An outline, era by era

Fatimids, Seljuks, Ayyubids (Saladin), Mamluks

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

From the tenth to the early sixteenth century, four major powers, often overlapping in time, shaped the Middle East. The Fatimids, an Ismaili Shia dynasty, founded Cairo in 969 and ruled Egypt and parts of North Africa and Syria as rival caliphs to the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad. The Seljuks, Turkish warriors from Central Asia, took Baghdad in 1055, ruled as sultans under the Abbasid caliph, and pushed into Anatolia after 1071.

The Ayyubids were a dynasty founded by Saladin (Salah al-Din), a Kurdish commander who ended Fatimid rule in 1171, brought Egypt and much of Syria under his growing authority, and recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. The Mamluks, originally slave soldiers of the Ayyubids, took power in Egypt in 1250 and ruled Egypt and Syria until the Ottoman conquest in 1517. They stopped the Mongols and finished off the Crusader states. Together these states set the political and religious map of the region before the Ottomans.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Fatimids found Cairo

    Event

    What happened

    In 909 the Fatimids, who claim descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatima, found a caliphate in Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia). In 969 their general Jawhar conquers Egypt for the caliph al-Mu'izz and lays out a new palace city, al-Qahira, next to the older capital Fustat. The caliph arrives in 973, and the mosque of al-Azhar is founded in 970 to 972.

    The rest is history

    Cairo became the capital of Egypt and has remained so for over a thousand years. The Fatimids ruled Egypt until 1171, and for a time their authority reached Syria, the Hijaz and Sicily. Their claim to the caliphate challenged the Abbasids directly. Al-Azhar grew into a major centre of learning and still operates today.

    Sources

    1. BookBrett, Michael. The Fatimid Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
    2. Primaryal-Maqrizi. Al-Mawa'iz wa'l-i'tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa'l-athar (Description of the quarters and monuments of Cairo). Arabic topographical history, 15th century.

  2. The Seljuks take Baghdad

    Event

    What happened

    The Seljuks, a Turkish dynasty from the Oghuz peoples, conquer Khurasan in the 1030s, defeating the Ghaznavids at Dandanqan in 1040. In 1055 Tughril Beg enters Baghdad, ending the control of the Shia Buyids over the Abbasid caliph. The caliph gives him the title of sultan.

    The rest is history

    The Seljuks became the dominant power in the eastern Islamic world, ruling in the name of the Sunni caliph. This restored Sunni political leadership in Baghdad, and the vizier Nizam al-Mulk later founded madrasas to support it. The arrangement of a sultan holding power and a caliph holding religious legitimacy lasted for generations.

    Sources

    1. BookPeacock, A. C. S. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.

  3. Manzikert and Turkish settlement in Anatolia

    Event

    What happened

    On 26 August 1071 the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeats the Byzantine army of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes near Manzikert, in eastern Anatolia, and captures the emperor. Romanos is released on terms. Civil war then breaks out in Byzantium, and Turkmen bands move into Anatolia.

    The rest is history

    Historians now see Manzikert less as an instant catastrophe than as the start of a slow shift. Byzantine infighting after 1071 let Turkish groups settle widely. Within a generation Suleiman ibn Qutlumush founded a Seljuk sultanate at Nicaea, later centred on Konya. Byzantine losses helped lead Alexios I to appeal for Western help, which fed into the First Crusade.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAttaleiates, Michael. The History. Byzantine chronicle, c. 1080. Translated by Anthony Kaldellis and Dimitris Krallis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
    2. BookFriendly, Alfred. The Dreadful Day: The Battle of Manzikert, 1071. London: Hutchinson, 1981.

  4. The First Crusade and the Crusader states

    Event

    What happened

    After Pope Urban II's call in 1095, Western armies cross Anatolia and Syria. They take Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in July 1099, when the Fatimids had just retaken the city from Seljuk-allied rulers. The crusaders set up the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.

