father house successor death_date birth_place death_place title birth_date article_title name reign
tughj ibn juff ikhshidid dynasty unujur 946 06 24 882 02 08 y baghdad damascus hereditary governor of egypt , syria and the hejaz 8 february 882 muhammad ibn tughj al-ikhshid
 muhammad ibn tughj al-ikhshid 26 august 935 -- 24 june 946
muhammad ibn tughj al-ikhshid

abū bakr muḥammad ibn Ṭughj ibn juff ibn yiltakīn ibn fūrān ibn fūrī ibn khāqān -lrb- 8 february 882 -- 24 june 946 -rrb- , better known by the title al-ikhshīd -lrb- -rrb- after 939 , was an abbasid commander and governor who became the autonomous ruler of egypt and parts of syria -lrb- or levant -rrb- from 935 until his death in 946 .
he was the founder of the ikhshidid dynasty , which ruled the region until the fatimid conquest of 969 .
the son of tughj ibn juff , a general of transoxianian origin who served both the abbasids and the autonomous tulunid rulers of egypt and syria , muhammad ibn tughj was born in baghdad but grew up in syria and acquired his first military and administrative experiences at his father 's side .
he had a turbulent early career : he was imprisoned along with his father by the abbasids in 905 , was released in 906 , participated in the murder of the vizier al-abbas ibn al-hasan al-jarjara ' i in 908 , and fled iraq to enter the service of the governor of egypt , takin al-khazari .
eventually he acquired the patronage of several influential abbasid magnates , chiefly the powerful commander-in-chief mu ` nis al-muzaffar .
these ties led him to being named governor first of palestine and then of damascus .
in 933 , he was briefly named governor of egypt , but this order was revoked after the death of mu ` nis , and ibn tughj had to fight to preserve even his governorship of damascus .
in 935 , he was re-appointed to egypt , where he quickly defeated a fatimid invasion and stabilized the turbulent country .
his reign marks a rare period of domestic peace , stability and good government in the annals of early islamic egypt .
in 938 caliph al-radi granted his request for the title of `` al-ikhshid '' , which had been borne by the rulers of his ancestral farghana valley .
it is by this title that he was known thereafter .
throughout his governorship , al-ikhshid was engaged in conflicts with other regional strongmen for control over syria , without which egypt was vulnerable to invasion from the east , but unlike many other egyptian leaders , notably the tulunids themselves , he was prepared to bide his time and compromise with his rivals .
although he was initially in control of the entirety of syria , he was forced to cede the northern half to ibn ra'iq between 939 and 942 .
following ibn ra'iq 's murder , al-ikhshid reimposed his control over northern syria , only to have it challenged by the hamdanids .
in 944 al-ikhshid met caliph al-muttaqi at ar-raqqa ; the caliph had fled there from the various strongmen vying to kidnap him and control the caliphal government in baghdad .
although unsuccessful in persuading the caliph to come to egypt , he received recognition of hereditary rule over egypt , syria and the hejaz for thirty years .
following his departure , the ambitious hamdanid prince sayf al-dawla seized aleppo and northern syria in the autumn of 944 , and although defeated and driven out of syria by ibn tughj himself in the next year , a treaty dividing the region along the lines of the agreement with ibn ra'iq was concluded in october .
ibn tughj died nine months later , leaving his son unujur as ruler of his domains , under the tutelage of the powerful black eunuch abu al-misk kafur .
