Tashtakin

Who he is

Name

Mujir al-Din Tashtakin ibn Abd Allah al-Muqtafawi al-Mustanjidi

Title

Governor (wali) of Khuzistan; commander of the Iraqi pilgrim caravan (amir al-hajj); holder of Hilla as iqta'

Since

governor of Khuzistan after the conquest of 591 (1195); exact year not pinned

Born

not pinned; a Turkish mamluk of the caliphs al-Muqtafi and al-Mustanjid, so an old man by 1200

Family

not pinned; his son-in-law Sanjar, a mamluk of the caliph, succeeds him in Khuzistan in 602 (1206)

Confidence

medium

Ibn al-Athir's obituary (602), as summarised in al-Durar al-Saniyya: commander of the pilgrimage for 26 years; held Hilla as iqta'; imprisoned on the vizier Ibn Yunus's charge of corresponding with Saladin, released when it proved false, given Khuzistan, later restored to the pilgrimage command; died at Tustar on 2 Jumada II 602 (about 14 January 1206) as ruler of Khuzistan and was buried at the shrine of Ali. That he holds Khuzistan on 1 January 1200 is inferred from this sequence; no source read names the governor in that winter.

Overlord

the caliph

What it holds

• Khuzistan as governor: Tustar, Ahwaz, Askar Mukram, Dezful, Susa, Ramhormuz, Dawraq and the castles taken in 591
• Hilla and its district as iqta'
• the command of the Iraqi pilgrim caravan (amir al-hajj), at least at times

How it was acquired

Appointed by the caliph after the conquest of Khuzistan (591/1195).

Allies and rivals

Neighbours: the Hazaraspid atabeg of Greater Lur at Idhaj, the Salghurid lords of Fars beyond Arrajan, the Lurs and Kurds of the hills; Arab tribes of the Khuzistan plain.

How things stand that morning

Governor of Khuzistan at Tustar and holder of Hilla (medium confidence: inferred from his career and death in office at Tustar in 602).

Wealth

The revenues of Khuzistan (sugar, rice, silk, the Tustar weaving) and of Hilla.

Military

The caliph's garrisons in the Khuzistan castles and his own mamluks; no numbers in the sources read.

Threats

• the Lurs and the Shabankara of the hills
• a Khwarazmian or Salghurid move on Khuzistan

Places of note

• Tustar castle and the great weir (Shadurwan): the governor's seat on the Dujayl (Karun)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Ibn al-Athir's obituary gives the sequence but no year for the Khuzistan appointment.

On the map: The governorship is drawn as the Khuzistan plain; the Hilla grant as the town's district.

Primary sources for Abbasid Iraq

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 Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. 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 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
• Comfort of Hearts and Sign of Joy: a History of the Seljuks, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Rawandi (Ravandi) (1203 to 1204, dedicated to Kaykhusraw I of Rum). A history of the Great Seljuks from their origins to the death of the last sultan Toghril III in 1194, begun at Hamadan and finished for Kaykhusraw of Rum when the author moved to Anatolia. Read online
• The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online

1 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.