al-Mustansir bi'llah Mansur ibn al-Zahir
Abbasid caliph [623–640], hailed Rajab 623; builder of the Mustansiriyya — four madhhab chairs, bimaristan, kitchen, hammam, 70,000-mithqal waqf. His host once routed the Tatars; in 632 he struck silver dirhams to spare people usurious gold-cutting. His fierce brother al-Khafaji was passed over for his mild son Ahmad.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 11 in the chain · 1226–1242 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
-
Abbasid Investiture of Ibn Hud
Ibn Hud, having risen against the Almohads and taken al-Andalus, proclaimed the Abbasid caliph; the investiture document and black robes arrived from Baghdad, and the qadi Abu l-Mutarrif congratulated him that its day resembled the day the black banners came out of Khurasan — the Abbasid da'wa preached once more in al-Andalus.
-
al-Ashraf takes Damascus
al-Ashraf took Damascus after his brother al-Mu'azzam's death, displacing the weak al-Nasir Dawud.
-
War between al-Ashraf's and Jalal al-Din's armies
al-Ashraf's and Jalal al-Din's armies clashed in the Jazira.
-
Al-Malik al-Ashraf takes Damascus from his nephew Dawud
On Monday, 2 Sha'ban 626, al-Malik al-Ashraf ibn al-Malik al-Adil took Damascus from his nephew Salah al-Din Dawud ibn al-Mu'azzam. Dawud had sought the help of his uncle al-Ashraf against his uncle al-Kamil, and al-Ashraf entered Damascus and swore to assist him; then al-Ashraf and al-Kamil reconciled. While Dawud and al-Ashraf were sitting in a tent, Izz al-Din Aybak, a mamluk of al-Mu'azzam and the greatest of the amirs, came in together with his son and told Dawud: «Get up and leave, the seizure is now», since he had been told that al-Ashraf meant to seize his companion. So he took Dawud out, and al-Ashraf could not prevent it, because Aybak had mounted all his army and they marched on Damascus. Al-Ashraf went and besieged the city until al-Kamil arrived, and the siege grew tight. The greatest hardship for Dawud was lack of money, because his wealth was at al-Karak and, trusting his uncle, he had brought none of it; he was obliged to sell the jewellery and clothing of his women. He went out to his uncle al-Kamil and offered to surrender Damascus on condition that al-Karak, the citadel of Shawbak, al-Ghawr, Nablus and those districts remain his, and that Aybak keep the citadel of Salkhad and its districts. Al-Kamil handed over Damascus and set his deputy in the citadel until his brother al-Ashraf handed over to him Harran, al-Ruha, al-Raqqa, Sarudj and Ras al-Ayn of al-Jazira; when he received them, he handed the citadel of Damascus to al-Ashraf.
-
Battle of Amid (1231)
Draft card for Battle of Amid (1231); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Battle of Gaza
Draft card for the Battle of Gaza in 1239, the Ayyubid defeat by the Barons' Crusade; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Battle of Hama (1230)
Draft card for Battle of Hama (1230); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Birth of Imam al-Nawawi at Nawa, 631/1233
Muhyi al-Din Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Sharaf ibn Murri al-Hizami al-Dimashqi, known as al-Nawawi, was born in the town of Nawa in the Hawran, in the Jawlan south of Damascus, in Muharram 631 (October 1233). He read the Qur'an in his home town while still a boy, whose early promise was already noticed.
-
The Tatar Raid on Daquqa in 635 AH
In 635 the Tatars reached Daquqa plundering; the caliph's amir Biklik met them with seven thousand against ten, and the Muslims — having killed many and near victory — were routed, Biklik and a group of great amirs falling.
-
Death of al-Malik al-Mu'azzam of Damascus
al-Mu'azzam Isa of Damascus died; his son al-Nasir Dawud succeeded, and the Ayyubid balance shifted.
-
Death of Caliph al-Mustansir Billah and accession of al-Musta'sim in 640
Caliph al-Mustansir Billah died Friday morning, 10 Jumada II 640; the people mourned greatly and his son Abdallah al-Musta'sim was proclaimed.
-
Muzaffar al-Din of Irbil marches on Mosul and returns
Muzaffar al-Din Kokburi of Irbil marched on Mosul and returned without success.
-
Frankish expedition to Syria; Sidon refortified
A Frankish expedition reached Syria and rebuilt Sidon's defenses while the Muslims were divided.
