Salim

Who he is

Name

Salim ibn Qasim ibn Muhanna al-Husayni

Title

Emir of Medina

Since

by June 1194 (Jumada II 590) at the latest

Born

not pinned

Family

Son of al-Qasim ibn Muhanna (emir, Saladin's friend, died before mid-1194); brothers Hashim (killed June 1194) and Jammaz (father of the later emir Qasim ibn Jammaz).

Confidence

medium

Mortel 1991 via Wikipedia; Ibn al-Athir for 590 via Arif Abd al-Ghani.

Overlord

Caliph al-Nasir (khutba); friend of the Ayyubids.

What it holds

• Medina and its walls
• the oasis gardens of Quba, the Awali and al-Aqiq
• the guardianship of the Prophet's Mosque (with the Sunni preachers and the servants of the tomb)

How it was acquired

Succeeded his father al-Qasim ibn Muhanna (date not pinned).

Allies and rivals

Ayyubid friend; future enemy of Qatada (1205 onward).

How things stand that morning

Rules Medina; no fighting dated to the winter.

Wealth

Oasis dates, endowments and gifts for the mosque, pilgrims' visits.

Military

Household and townsmen behind Nur al-Din's walls; Bedouin for hire.

Threats

• Bedouin of the harras
• Qatada
• Egyptian famine

Where the sources disagree

• Al-Sakhawi names Jammaz, not Salim, as al-Qasim's successor; see the realm record.

Evidence: Firm from 1194 to 1215.

On the map: The oasis only; the harras round it are in the realm record.

Primary sources for Medina

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 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 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
• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
• The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court. Read online