page_title: Ahmad ibn Tulun
section_title: Governor of Egypt
hierarchical_section_title: Ahmad ibn Tulun / Life / Governor of Egypt
caption_attribution_description: العربية: مئذنة مسجد أحمد بن طولون بالقاهرة، وهي إحدى أكثر مآذن القاهرة تميُّزًا إذ أنَّ سُلَّمها الخارجيّ حلزونيّ شديد الشبه بمئذنة سامرَّاء الشهيرة. Deutsch: Minarett der Ibn Tulun Moschee in Kairo. Besonderheit ist die außen umlaufende Wendeltreppe. English: The minaret of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, which features a helical outer staircase similar to that of the famous minaret in Samarra. Español: Minarete de la Mezquita de Ibn Tulun, que tiene una escalera exterior helicoidal parecida a la del famoso minarete de Samarra. فارسی: منارهٔ مسجد ابن طولون در مصر. پله‌های مناره در بیرنون است که مشابه منارهٔ مسجد جامع سامرا در عراق است. این ویژگی ریشه در معماری ساسانی دارد. Français&#160;: Le minaret de la mosquée Ibn Touloun au Caire (Égypte). 日本語: カイロ・イブン＝トゥールーン・モスクのミナレット。
context_page_description: Ahmad ibn Tulun was the founder of the Tulunid dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria between 868 and 905. Originally a Turkic slave-soldier, in 868 Ibn Tulun was sent to Egypt as governor by the Abbasid caliph. Within four years Ibn Tulun 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 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 Saffarids and the Zanj Rebellion. Ibn Tulun also took care to establish 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.
context_section_description: 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" (wāli al-jaysh waʾl-ṣalāt), but the fiscal administration, in particular the collection of the land tax (kharāj) was in the hands of the powerful veteran administrator Ibn al-Mudabbir. The latter had been appointed as fiscal agent (ʿāmil) already since ca. 861, 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 (barīd) 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 kharāj 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 (jund) 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 author
caption: Spiral Minaret of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo
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