Tala'i ibn Ruzzik

Tala'i ibn Ruzzik ( Arabic طلائع بن رزيك, DMG Ṭalāʾiʿ ibn Ruzzīk ; * 1102 ; † September 13, 1161 in Cairo ) was a vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt .

biography

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

Despite his Armenian descent , Tala'i was not a Christian; even his father was a Shiite Muslim as a follower of the Shia of the twelve . There is even a possibility that the family actually leaned towards the extreme Schia, which continues to this day in Alawis . The father came to Egypt in 1074 in the wake of Badr al-Jamali and entered the service of the Fatimid caliphs, who were also Shiites, but who headed the Ismaili movement as imams. Nevertheless, Tala'i was also able to make a career in her service as governor of several provinces. In 1144 he made a name for himself when he defeated the rebellious Luwata Berbers ( Libyans ) in the province of al-Buhaira west of the arm of the Nile from Rosette .

In May 1154, Tala'i was acting as governor of the Upper Egyptian provinces of al-Uschmunain and al-Bahnasa when he received a cry for help from the sisters of the caliph al -Zafir . They reported the murder of the caliph by the clan of the ruling vizier Abbas , who took power in Cairo and massacred several members of the caliph dynasty. The princesses now appealed to the loyal Tala'i to come to Cairo to free them and the little caliph al-Fa'iz from the tyranny of Abbas. In order to underline the urgency of their cry for help, the princesses added their hair, which they cut from their heads during the mourning for the dead az-Zafir, to the secret missive. At the head of a Bedouin troop, Tala'i was able to move into Cairo on June 3, 1154 almost without a fight through the south gate Bab Zuweila , from which the defeated Abbas had fled through the north gate Bab an-Nasr only a few days earlier . The group of refugees also included the Syrian knight Usama ibn Munqidh , who later became known as a chronicler. After having arranged for the proper burial of az-Zafir, Tala'i was able to be formally invested in the office of vizier on June 17th on behalf of the underage al-Fa'iz. Following the example of the immediate predecessor in office, this vizier contained a comprehensive degree of power in which it combined the competences of the civil government, the supreme command of the armies, the supervision of the Sunni law schools and the control of the Ismaili mission. The vizier thus took on a de facto royal position and in fact, following the example of some of his predecessors, Tala'i took on the title of Arab ruler as "the pious prince" (al-Malik aṣ-Ṣāliḥ) .

The takeover of power by the new vizier was followed by a customary wave of purges in the army and state until his rule was undisputed. However, despite his membership of the twelve, Tala'i refrained from abolishing the Ismaili Fatimid caliphate, as the Twelve Shiite Kutaifat had already done in 1130. He publicly affirmed his loyalty to the caliph dynasty by the cruel execution of the murderer of az-Zafir. Under the strict rule of Tala'i, after the previous years of unrest, Egypt once again experienced a short phase of internal stability, which after a long time enabled it to take offensive action against the Franks of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in jihad . The Egyptian armies regularly attacked the Frankish positions around Gaza and Ashkelon , in 1155 an Egyptian fleet set fire to the port of Tire . Against the Franks, Tala'i sought rapprochement with the Syrian Zengids and even with the Christian emperor of Byzantium .

The as-Salih-Tala'i mosque taken from one of the gate towers of Bab Zuweila.

Despite his military socialization, Tala'i was also known for his musical disposition. He sponsored poets and writers and a collection (dīwān) of qasids composed by himself has been preserved. In them he expressed his sentiments as a Twelve Shiite, which he did not hide in spite of his service to the Ismaili Fatimids. The last significant structural expansion of Cairo during the Fatimid period was also built at his instigation. Immediately in front of the Bab Zuweila, he had a shrine built in 1154 for the head relic of Imam Hussain (X 680 near Kerbela), who had been evacuated to Cairo from its place of origin in Ashkelon shortly before its fall to the Franks the previous year. Although the relic, venerated by the Twelve and the Ismailis alike, was finally housed in the Caliph's Palace after an objection by the caliph's house, which saw itself as a direct descendant of the Hussein, the building, which is still used today as a mosque, which bears the name of the Tala'i wears.

The vizier's regime lost general support with increasing duration. His campaigns, building projects and foundations strained the financial framework of the Fatimid state, which was limited to Egypt. As a condition for an armistice with the Franconia agreed in 1159, he had to accept a high tribute. He also monopolized the grain trade in Egypt, which drove up prices. His increasingly despotic conduct of office, which the members of the caliph dynasty felt threatened by, like his predecessor Abbas, also caused a lot of dissatisfaction. The initiative for the resistance came from the princesses of the dynasty, two aunts of the caliph, both of whom are only known by their title "Lady of the castles" (Sitt al-Quṣūr) . Tala'i was able to uncover a first conspiracy in time, whereupon he had the princess in charge strangled. On July 22nd, 1160, the young caliph al-Fa'iz, traumatized for the rest of his life, died, whereupon Tala'i took care of the enthronement of al-Adid , who as a child was only supposed to act as a puppet. In order to bind the caliph to himself in the long term, he married him to one of his daughters. But the change of the throne seems to have motivated another aunt of the new caliph to attempt another coup, for which she was able to win over the eunuchs of the harem, the palace administrators and the black guardsmen. When Tala'i left the golden throne room of the caliph on September 12, 1161 after an audience in the dark corridors of the palace, the conspirators struck with knives and swords. The vizier was seriously injured, but could still be put on his horse by companions and escorted to his residence, where he succumbed to his wounds the following day. He was initially buried on the grounds of the Vizier's Palace, but on February 7, 1162, at the behest of the caliph, he was reburied in the cemetery (Qarafa) of Cairo, aka "the city of the dead" .

Upon the death of Tala'i, his son Ruzzik was able to seize power in Cairo, who had the princess responsible for the assassination attempt on his father strangled with her veil, but he was unable to bring the rest of the country under control. When the provincial governor Shawar marched on Cairo and several army officers had passed over to this, Ruzzik fled Cairo on December 23, 1162. While on the run, he was captured by a Bedouin chief and handed over to Shawar. He initially had him locked in a dungeon, but Ruzzik was killed a little later in a failed attempt to escape. With him, the Banu Ruzzik clan came to an end.

literature

• Seta B. Dadoyan, The Fatimid Armenians: Cultural and Political Interaction in the Near East. Leiden 1997, pp. 154-178.
• 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 .
• Heinz Halm, princes, princesses, concubines and eunuchs at the Fatimid court. In: Maurice A. Pomerantz, Aram A. Shahin (eds.), The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning (2015), pp. 91–110.

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. 48-52, 60.
• Abu'l-Fida , "A Brief History of Humanity" (Muḫtaṣar taʾrīḫ al-bašar). In: RHC, Historiens Orientaux , Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 30, 33.
• Ibn al-Athir , "The Perfect Chronicle" (Al-Kāmil fī ʾt-taʾrīḫ). In: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 493 ff, 519 ff, 544 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), pp. 657-661; Vol. 2 (1843), p. 425 ff.

Remarks

1. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 240 f.
2. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 221.
3. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 238.
4. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 239.
5. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 241 f.
6. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 242 f.
7. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 244 f.
8. ↑ See Halm (2015), p. 97 f.
9. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 247.
10. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 246.
11. ↑ See Halm (2015), p. 103.
12. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 248 f.
13. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 249 f.