Medina

Who holds it

Name

Salim ibn Qasim ibn Muhanna

Title

Emir of Medina

Since

by June 1194

Born

not pinned

Family

Banu Muhanna (Husaynid)

Confidence

medium

see Medina

Lord in 1200

Salim ibn Qasim, emir of Medina (Salim)

Overlord

Khutba for the caliph al-Nasir.

What the town holds

• the walled city
• the oasis gardens of Quba, the Awali and al-Aqiq

How things stand that morning

Under Salim ibn Qasim.

Council

The emir, his deputy when he is away, the judge and the preacher of the mosque (not named for 1200), the servants of the tomb, the Husaynid sharifs and the garden owners.

Communities

Husaynid and other sharifs, Sunni scholars and pious residents (mujawirun), Twelver Shi'i townspeople, Bedouin clients.

Fairs and markets

The pilgrim season around the hajj (September-October 1200), when the Syrian and Iraqi pilgrims pass.

Militia

Townsmen behind the walls; the emir's brother Hashim led the townsmen out against the Bedouin in 1194 and was killed.

Walls and castle

Walls of the 540s AH and of Nur al-Din (558 AH), with gates; no separate citadel described for 1200.

Trade and crafts

Dates (many varieties), grain of the oasis, supplies for pilgrims; gifts and endowments for the mosque.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The wall dates are from the standard histories of Medina (al-Samhudi tradition); the emir's position from Ibn al-Athir and Mortel.

On the map: The oasis.

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