-
The Georgians enter and burn Tiflis
The Georgians entered and burned Tiflis after its people defected from Jalal al-Din and called them in.
-
Ibn al-Nafis studies medicine under Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar at Damascus, before 628/1230
Ibn al-Nafis studied medicine under the shaykh Muhadhdhib al-Din al-Dakhwar, Damascus's shaykh of medicine and endower of the physicians' madrasa in the old goldsmiths' quarter, and he excelled in the craft and in treatment; al-Dakhwar died in 628/1230, so the apprenticeship predates that year. Tariq al-Suwaydan's al-Mubdi'un adds that a health crisis in 629 AH, when he was twenty-two, drove him to medicine, and that he enrolled at the Nuri hospital in Damascus studying under Muhadhdhib al-Din Abd al-Rahim and Imran al-Isra'ili.
-
Ibn al-Salah takes the mashyakha of the al-Ashrafiyya dar al-hadith, then the Shamiyya al-Sughra, 630/1233
In 630/1233 Ibn al-Salah took the mashyakha of the al-Ashrafiyya dar al-hadith in Damascus: when al-Malik al-Ashraf built the dar al-hadith he entrusted its teaching to him, then the Shamiyya al-Sughra — the madrasa of Sitt al-Sham opposite the Nur al-Din bimaristan. He discharged all three posts — Rawahiyya, Ashrafiyya and Shamiyya — without neglecting a single one.
-
Ibn Khallikan settles with Ibn al-Salah at Damascus and gathers his fatwas, 632/1235
Ibn Khallikan wrote that Ibn al-Salah was one of the most eminent men of his age in tafsir, hadith and fiqh, with a share in several disciplines, that his fatwas were sound, and that he was 'one of the shaykhs from whom I benefited': he stayed with him to study in 632, and collected his fatwas in a volume. Ibn Khallikan was at Damascus from Shawwal 632/June–July 1235.
-
Jalal al-Din reaches Amid and is routed there
Jalal al-Din reached Amid and was utterly routed by the Mongols; Ibn al-Athir reports a merchant's estimate of more than fifteen thousand Muslim dead.
-
Jalal al-Din plunders Armenia
Jalal al-Din plundered Armenia so hard that ruin spread across it.
-
Jalal al-Din besieges and takes Khilat
Jalal al-Din besieged Khilat until he took it — his greatest prize in the Rum-Armenian marches.
-
Jalal al-Din's first siege of Khilat
Jalal al-Din besieged Khilat hard and withdrew — he returned and took it in 626.
-
Ruin of Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah and devastation of al-Jazira, 628 AH
In 628 the Tatars, learning of Jalal al-Din's weakness, rushed Azerbaijan; he would not face them, Maragha fell, his army scattered, and they surprised him by night — he escaped alone, and the Kurds and peasants plundered his followers; God took vengeance on them all. The Tatars then bore to Mardin slaying and enslaving, entered Amid killing over twenty thousand, repeated it in Azerbaijan, and settled their rule beyond the Oxus while Khurasan's cities lay desolate.
-
Defeat of Jalal al-Din al-Khwarazmi, 627 AH
In 627 the Syrians and their allies combined against the Khwarazmians; meeting Jalal al-Din in Ramadan they broke him, plundered his army, and he fled to Khilat among seven men — his army shredded, his champions slain — thence to Azerbaijan, suing al-Ashraf for peace in abasement. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi: 'God routed the Khwarazmians at the lightest cost, by an event beyond all reckoning — praise to Him who demolished that firm mountain in the blink of an eye'.
-
Jalal al-Din takes the city of Tiflis from the Georgians
On 8 Rabi' I 623 Jalal al-Din b. Khwarazmshah took the city of Tiflis from the Georgians. He marched against them after they had mustered an uncounted host from neighbouring peoples, the Alans, the Lakz and the Qipchaq; he set ambushes in several places, and when the armies met the Georgians fled. He ordered his troops to spare no one, and they pursued until they nearly annihilated them. Some urged him to march on Tiflis, the seat of their kingdom, but he said: 'We have no need to kill our men beneath the walls; if the Georgians are wiped out, the land will be taken whole.' He set out against it with three thousand horsemen, most of his army hidden in ambush. When the Georgians came out, thinking him few, he drew back until they had passed into the ambushes; they fled into the city, the Muslims followed, its Muslim people called out the cry of Islam and Jalal al-Din's name, the Georgians laid down their arms, and the Muslims took the city by storm. Ibn al-Athir mentions that it was among the strongest cities on both banks of the Kur river, that the Georgians had seized it in 515 when Sultan Mahmud b. Muhammad b. Malikshah reigned, and that neither he nor his brother Mas'ud, nor al-Dukuz and al-Bahlawan after them, could take it, until Jalal al-Din came, when the land had first been weakened by the Georgians and then uprooted by the Tatars; and so he did these deeds to them.
