Ibn as-Sallar

Saif ad-Din Abu'l-Hassan Ali ibn as-Sallar ( Arabic سيف الدين أبو الحسن علي ابن الصلال, DMG Saif ad-Dīn Abūʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn aṣ-Sallār ; † April 2, 1153 in Cairo ), mostly just called Ibn as-Sallar , was a vizier of the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt .

biography

Ibn as-Sallar was Sunni and of Kurdish descent ; his father Saif ad-Daulat Sallar was originally in the service of the Turkish governor of Jerusalem Sökmen . When the city was conquered by the Fatimid troops in a coup in August 1098, the father willingly switched to their allegiance. In Cairo, the vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah assigned the son first to the court pages, then to the guards.

After Ibn al-Sallar had earned the general respect and trust of the caliph al-Hafiz due to his bravery, cleverness and leadership qualities , he was appointed governor of Alexandria by him around 1140 . Here he founded a madrasa of Shafiite law , the only one in Shiite-Ismaili Egypt of the Fatimids at the time, and entrusted its leadership to the respected scholar Abu Tahir al-Silafi . He also married Ziridin Bullara from Ifrīqiya / "Africa" ​​(now Tunisia ) here.

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

When the caliph died on October 10, 1149, the minister Ibn Masal was able to take over the management of the court and pursue his investiture as the new vizier after he had the young az-Zafir enthroned as the new caliph. Ibn al-Sallar refused to acknowledge the new ruler and gathered other dissatisfied people in Alexandria. On January 16, 1150 he was able to move into Cairo, which Ibn Masal had to flee at the same time. While the young caliph was forced to appoint a new vizier, his old vizier was defeated in a battle near a place south of Cairo by Abbas , who had the head of the vanquished sent to his stepfather Ibn al-Sallar. The relationship between the caliph and the new vizier was determined by mutual distrust, in which each feared one assassination attempt by the next. In January 1150, Ibn al-Sallar had several pages of the caliph executed because they had planned a conspiracy against him. He then made the caliph a prisoner of the palace and himself the de facto sole ruler ( sulṭān ) over Egypt, which he underlined by appropriating the Arabic title al-Malik al-ʿĀdil ("the righteous prince").

Under the strict regime of Ibn al-Sallar, Egypt was able to resume war ( jihād ) against the Franks of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for the first time in years . In 1152 the Egyptian fleet undertook a raid against the ports of the Christians along the Levant coast and was able to return afterwards laden with booty. In terms of foreign policy, he sought to join forces with the Syrian ruler Nur ad-Din Mahmud to force the Franks into a two-front war. The diplomatic contact was arranged via the Syrian knight Usama ibn Munqidh , who had been at the court in Cairo since 1144. In the spring of 1153, the Franks reacted to the threatened encirclement by taking up the siege of Askalon , the most important port and border fortress of the Fatimids to their territory. Ibn as-Sallar planned to relieve the city in a combined land-sea operation, for which he entrusted his stepson Abbas with the supreme command of the army. But while the armaments of the naval forces were still running, Ibn al-Sallar was murdered in the sleep of Nasr, the son of his stepson Abbas, on the evening of April 2, 1153. After that there was no more relief for Ascalon; the city had to surrender to the Franks in August 1153.

According to the notes of Usama ibn Munqidh , the instigator of the murder of Ibn al-Sallar is said to have been the caliph az-Zafir, who wanted to free himself from the overpowering vizier in this way. But according to some statements to the contrary, it was Abbas who planned the murder of the stepfather with Usama as an assistant confidante.

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. 31-34, 38, 42-45.
• 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.
• 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), p. 222 f .; Vol. 2 (1843), pp. 350-353, 425 ff.