    The rest is history

    The Seljuk world was divided among rival emirs and princes after the death of Malik-Shah in 1092, which helps explain the crusaders' success. The Fatimids were also weakened. The Crusader states survived for nearly two centuries, and their fall came at the hands of the Zengids, Ayyubids and Mamluks. Acre, the last major stronghold, fell in 1291.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryIbn al-Athir. Al-Kamil fi'l-ta'rikh (The Complete History). Arabic chronicle, early 13th century. Translated by D. S. Richards as The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006-2008.
    2. BookAsbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

  5. Saladin ends the Fatimid caliphate

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1160s the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din of Aleppo and Damascus and the Kingdom of Jerusalem compete for control of weakened Fatimid Egypt. Nur al-Din's Kurdish general Shirkuh takes Egypt in 1169, and when he dies his nephew Saladin becomes vizier. In 1171, on the death of the last Fatimid caliph al-Adid, Saladin has the Friday prayer said in the name of the Abbasid caliph.

    The rest is history

    This ended the Fatimid caliphate and returned Egypt to Sunni rule. After Nur al-Din died in 1174, Saladin gradually extended his authority over much of Syria as well, by diplomacy and war, creating the Ayyubid realm. Ayyubid princes, relatives of Saladin, ruled in Egypt, Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere until the mid-thirteenth century, and the realm stayed divided among them rather than becoming a centralized state.

    Sources

    1. BookLyons, Malcolm C., and D. E. P. Jackson. Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
    2. PrimaryIbn Shaddad, Baha' al-Din. al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya (The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin). Arabic biography, c. 1200. Translated by D. S. Richards. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

  6. Hattin and the recovery of Jerusalem

    Event

    What happened

    On 4 July 1187 Saladin's army destroys the main field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin, near Tiberias, and takes King Guy of Lusignan prisoner. Saladin then takes Acre and other towns, and Jerusalem surrenders on 2 October 1187. The city's residents are allowed to ransom themselves.

    The rest is history

    The loss of Jerusalem prompted the Third Crusade (1189 to 1192), led by Richard I of England, Philip II of France and, at first, Frederick Barbarossa. Richard retook Acre and Jaffa but could not reach Jerusalem. The Treaty of Jaffa in 1192 left the coast in Crusader hands and gave pilgrims access to Jerusalem. Saladin died in Damascus in March 1193.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryImad al-Din al-Isfahani. Al-Fath al-qussi fi'l-fath al-qudsi (The Eloquent Account of the Conquest of Jerusalem). Arabic chronicle, c. 1190s.
    2. BookHamilton, Bernard. The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

  7. The Mamluks seize power in Egypt

    Event

    What happened

    The Ayyubid sultans of Egypt buy young Turkish and Kipchak slave soldiers, called mamluks. In 1249 Louis IX of France invades Egypt, is checked at Mansura, and is defeated and captured at Fariskur in April 1250. In 1250 the sultan al-Salih's son Turanshah is killed by his own mamluks, and the sultan's widow Shajar al-Durr briefly rules. Aybak, a mamluk commander, soon becomes sultan.

    The rest is history

    The Mamluk sultanate lasted from 1250 to 1517. Its rulers were mostly former slave soldiers, and succession often went to the strongest emir rather than a son. Egypt and Syria were ruled by this military elite, who also supported mosques, madrasas and hospitals in Cairo. Some Ayyubid princes held on in Syria for a time before the Mamluks absorbed them.

    Sources

    1. BookIrwin, Robert. The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250-1382. London: Croom Helm, 1986.
    2. PrimaryJoinville, Jean de. Vie de saint Louis (Life of Saint Louis). French memoir, c. 1309. Translated in Chronicles of the Crusades. London: Penguin, 2008.

  8. Ain Jalut and the end of the Crusader states

    Event

    What happened

    The Mongols sack Baghdad in 1258, ending the Abbasid caliphate there, and take Damascus in 1260. On 3 September 1260 the Mamluk army under Qutuz and Baybars defeats a Mongol force at Ain Jalut in Palestine. Baybars then becomes sultan and campaigns against the Crusaders. His successors take Tripoli in 1289 and Acre in 1291.

    The rest is history

    Ain Jalut halted the Mongol advance into Egypt, though the Mongols raided Syria again later. Baybars took Antioch in 1268 and set up an Abbasid caliph in Cairo as a figurehead in 1261, which gave Mamluk rule religious cover. With Acre's fall in 1291 the Crusaders lost their last mainland stronghold in the Levant.