-
Building of the Mosque of Repentance at al-Uqayba, 632
In 632 al-Malik al-Ashraf began converting Khan al-Zanjari at al-Uqayba in Damascus — a khan known for debauchery, error and wine — into a mosque, naming it Jami' al-Tawba, the Mosque of Repentance, and endowing it richly.
-
Al-Kamil hands Jerusalem to the emperor, 626 AH
In 626 al-Kamil surrendered Jerusalem to the Frankish emperor, who had written: 'you summoned me, the Pope and the kings know of my zeal, and if I return empty-handed my honour is broken — yet you have ruined Jerusalem and its revenue is slight, so grant me its keys that my head may rise among the kings and I will remit its income to you.' The cession passed; al-Kamil then besieged Damascus for months until the Sha'ban truce left al-Nasir only Karak and Nablus.
-
al-Kamil takes Hama
al-Kamil took Hama and added it to his Syrian holdings.
-
Al-Malik al-Kamil takes Amid, 630
In 630 al-Kamil besieged Amid and took it from its lord al-Malik al-Mas'ud; battered by mangonels, al-Mas'ud came out with a kerchief round his neck and yielded the city. When he surrendered every fortress save Kayfa, al-Kamil tortured him for it — a prince he loathed, and justly infamous: they found five hundred free women seized as concubines in his palace.
-
War between Kayqubad and the lord of Amid
War ran between Kayqubad I of Rum and the Artuqid lord of Amid.
-
The Mongols Enter Diyar Bakr and al-Jazira
In 628, after Jalal al-Din ibn Khwarazm-shah was routed by the Mongols at Amid, they plundered the countryside of Amid, Arzan and Mayyafariqin, then marched on the city of Sa'ird. Its people fought them until they were granted safe-conduct; they trusted and surrendered, and once the Mongols had them in their power they put them to the sword. Ibn al-Athir reports from a merchant that the dead were estimated at more than fifteen thousand. They did the same at Tanza, then went to the valley of al-Qurayshiyya, where a Kurdish group called the Qurayshiyya fought them, repelled them and held their ground, so the Mongols turned back without reaching their aim. They then marched unopposed to Mardin and plundered its countryside, while its people sheltered in the citadel; to Nusaybin of al-Jazira, where they stayed part of a day, plundered its environs and withdrew; to the mountains of Sinjar, the Khabur and 'Arabanan; and to the village of al-Mu'nisa, a day's march from Nusaybin on the way to Mosul, whose people took refuge in an inn, and the Mongols killed everyone in it. Ibn al-Athir also tells of a man who hid in a room full of straw and watched through a window: when they wished to kill someone, the victim said 'la billah' ('no, by God') and they killed him anyway. Later he saw them playing on horseback, laughing and singing in their own language, 'la billah'. He tells too of a man with seventeen companions who was met by a Mongol horseman ordering them to bind one another; none dared kill his companion until the man took a knife and killed him, and they escaped. They then went to Bidlis and burned the city after its people had fortified themselves in the citadel and the mountains; to Bakri, in the districts of Khilat, one of the strongest places, which they took by storm, killing all within; and to Arjish, where they did likewise in Dhu'l-Hijja. A group came from Azerbaijan into the districts of Irbil and on the way killed Turkmen of the Ayvā'iyya, Kurds and al-Jawzaqan, plundering the villages until they entered the land of Irbil. Muzaffar al-Din, lord of Irbil, marched out with his troops, seeking reinforcement from Mosul's forces; when he learned they had gone back to Azerbaijan, he stayed put and did not pursue them. The Mongols reached al-Karkhini and Daquqa and returned safely, no one having frightened them.
-
A Mongol detachment reaches Irbil and Daquqa
A Mongol detachment reached Irbil and Daquqa, plundering and spreading terror into Iraq.
