Egypt - Tulunid-Ikhshidid Period

  General Description   Egypt in the years between 868 and 969 CE is notable for frequent changes in rulers, including three separate regimes in just over a century: the Tulunid Dynasty, the Abbasid Restoration Period, and the Ikshidid Dynasty, which eventually gave way to the Fatimid Caliphate. The Tulunids were a Turkic Dynasty who established an independent rule over Egypt and parts of Syria during a time of instability caused by infighting in the Abbasid court in Damascus. There was a notable ’flowering’ of the arts under the Tulunid rulers, ^[1] but the highs and lows of this era of instability are best encapsulated by the reign of Khumarawayh. Although Egypt saw ’peace and prosperity’ under his rule, it has been argued that his extravagant lifestyle and ’lavish’ spending on building projects and the maintenance of a large standing army ’overtaxed the state’s resources’. ^[2] ’When Khumarawayh was murdered by one of his slaves in 896, the treasury was reportedly empty’. ^[2]
Population and political organization
Egypt during the Tulunid-Ikshidid period has been described as ’an autonomous state, albeit under Abbasid suzerainty’. ^[1] When Ahmad ibn Tulun was appointed prefect or governor of Egypt in 868 CE, it was a province of the Abbasid Caliphate. Tulun, who was of Turkish ancestry, was recruited from the military ^{[3] [4]} and ’never formally repudiated Abbasid authority’. ^[3] He took advantage of a revolt in Palestine and Syria to build up a new Egyptian army of Turkish, Nubian, and Greek mercenaries and slaves, which he paid for by seizing control of the revenue of Egypt from the Abbasid-appointed financial director in 871 CE. ^[2] Ibn Tulun also annexed Syria. ^[5]
With his new army and the Abbasids distracted by unrest in the Levant, Ibn Tulun worked to increase Egyptian autonomy from the caliph in Baghdad; ^[2] he stopped sending taxes to the Abbasids and established a new capital at al-Qatai, at the neck of the Nile Delta near Fustat. ^[4] This de facto arrangement became official in 886 CE, when a treaty with the Abbasid Dynasty decreed that Khumarawayh and his successors would govern Egypt for a term of three decades ^[2] - although Egypt would in fact be under Abbasid control again from 905 to 935 CE. ^[6] After the Ikshidids gained control of Egypt under Muhammad ibn Tughj (935‒946 CE), ^[2] the Abbasids, in a similar treaty in 939 CE, granted the governorship of Egypt and Syria to ’the Ikshid and his heirs’ for 30 years. ^[2]
The Tulunid governing apparatus included a vizier, ^[7] who, after the administrative reforms of Ibn Tulun, ^[5] apparently ran a competent bureaucracy that oversaw huge spending projects. Ibn Tulun built an aqueduct and a maristan (hospital), which cost 60,000 dinars. ^[1] Founded in 873 CE, the hospital was the first of its kind in Egypt. There was probably a functioning postal system (the Egyptian section of the Abbasid barid). Luxuries were never far away for the affluent elites, who spent their riches freely: Khumarawayh converted the maydan (city square) into a lush garden in the Mesopotamian tradition, while in the Ikshidid period Kafur’s palace near the Birkat Qarun cost a monumental 100,000 dinars. ^[8]
The population of Egypt and the Levant at this time may have totalled 6.5 million, ^[9] and the largest city, Fustat in Egypt, had perhaps 150,000 residents. ^[10]

[1]: (Raymond 2000, 26) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[2]: (Sundelin 2004) Lennart Sundelin. 2004. ’Egypt: Tulunids and Ikhshidids, 850-969’, in Encyclopedia of African History, edited by K. Shillington. Online edition. London: Routledge.

[3]: (Raymond 2000, 24) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[4]: (Middleton, ed. 2015, 966) J. Middleton, ed. 2015. World Monarchies and Dynasties. London: Routledge.

[5]: (Esposito, ed. 2003, 130) John L. Esposito, ed. 2003. The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[6]: (Raymond 2000, 34) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[7]: (Raymond 2000, 35) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[8]: (Raymond 2000, 27, 34) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[9]: (McEvedy and Jones 1978, 138, 229) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Allen Lane.

[10]: (Modelski 2003, 55) George Modelski. 2003. World Cities -3000 to 2000. Washington, DC: Faros.