Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun

Abu 'l-Jaysh Khumārawayh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn (; 864 – 18 January 896) was a son of the founder of the Tulunid dynasty, Ahmad ibn Tulun. His father, the autonomous ruler of Egypt and Syria, designated him as his successor. When Ibn Tulun died in May 884, Khumarawayh succeeded him. After defeating an attempt to depose him, in 886 he managed to gain recognition of his rule over Egypt and Syria as a hereditary governor from the Abbasid Caliphate. In 893 the agreement was renewed with the new Abbasid Caliph, al-Mu'tadid, and sealed with the marriage of his daughter Qatr al-Nada to the Caliph. At the height of his power, Khumarawayh's authority expanded from the Byzantine frontier in Cilicia and the Jazira to Nubia. Domestically, his reign was marked by a prodigal squandering of funds on extravagant displays of wealth, construction of palaces, and the patronage of artists and poets. In combination with the need to maintain a sizeable professional army and guarantee its loyalty through rich gifts, this emptied the treasury by the end of his reign. Khumarawayh was murdered by a palace servant in 896, and was succeeded by his son Jaysh, who was deposed after a few months in favour of another son, Harun ibn Khumarawayh. The Tulunid state entered a period of turmoil and weakness, which culminated in its reconquest by the Abbasids in 904–905. Biography Khumarawayh was born at Samarra in 864. His father, Ahmad ibn Tulun, the son of a Turkish slave-soldier, was appointed governor of Egypt in 868. In 871 he expelled the caliphal fiscal agent and assumed direct control of Egypt's revenue, which he used to create an army of slave soldiers (ghilmān) of his own. Relying on this powerful force, and exploiting the rift between the increasingly powerless Caliph al-Mu'tamid and his brother and de facto regent al-Muwaffaq—in 882 al-Mu'tamid even tried to flee Samarra and seek refuge with Ibn Tulun—he managed to gain control over Syria and the frontier zone with the Byzantine Empire (the Thughūr), as well as parts of the Jazira up to Raqqa. Succession and relations with the Abbasids In 882, following a failed rebellion of his elder brother Abbas, who was "regarded as cruel and untrustworthy", Khumarawayh was named as his father's deputy in Egypt and heir-apparent. This position was confirmed by Ibn Tulun at the request of his generals shortly before his death on 10 May 884.