-
The Mongols enter Diyar Bakr and the Jazira
The Mongols entered Diyar Bakr and the Jazira — killing, plundering, ruining the countryside, levying money.
-
Building the Mustansiriyya madrasa in Baghdad
Al-Mustansir's madrasa on Tigris's east bank — 'none finer on earth', says Ibn Wasil — four chairs for the four madhhabs, a bimaristan, a fuqaha' kitchen, a cold-water chamber, stipends of mats, oil, paper, ink and a dinar a month, and a bath 'never done before'. Al-Dhahabi: its waqf yielded seventy thousand mithqals a year; built 625–631, stocked with a hundred and sixty camel-loads of choice books, two hundred and forty-eight jurists with masters of hadith, grammar, medicine and inheritance-law, thirty orphans; opened on a Thursday in Rajab before the judges and notables.
-
Al-Qifti shelters Yaqut al-Hamawi at Aleppo, c. 625/1228
Al-Qifti used his influential office to further scholarship: he sheltered at Aleppo Yaqut al-Hamawi, who had fled the Mongols, and gave him much help in the compilation of his great geographical dictionary; this fell within his years over the diwan of finances before his dismissal in 628.
-
Al-Qifti is dismissed at his own request and turns to writing, 628/1230
Dismissed at his own request in 628/1230, al-Qifti was able to devote a few years to his own studies until al-Malik al-Aziz appointed him vizier in 633/1236.
-
Al-Malik al-Aziz appoints al-Qifti vizier of Aleppo, 633/1236
Al-Malik al-Aziz Muhammad appointed al-Qifti vizier in 633/1236; al-Aziz died in Rabi' I 634, leaving his child al-Nasir Yusuf as heir.
-
Sack of Erbil (1236)
Draft card for Sack of Erbil (1236); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Al-Salih Isma'il takes Damascus and al-Salih Ayyub takes Egypt in 637
Safar 637: al-Salih Isma'il b. al-Adil storms Damascus and takes its citadel; al-Salih Ayyub, released from Karak by al-Nasir Dawud, reaches Egypt where the Kamiliyya arrest al-Adil II and make him sultan — al-Nasir returns empty-handed.
-
Shaqif Castle handed to the Franks, 638
In 638 al-Salih Isma'il surrendered Beaufort castle to the Franks for his own purpose; the Muslims hated him for it — Ibn Abd al-Salam and Ibn al-Hajib denounced him and were jailed, Ibn Abd al-Salam removed from Damascus's minbar.
-
Siege of Damascus (1229)
Draft card for the Siege of Damascus in 1229, an episode of the Ayyubid succession war between al-Ashraf and al-Nasir Dawud; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
Siege of Tbilisi (1226)
Draft card for Siege of Tbilisi (1226); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
The Tatars Take Arbil by the Sword in 634 AH
In 634 the Tatars descended on Arbil, besieged it and took it by the sword until the city was choked with corpses, departing with countless spoils — the Begteginid capital overrun.
-
The Tatar Raid on Shahrazur in 629 AH
In 629, with Jalal al-Din dead, the Tatars raided as far as Shahrazur; the caliph al-Mustansir spent on armies sent with Qushtumur al-Nasiri, who joined Muzaffar al-Din Kokburi of Arbil, and the Tatars fell back.
-
Yaqut's second journey to Egypt and Damascus for trade, 624/1227
Under al-Qifti's patronage at Aleppo Yaqut amassed considerable funds, and travelled to Egypt with a cargo of raw cloth, returning with another cargo that brought him profit. This was his second Aleppo–Egypt–Damascus journey, in 624/1227.
-
Yaqut begins the definitive edition of the Mujam al-Buldan for al-Qifti's library, 21 Muharram 625/1 January 1228
On 21 Muharram 625/1 January 1228 Yaqut began the definitive edition of the Mujam al-Buldan, intended for his patron al-Qifti's library; in this last revision he never reached the article 'Rusafat Baghdad'. In these years he lived in the khan outside Aleppo, under al-Qifti's wing, free to consult as many books as he wished.
-
Badr al-Din Lu'lu' Made Sultan at Mosul and the End of the Atabegid House in 631
In 631 Badr al-Din Lu'lu' was formally sultan at Mosul and the Atabegid (Zangid) house was extinguished — ten years after he had seized the city in 621 and strangled his master's son, ruling meanwhile in the Atabegid name.