Asadiyya

Who he is

Name

Sayf al-Din Yazkuj al-Asadi (name from the researcher's reading of the modern narratives of the 1198 succession; not re-checked in a source read for this record)

Title

Leader of the Asadiyya

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

medium

The Asadiyya were the mamluks of Saladin's uncle Asad al-Din Shirkuh, taken over by Saladin in 1169. The Wikipedia article on al-Mansur, citing Humphreys, says the Asadiyya favoured al-Afdal and the Salahiyya al-Adil. Abu'l-Fida says 'the amirs' called al-Afdal; he names Jaharkas, not the Asadi leader.

Overlord

Al-Mansur, through the regent al-Afdal

What it holds

• Iqta's (grants of village revenues) across Lower and Upper Egypt, assigned by the army office; the individual grants are not pinned

How it was acquired

Grants from Saladin and al-Aziz for service.

Allies and rivals

Allies: al-Afdal; the Kurdish amirs. Rivals: the Salahiyya under Jaharkas and al-Adil.

How things stand that morning

With al-Afdal's army in southern Syria; their iqta's in Egypt are untouched.

Wealth

Village revenues in coin and grain from their iqta's.

Military

Mamluk horse archers and Kurdish horse; numbers not pinned.

Threats

• Al-Adil's victory, which would transfer their iqta's to his men
• Desertion of individual amirs to al-Adil

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. January to February 1200Dispersed to their villages when al-Adil arrives; after al-Adil takes Cairo they must make terms with him.Depends on: Al-Adil's victory. Stopped by: Al-Afdal winning.

Where the sources disagree

• The leader's name (Yazkuj) is not confirmed in the sources read for this record; treat as medium confidence.

Evidence: The factions are a commonplace of the modern narratives (Humphreys); the names of the Asadi and Kurdish amirs that winter are thinly attested in what we read.

On the map: A regiment with scattered grants; nothing to draw.

Primary sources for Egypt

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier. Read online
• The Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer, Ernoul, squire of Balian of Ibelin, and later compilers (the 1187 core soon after the event; the whole in its present form 1227 to 1232). The Ibelin household's version of events in Outremer. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The Cream of the History of Aleppo, Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim (about 1240 to 1260). The annals of Aleppo. Read online
• The Dispeller of Anxieties, on the History of the Ayyubids, Jamal al-Din Ibn Wasil (about 1272 to 1285, at Hama). The fullest Ayyubid dynastic history, written at Hama with access to the family's own tradition and to Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Abi Tayy and Sibt ibn al-Jawzi. Read online
• The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). Read online
• The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (Eracles), Anonymous continuators, the earliest drawing on Ernoul (about 1220 to 1277; the first continuation (1184 to 1197, the Lyon Eracles) compiled about 1230 from material of the 1190s). For the Latin East at 1200 it narrates the aftermath of the Third Crusade: the truce of 1192, the succession to Jerusalem through Queen Isabella's marriages to Henry of Champagne (died September 1197) and Aimery of Lusignan, Aimery's rule as king of Jerusalem from 1198 while king of Cyprus, the German crusade of 1197 to 1198 and the recovery of Beirut and Sidon, the truce with al-Adil of 1198, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond IV and Leo of Armenia, and the Pisan plot against Aimery. Read online
• The Road to Knowledge of the Dynasties of Kings, Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (about 1400 to 1440, at Cairo). A late compilation, but for Ayyubid Egypt it keeps lost material: for 596 to 598 AH it records al-Adil's entry into Cairo, the removal of the boy al-Mansur Muhammad, the oath to al-Kamil as heir, the appointments at Cairo, the low Niles of 1199 and 1200 and the famine and plague of 1200 to 1202 with grain prices, the reports of cannibalism and the death tolls, together with Yemen, the Hijaz and the Mecca emirate. Read online

15 more in the sources library for The Latin East and the Ayyubids.