Abbas ibn Abi l-Futuh

Rukn ad-Din Abu'l-Fadl Abbas ibn Abi l-Futuh ( Arabic ركن الدين أبو الفضل عباس بن أبي الفتوح, DMG Rukn ad-Dīn Abūʾl-Faḍl ʿAbbās ibn Abī l-Futūḥ ; † June 6, 1154 ) was a vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt in the 12th century.

biography

Abbas was both on his father's side and on his mother's side a descendant of the Zirid dynasty in what was then Ifrīqiya / "Africa" ​​(now Tunisia ) , who originally held the governorship for the Fatimid caliphs there, but made themselves largely independent at the beginning of the 12th century had. As a child he came to Egypt in 1109/1110 with his widowed mother Bullara, who later remarried to Ali ibn as-Sallar , who was the vizier of the Fatimid caliphate at the turn of the year 1149/50 after the death of Caliph al-Hafiz usurped. Abbas was responsible for the successful fight against the former ruler Ibn Masal .

The political map of the Middle East in the mid-12th century.

Abbas was entrusted by his stepfather in the spring of 1153 with the supreme command of the army to fight the Franks ( ihād ) , who had just started the siege of the strategically important border fortress of Askalon . This army included the Syrian knight Usama ibn Munqidh , who is said to have exerted a corrupt influence on Abbas and his son Nasr. According to some traditions of Egyptian authors, Abbas and Usama would have stopped in Bilbais instead of moving to Ascalon and planned the murder of Ibn al-Sallar there, who was then stabbed to death by Nasr on April 2, 1153 in his bedchamber in Cairo. In contrast, there is the depiction of Usama, who accused the caliph az-Zafir of inciting the act, who wanted to free himself from the dominant vizier. In any case, Abbas was able to gain control of Cairo immediately and let the caliph invest him in the office of vizier. However, the coup in August 1153 resulted in the loss of Ascalon to the Franks, as neither the Egyptian army nor the navy had appeared to relieve the city. Instead, the discouraged defenders negotiated a surrender in which they had to hand over all treasures kept in the city to the Franks, with the exception of their free withdrawal. They were only allowed to take with them the head relic of Imam Hussain , a claimed ancestor of the Fatimid caliphs.

Just one year after taking power, on April 15, 1154, Caliph al-Zafir was murdered in the bedchamber of Nasr. Again Usama ibn Munqidh is named as the driving force behind the deed, who in turn subsequently blamed the vizier Abbas for all the blame. However, the next day, during the enthronement of the young al-Fa'iz as the new caliph, Abbas accused his uncle, Princes Yusuf and Jibril, of having been behind the assassination attempt on their brother. Before the eyes of the child caliph he had her cruelly executed. The Abbas's terror nevertheless provoked the resistance of the caliph's family, which was now organized by two princesses. As a cry for help, they secretly sent the provincial governor Tala'i ibn Ruzzik their black hair, which they had shorn while mourning their murdered brothers. Even before Tala'i could reach Cairo with his troops, the army there had revolted against Abbas, and even the few troops who were interested in him now gave up their allegiance to him. On May 29, 1154 Abbas and his son Nasr escaped from Cairo via the north gate Bab an-Nasr , which ended the brief rule of the Zirids in Egypt. Usama ibn Munqidh, with whom they wanted to go to the court of his Syrian master Nur ad-Din Mahmud , also belonged to their small entourage . To do this, they had to cross the Franconian territory, the route was supposed to lead via Eilat at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba , far from the Franconian rulers. But they were warned by one of the princesses by means of a courier. On June 6, 1154, after crossing the border of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the troop of refugees was put to battle by a Frankish cavalry troop; Abbas fell and his son was taken prisoner. Usama alone was able to save himself to Petra and penetrate to Damascus .

The young Nasr, murderer of a vizier and a caliph, was sent by the Franks to Cairo in an iron cage, where he was brutally executed in public on the instructions of the vizier Tala'i. His disfigured body was hung on the Bab Zuweila .

literature

• Heinz Halm , Caliphs and Assassins: Egypt and the Near East at the Time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-66163-1 .

swell

• Usama ibn Munqidh , "Book of Teachings by Examples" (Kitāb al-iʿtibār), ed. by Philip K. Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usāmah ibn-Munqidh (Kitāb al-iʿTibār). New York 1929, pp. 32, 43-53.
• Abu'l-Fida , "A Brief History of Humanity" (Muḫtaṣar taʾrīḫ al-bašar). In: RHC, Historiens Orientaux , Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 28, 30.
• Ibn al-Athir , "The Perfect Chronicle" (Al-Kāmil fī ʾt-taʾrīḫ). In: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 475, 486 f, 491-495.
• Ibn Challikan : "The Death of Eminent Personalities and the News of the Sons of Time" (Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-Anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān) , ed. by William Mac Guckin de Slane : Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary, Vol. 1 (1842), pp. 222 f, 657; Vol. 2 (1843), pp. 72, 351 ff, 425 ff.

Remarks

1. ↑ According to Usama ibn Munqidh, who knew Abbas personally, he was on his father's side a grandson of the Emir Tamim († 1108). Cf. Usama, p. 43. In contrast, other authors put the Emir Yahya († 1116) as a grandfather in this genealogy. See Ibn al-Athir, p. 475; Ibn Challikan, Vol. 2, p. 351.