as-Salih

Al-Malik as-Salih Nadschm ad-Din Ayyub ( Arabic أبو الفتح الملك الصالح نجم الدين أيوب بن ناصر الدين محمد, DMG Abū l-Fatiḥ al-Malik aṣ-Ṣāliḥ Naǧm ad-Dīn Aiyūb b. Nāṣir ad-Dīn Muḥammad ; † 22 / 23. November 1249 in al-Mansura ) was the sixth Sultan of the Ayyubid in Egypt (1240-1249).

Life

As-Salih Ayyub was the eldest son of Sultan al-Kamil Muhammad and a Sudanese slave. The death of his father in March 1238 unleashed civil war among the Ayyubids. As-Salih Ayyub was in the north, however, marched immediately against, Damascus , where one had seized power by al-Kamil's nephew called al-Dschauad, as a vassal of as-Salih Ayyubs younger brother al-Adil II. With the help choresmischer irregulars continued he dismisses his cousin. His younger brother al-Adil II had meanwhile been installed as sultan in Egypt. As-Salih claimed his father's richest province for himself, but when he set out to invade Egypt he was dethroned by a coup in Damascus in favor of his uncle as-Salih Ismail . While fleeing south, he was captured by his cousin an-Nasir Dawud , Emir of Kerak . As-Salih managed to make an alliance with an-Nasir, who now lent him troops for the incursion into Egypt. There he was immediately successful: Al-Adil's ministers had overthrown and murdered him in June 1240 and now welcomed as-Salih as the new sultan of Egypt. An-Nasir Dawud was rewarded with the post of military governor of Palestine .

Ismail remained Sultan of Damascus, and during the next decade the Ayyubid world was torn apart by the rivalry between uncle and nephew. First, as-Salih had to deal with the Kingdom of Jerusalem . A crusader army under Theobald IV of Champagne had arrived there in 1239, threatening the Egyptian border and there in November 1239 a minor battle with the Egyptian troops of al-Adils II near Gaza . In the meantime the crusaders had allied themselves against as-Salih with Ismail, who ceded Galilee to them . At the turn of the year 1240/1241 al-Salih used the opportunity to conclude a neutrality agreement with the Crusaders, for which he ceded the areas north of Gaza and west of the Jordan .

As-Salih recruited choresm militants in northern Syria to fight his uncle , who devastated the area there. They moved to Palestine in 1244, where they sacked Tiberias . They then occupied and plundered Jerusalem without any actual commission and drove out the Christians there. As-Salih moved to the city the following year, which he finally wrested from the Crusaders. The crusaders then allied themselves with Ismail and other Syrian Ayyubids. However, the Alliance's army was defeated at the battle of La Forbie , and with the conquest of Damascus in 1245, al-Salih succeeded in reuniting most of the Ayyubid Empire under his rule.

In order to be able to keep the unreliable mercenary troops of the Choresmians under control, under as-Salih an increased build-up of Turkish slave troops (so-called Mamluks ) began. In the period that followed, he was not only able to defeat the Choresmians (1246), but also to conquer Tiberias and Ascalon from the Crusaders (1247). In the autumn of 1248, as-Salih besieged the city of Homs , which his cousin an-Nasir Yusuf had recently conquered against al-Salih's will. During the siege he received news of the arrival of a large army of crusaders in Cyprus under the leadership of King Louis IX. of France (see Sixth Crusade ). As-Salih broke off the siege to organize the defense of Egypt. According to Ibn Wasil , the sultan contracted a serious chronic illness during the armistice negotiations with his cousin. According to the Christian chronicler Joinville , however, he was poisoned by his cousin.

In June 1249 the crusaders landed on the coast of Egypt and were able to take Damiette . As-Salih withdrew with his troops to al-Mansura , which he had fortified. While the crusaders were advancing up the Nile, he died of his illness on the night of November 22nd to 23rd, 1249. By this time he had already survived two of his three sons. One, al-Moghith Feth ad-Din Umar, had died in captivity with as-Salih Ismail between 1239 and 1245; the other, Khalil, died as a minor. As-Salih's favorite wife, Shajar ad-Durr , succeeded in asserting the succession of the third son Turan Shah (r. 1249-1250), who had previously ruled in northern Mesopotamia (Jazira) .

literature

• Hans Eberhard Mayer : History of the Crusades. (= Kohlhammer-Urban pocket books. 86). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-17-013802-2 , p. 226.
• Steven Runciman : History of the Crusades (= Beck'sche special editions. ). Special edition in 1 volume without indication of source or literature. CH Beck, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-406-02527-7 , pp. 990, 992.

Web links

• El-Malek es-Saleh Nejm ad-Din Ayub at fmg.ac (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ibn Wasil: Mufarrij al-kurub fi akhbar bani Ayyub. BnF Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 60v-61r.

predecessor	Office	successor
al-Adil II.	Sultan of Egypt 1240-1249	Turan Shah
al-Adil II al-Salih Ismail	Sultan of Damascus 1238-1239 1245-1249	al-Salih Ismail Turan Shah