Ahmad ibn Tulun (; c. 20 September 835 – 10 May 884) was the founder of the Tulunid dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria between 868 and 905. An Arabized Turkic slave-soldier, in 868 Ibn Tulun was sent to Egypt as governor by the Abbasid caliph. Within four years he had established himself as a virtually independent ruler by evicting the caliphal fiscal agent, Ibn al-Mudabbir, taking over control of Egypt's finances, and establishing a large military force consisting of native Egyptians personally loyal to himself. This process was facilitated by the volatile political situation in the Abbasid court and the preoccupation of the Abbasid regent, al-Muwaffaq, with the wars against the Persian Saffarids and the Zanj Rebellion. Ibn Tulun also established an efficient administration in Egypt. After reforms to the tax system, repairs to the irrigation system, and other measures, the annual tax yield grew markedly. As a symbol of his new regime, he built a new capital, al-Qata'i, north of the old capital Fustat.
After 875/6 he entered into open conflict with al-Muwaffaq, who tried unsuccessfully to unseat him. In 878, with the support of al-Muwaffaq's brother, Caliph al-Mu'tamid, Ibn Tulun took over the governance of Syria as well as the frontier districts with the Byzantine Empire, although control of Tarsus in particular proved tenuous. During his absence in Syria, his eldest son and deputy, Abbas, tried to usurp power in Egypt, leading to the imprisonment of Abbas and the nomination of Ibn Tulun's second son, Khumarawayh, as his heir. The defection in 882 of a senior commander, Lu'lu', to al-Muwaffaq, and the defection of Tarsus, forced Ibn Tulun to return to Syria. Now virtually powerless, al-Mu'tamid tried to escape from his brother's control to Ibn Tulun's domains but was captured by al-Muwaffaq's agents, and Ibn Tulun convened an assembly of jurists at Damascus to denounce al-Muwaffaq as a usurper. His attempt in autumn 883 to bring Tarsus to heel failed, and he fell sick. Returning to Egypt, he died in May 884 and was succeeded by Khumarawayh.
Primary sources Several medieval authors wrote about Ahmad ibn Tulun. Among the major sources are the biographies written by 10th-century authors Ibn al-Daya and al-Balawi. Both are called , and al-Balawi's work relies to a large extent on Ibn al-Daya's, although it is much more extensive. Ibn al-Daya also wrote a book () with anecdotes from the Tulunid-era Egyptian society. Further information comes from Ibn Tulun's contemporary, the geographer and traveler Ya'qubi, whose works cover the first years of his rule in Egypt, and from later Egyptian authors, especially the 15th-century historians Ibn Duqmaq and al-Maqrizi, who drew on a variety of earlier sources to write on the history of the Tulunid state. Several other medieval Arabic chroniclers from the 13th to the 16th centuries mention Ibn Tulun or his officials, but most are of a later date and not very reliable, especially in comparison to Ibn Duqmaq and al-Maqrizi.See also on modern scholarship regarding Ibn Tulun and his works.
Life Early life and career Ahmad ibn Tulun was born on the 23rd day of the month of Ramadan 220 AH (20 September 835) or slightly later, probably in Baghdad. His father, Tulun, was a Turk from a locality known in Arabic sources as Tagharghar or Toghuz[o]ghuz, i.e., the Uyghur confederation. In the year 815/6 (200 AH) Tulun was taken captive along with other Turks, and sent as part of the tribute of the Samanid governor of Bukhara Nuh ibn Asad to the Caliph al-Ma'mun (), who at the time resided in Khurasan. After al-Ma'mun returned to Baghdad in 819, these Turkish slaves were formed into a guard corps of slave soldiers (, sing. ) entrusted to al-Ma'mun's brother and eventual successor, al-Mu'tasim (). Tulun did well for himself, eventually coming to command the Caliph's private guard. Ahmad's mother, called Qasim, was one of his father's slaves. In 854/5, Tulun died, and Qasim is commonly held to have married a second time, to the Turkish general Bayakbak or Bakbak. This report, however, does not appear in Ibn al-Daya or al-Balawi, and may be spurious. According to al-Balawi, after his father's death Ahmad came under the tutelage of Yalbakh, a close companion of Tulun, who had been taken captive alongside him. At his deathbed, Tulun urged his friend to take care of his wife and son, and Bakbak thereafter treated the young Ahmad as his own son.
The young Ahmad ibn Tulun received a thorough education, involving military training at the new Abbasid capital of Samarra and studies in Islamic theology at Tarsus, acquiring a reputation not only for his knowledge but also for his pious and ascetic way of life. He became popular among his fellow Turks, who would confide secrets and entrust their money and even their women to him. While at Tarsus, Ibn Tulun fought in the frontier wars with the Byzantine Empire. There he also met another senior Turkish leader, Yarjukh, whose daughter, variously given as Majur or Khatun, became his first wife and the mother of his eldest son, Abbas, and his daughter Fatimah. The sources also report that during his time at Tarsus, Ibn Tulun had ties to Caliph al-Mutawakkil's vizier Ubayd Allah ibn Yahya ibn Khaqan, and the latter's cousin Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khaqan. On one occasion, while returning to Samarra, he saved a caravan bearing a caliphal envoy returning from Constantinople from a Bedouin raiding party, and accompanied it to Samarra. This act gained him the favour of Caliph al-Musta'in (), as well as a thousand gold dinars and the hand of the slave Miyas, the mother of his second son, Khumarawayh. When the Caliph abdicated and went into exile at Wasit in 866, he chose Ibn Tulun to be his guard. Qubayha, the mother of the new caliph, al-Mu'tazz (), schemed to remove the deposed al-Musta'in, and offered Ibn Tulun the governorship of Wasit if he would murder him. Ibn Tulun refused and was replaced by another, who carried out the deed. Ibn Tulun himself played no part in the assassination, but gave his master a burial and returned to Samarra.