    Sources

    1. BookAmitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
    2. Primaryal-Maqrizi. Kitab al-suluk li-ma'rifat duwal al-muluk (Book of Entry into the Knowledge of the Dynasties of Kings). Arabic chronicle, 15th century.

  9. Saladin and Richard the Lionheart as chivalrous rivals

    Folk tale

    The legend

    During the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart falls ill and Saladin sends him fruit, snow and his own physician. In the tale, the two enemy kings admire each other and trade courtesies, with Saladin even said to have been knighted by a Christian knight.

    The rest is history

    Some courtesies are recorded in Muslim and Latin sources: Saladin's biographer Ibn Shaddad describes envoys, gifts of fruit and ice during illnesses, and long talks with Richard's brother-in-law al-Adil. The two kings never met. Saladin's knighting is a later legend, found in the French Ordene de chevalerie of the thirteenth century. Sir Walter Scott's novel The Talisman (1825) helped fix the image of two chivalrous opponents in popular memory. Real negotiations did produce the Treaty of Jaffa in September 1192.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryIbn Shaddad, Baha' al-Din. al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya (The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin). Arabic biography, c. 1200. Translated by D. S. Richards. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
    2. BookHillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.

  10. The Assassins and the Old Man of the Mountain

    Folk tale

    The legend

    In the Assassin tale, a leader known as the Old Man of the Mountain drugs young followers with hashish and carries them to a secret garden of paradise. Told that they will return there if they die, they carry out murders on his orders without fear. Marco Polo repeats a version of this.

    The rest is history

    The Nizari Ismailis, a branch of Ismaili Shia Islam, did hold mountain forts in Iran (Alamut, from 1090) and Syria, and did use targeted killings against Seljuk and other officials, including the vizier Nizam al-Mulk in 1092. The garden and drug story appears in Western accounts from the Crusader period and Marco Polo's later book, and is not supported by Ismaili sources. The word hashishiyya was probably used as an insult. Rashid al-Din Sinan led the Syrian branch, and the Mongols destroyed Alamut in 1256.

    Sources

    1. BookDaftary, Farhad. A Short History of the Ismailis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
    2. PrimaryPolo, Marco. Il Milione (The Travels of Marco Polo). Franco-Italian text, c. 1300.

  11. The mad caliph al-Hakim

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The Fatimid caliph al-Hakim is often remembered as a capricious tyrant who banned dogs, certain foods and women from going out, and who supposedly vanished one night in 1021 on a hill outside Cairo.

    The rest is history

    Al-Hakim (ruled 996 to 1021) did issue many strange decrees, and in 1009 he ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Chroniclers hostile to him, such as Yahya of Antioch, record these acts, though modern historians point out that some decrees were enforced loosely and some may be exaggerated. He disappeared in February 1021 and his body was never found. The Druze movement formed through Ismaili missionary activity during and after his reign, and its followers came to regard him as divine and hidden. What happened to him is unknown; some medieval accounts suggest he was murdered, and one reconstruction blames his sister, but this is speculation.

    Sources

    1. BookWalker, Paul E. Caliph of Cairo: Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 996-1021. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2009.
    2. PrimaryYahya ibn Sa'id al-Antaki. Ta'rikh (Chronicle). Arabic chronicle, early 11th century.

  12. Shajar al-Durr, the slave who became sultana

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Shajar al-Durr, a slave woman who became the wife of the Ayyubid sultan al-Salih, hides her husband's death in 1249 while Louis IX's crusaders approach. She keeps the army and government running, issues orders in his name, and after the victory is proclaimed sultana herself.

    The rest is history

    Chroniclers such as al-Maqrizi and Joinville agree that the sultan's death was concealed during the crisis at Mansura. Shajar al-Durr did rule briefly in 1250 and coins were struck in her name. The Abbasid caliph objected to a woman ruling, and she married Aybak to keep power. She had him killed in 1257 and was herself killed soon after by his first wife's slave women. Her story remains central to Egyptian memory.

    Sources

    1. Primaryal-Maqrizi. Kitab al-suluk li-ma'rifat duwal al-muluk (Book of Entry into the Knowledge of the Dynasties of Kings). Arabic chronicle, 15th century.
    2. BookIrwin, Robert. The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250-1382. London: Croom Helm, 1986.

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