saladin demolished the fort.
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Battle of Jacob's Ford
Draft card for the Battle of Jacob's Ford in 1179, Saladin's destruction of the new Crusader castle on the Jordan; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Marj Ayyun
Draft card for the Battle of Marj Ayyun in 1179, Saladin's victory over the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Montgisard
Draft card for the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, the surprise victory of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem over Saladin's army; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Saladin's Defeat at Ramla
In Jumada I 573 AH Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub set out from Egypt for the Syrian coast to raid Frankish lands. He reached Ascalon on the twenty-fourth of the month, and the army plundered, took captives and burned. Since no Frankish army appeared, they grew bold and scattered in raiding, feeling safe. Saladin reached Ramla, intending to besiege some of the Franks' fortresses; the people crowded to cross a river, and the Franks came down on them with their battle lines and champions while only some of the army was with him, most having dispersed in pursuit of spoil. Muhammad, Saladin's nephew, went forward and fought in front of his uncle, and a number of his companions were killed. Ahmad ibn Taqi al-Din, who had only just grown a full beard, charged and was killed as a martyr. The fiercest fighter that day was the jurist Isa al-Hakkari. The Muslims were routed, and some Franks charged at Saladin until they almost reached him. He fled, halting to let the army catch up, until night fell; then he took the desert road with a small party to Egypt. Many of the army's mounts died of hunger and thirst, and most of the raiders were killed or captured. Among the prisoners were the jurist Isa al-Hakkari, a notable of the Asadiyya, and his brother al-Zahir; Saladin ransomed them years later for sixty thousand dinars, along with a group of other captives. Saladin reached Cairo in mid-Jumada II. Ibn al-Athir saw a letter in Saladin's own hand to his brother Turanshah in Damascus describing the battle; it began with two lines of verse.
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Battle of the Horns of Hama
Draft card for the Battle of the Horns of Hama in 1175, Saladin's victory over the Zengid alliance; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Saladin's Conquest of Ayla
In the year 566 Saladin marched from Egypt into Frankish lands and raided the districts of Ascalon and Ramla, then attacked the suburb of Gaza and plundered it. The king of the Franks came against him with a small force; he fought and defeated them, and the king escaped after coming close to capture. Saladin returned to Egypt, had ships made in sections and carried the pieces on camels overland until he reached Ayla. There he assembled the pieces, launched them on the sea, and besieged Ayla by land and sea. He took it in the first ten days of Rabi' II and gave its people and all that was in it to plunder.
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death of al-Mustaḍīʾ — the forty-seven-year caliphate of al-Nāṣir begins
Al-Mustaḍīʾ died on 2 Dhū'l-Qaʿda — nine years and seven months of a caliphate remembered for general security, generosity, and a clemency the people had never seen; «he lived praised and died happy». Ẓahīr al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār secured the bayʿa for his son al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh — opening the longest caliphate in Abbasid history.
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death of King Amalric — Baldwin the leper succeeds, Raymond regent
King Amalric — «مري», the Franks' bravest and craftiest king in Ibn al-Athīr's verdict — died at the year's start, leaving a leper son king in name only. The real rule passed to Count Raymond of Tripoli, newly ransomed from Nūr al-Dīn's prisons for 150,000 Tyrian dinars and a thousand captives.
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Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud
Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zangi, lord of Syria, the Jazira and Egypt's overlord — Wednesday 11 Shawwal 569, of quinsy, in the small prayer-cell he kept in Damascus citadel; refusing cupping ('a man of sixty is not bled'), buried in the citadel then translated to his madrasa by Suq al-Khawwassin. He had been mustering armies from Mosul and the Jazira to take Egypt from Saladin when death overtook him. Ibn al-Athir's verdict: after the Rashidun and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz he read of no king's conduct finer or more scrupulous in justice.
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death of Shamla, lord of Khūzistān
Shamla, the Khazarj-Turkish emir who briefly took Fārs and lorded Khūzistān — ravaging the Ahwāz marches — died this year.
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The Great Earthquake in Syria, 565 AH
In Shawwal 565 the great earthquake struck Syria — most of Damascus and the Umayyad Mosque's porticoes fell, half Aleppo's citadel and its gate, eighty thousand of Hamah's people perished, and Hisn al-Akrad's castle collapsed leaving no trace of its wall.