Governor of Egypt
Already under Caliph al-Mu'tasim, senior Turkish leaders began being appointed as governors of provinces of the Caliphate as a form of appanage. Thereby they secured immediate access to the province's tax revenue for themselves and their troops, bypassing the civilian bureaucracy. The Turkish generals usually remained close to the centre of power in Samarra, sending deputies to govern in their name. Thus when al-Mu'tazz gave Bakbak charge of Egypt in 868, Bakbak in turn sent his stepson Ahmad as his lieutenant and resident governor. Ahmad ibn Tulun entered Egypt on 27 August 868, and the Egyptian capital, Fustat, on 15 September.
Ibn Tulun's position after his appointment was far from undisputed within his province. As governor of Fustat he oversaw the province's garrison and was the head of the Muslim community as recognized in his title of 'overseer of the army and the Friday prayer' (), but the fiscal administration, in particular the collection of the land tax () was in the hands of the powerful veteran administrator Ibn al-Mudabbir. The latter had been appointed as fiscal agent () already since , and had rapidly become the most hated man in the country as he doubled the taxes and imposed new ones on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ibn Tulun quickly signalled his intention to be sole master of his province: on his arrival at Fustat, when both Ibn al-Mudabbir and Shukayr, the head of the postal service () and of correspondence with the caliphal government, came out to meet him with a gift of 10,000 dinars, he refused to accept it. For the next four years, Ibn Tulun and his rivals fought via their emissaries and relatives at the caliphal court in Samarra to neutralize each other; in the end, Ibn Tulun managed to secure Ibn al-Mudabbir's transfer to Syria in July 871, and assumed collection of the himself. At the same time, Ibn Tulun also secured the dismissal of Shukayr, who died shortly after. Thus by 872 Ibn Tulun had assumed control of all branches of the administration in Egypt, becoming de facto independent of the Abbasid central government.
At the time of Ibn Tulun's appointment, Egypt was undergoing a transformative process. In 834 its early Muslim elite, the Arab settler families () of Fustat, lost their privileges and government pay, and power passed to officials sent by the Abbasid court. At about the same time, for the first time the Muslim population began surpassing the Coptic Christians in numbers, and the rural districts were increasingly subject to both Arabization and Islamization. The rapidity of this process, and the influx of settlers after the discovery of gold and emerald mines at Aswan, meant that Upper Egypt in particular was only superficially controlled by the local governor. Furthermore, the persistence of internecine strife and turmoil at the heart of the Abbasid state—the so-called "Anarchy at Samarra"—led to the appearance of millennialist revolutionary movements in the province under a series of Alid pretenders. One of them was Ibn al-Sufi, a descendant of Ali's son Umar, who rebelled in late 869 and massacred the populace of Esna. In winter 870 he defeated an army sent against him by Ibn Tulun, but was driven to the oases of the desert in spring. He remained there until he was defeated in a struggle with another regional strongman, Abu Abdallah ibn Abd al-Hamid al-Umari in 872, fleeing to Mecca. There he was seized and imprisoned for a while by Ibn Tulun. One of his followers, Abu Ruh Sukun, rebelled in the oases in 873/4 and was successful enough for Ibn Tulun to offer him an amnesty. Ibn al-Sufi's vanquisher, al-Umari, was another descendant of Ali who had created an autonomous principality around the gold mines, defeating the forces sent against him. Another revolt broke out in 874/5 by the governor of Barqa, Muhammad ibn al-Faraj al-Farghani. Ibn Tulun tried to reconcile with him at first but was eventually forced to send an army to besiege and storm the city, although the reprisals were limited. The re-imposition of his authority over Barqa, however, led to the strengthening of ties with Ifriqiya to the west, including, according to Ibn al-Athir, the erection of a series of lighthouses and messaging beacons along the coast.
In the meantime, in Palestine, the local governor, Isa ibn al-Shaykh al-Shaybani, had used the anarchy in Iraq to set up a quasi-independent Bedouin regime, intercepting the tax caravans from Egypt and threatening Damascus. When Caliph al-Muhtadi ascended the throne in July 869, he offered a general amnesty, and wrote to Ibn al-Shaykh, offering a pardon in exchange for him handing over the treasure he had wrongfully appropriated. When Ibn al-Shaykh refused, the Caliph ordered Ibn Tulun to march against him. Ibn Tulun complied and began a mass purchase of black African () and Greek () slaves to form an army over the winter of 869/70, but no sooner had he arrived at al-Arish with his army in summer 870 than orders came to turn back. Ibn al-Shaykh's revolt was crushed soon after by another Turkish soldier, Amajur al-Turki, who continued to govern Syria for the Abbasids until his death in 878. This episode was nevertheless of major importance as it allowed Ibn Tulun to recruit an army of his own with caliphal sanction. The Tulunid army, which eventually grew to reportedly 100,000 men—other sources give a breakdown of 24,000 Turkish and 42,000 black African and Greek slaves, as well as a mercenary corps composed mostly of Greeks—became the foundation of Ibn Tulun's power and independence. For his personal protection, Ibn Tulun reportedly employed a corps of ghilmān from Ghur.