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Ibn 'Asakir dies and is buried at Bab al-Saghir, 11 Rajab 571/25 January 1176
His son Abu Muhammad al-Qasim said: my father died on 11 Rajab, the sultan Salah al-Din attended the prayer over him, I prayed over him in the Great Mosque and Shaykh Qutb al-Din led it at the Maydan facing the musalla, and he was buried in the cemetery of Bab al-Saghir where his grave is well known and visited — 25 January 1176 — beside his father and the other members of his family.
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Ibn al-Jawzi's Ashura sermon, 568/1172
On 10 Muharram 568 / 1 September 1172 — the day of Ashura — Ibn al-Jawzi preached a popular exhortation before a very large crowd; in the same year the caliph al-Mustadi authorised him to preach a series of sermons in the caliph's presence at the Badr gate.
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The zenith of Ibn al-Jawzi's career at Baghdad, 574/1178–9
The year 574/1178–9 marked the zenith of Ibn al-Jawzi's career at Baghdad: he was directing five madrasas and had already written more than a hundred and fifty works, enjoying excellent relations with the caliph al-Mustadi', the vizier, the ṣāḥib al-makhzin and the chief ʿulamāʾ; in 570 the caliph had a dais (dakka) erected for him in the Palace mosque and he taught in two new madrasas, and under his influence Hanbalism enjoyed great popular prestige in Baghdad.
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Nūr al-Dīn takes Mosul and confirms Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī upon it
Nūr al-Dīn entered and took Mosul, then confirmed Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī ibn Mawdūd as its lord — continuing the city-by-city gathering of Syria and the Jazira until his fellow kings kept only their names.
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Saladin's first siege of Aleppo — the boy-king's speech and the Ismaili knives
At his first siege of Aleppo, the twelve-year-old al-Ṣāliḥ mounted the walls weeping — «you knew my father's goodness; I am your orphan, and this unjust man comes to take my land» — and Aleppo fought for him at Jabal Jawshan. Saʿd al-Dīn bought Sinān's Assassins against Saladin; Khumārtakīn of Būqīs spotted them in camp, one broke for Saladin and was cut down before him. Saladin held the siege until Rajab, when Raymond's march on Homs drew him off.
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Saladin takes Homs and Hama
Saladin took Homs and Hama — Hama's townsfolk resisted a day, then the city fell; he gave them amān while the citadel still held out.
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Salah al-Din enters Damascus without fighting in 570
In 570 Salah al-Din took Damascus without a blow or a thrust — the young al-Salih Isma'il, Nur al-Din's heir, rode in his entourage to Aleppo — then besieged Homs with mangonels, took Hama in Jumada II, besieged Aleppo, doubled back to Homs and Baalbek, and routed Izz al-Din Mas'ud of Mosul's army at the Qurun of Hama in a crushing defeat; he left his brother Sayf al-Islam over Damascus while al-Adil held Egypt.
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Sayf al-Dīn besieges his brother ʿImād al-Dīn at Sinjār — then flees before Saladin
Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī of Mosul besieged his own brother ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī in Sinjār; Saladin's approach toward the Jazira alone broke the siege — Sayf al-Dīn fled home to Mosul.
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Siege of Ayla
Draft card for the Siege of Ayla in 1170, Saladin's capture of the sea fortress from the Franks; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Frankish siege of Hama
In Jumada I of 573 a large Frankish contingent arrived by sea, seizing the chance of the land being empty after Salah al-Din's defeated return from Ramla. The Franks in Syria were gathered, money was distributed among them, and they marched on Hama, besieging it for four days. Its lord, Shihab al-Din Mahmud al-Harimi, Salah al-Din's maternal uncle, was gravely ill; a group of the Salahi army entered and relieved the people. One day the Franks attacked a section of the town and nearly took it by force, but the townspeople joined with the troops, and the Muslims fought with desperate resolve, defending lives, families and property, until they drove the enemy out to the open ground beyond the town. Fighting went on night and day, and the enemy suffered heavy slaughter. The Franks withdrew defeated and went on to besiege Harim. When they had left Hama, its lord al-Harimi died; his son had died three days before him.
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Siege of Harem (1175)
Draft card for Siege of Harem (1175); its sources are not yet checked on the page.