Ayyubid Egypt under the boy sultan al-Mansur

Who rules

Name

Nasir al-Din Muhammad, al-Malik al-Mansur, son of al-Aziz Uthman, grandson of Saladin

Title

al-Malik al-Mansur, sultan of Egypt in name; governed by his uncle al-Afdal as guardian and commander of the armies (atabeg)

Since

The death of his father al-Aziz Uthman in late November 1198 (Muharram 595 AH; 27 November in one account, 29 November in another), after a fall from his horse while hunting near Cairo

Born

Not pinned: Abu'l-Fida makes him nine years old at his accession, which puts his birth about 1189; other accounts say twelve (born about 1186). A boy of about ten to thirteen on 1 January 1200

Family

Ayyubid. Father: al-Aziz Uthman, Saladin's second son, sultan of Egypt 1193-1198. His mother and brothers live with him in Cairo (Abu'l-Fida names neither). Uncles: al-Afdal Ali (his regent), al-Zahir Ghazi of Aleppo and the other sons of Saladin. Great-uncle: al-Adil Abu Bakr of Damascus, Saladin's brother, who claims to guide the family. No wife or children.

Confidence

high

Abu'l-Fida (RHC Or. I, p. 157): on al-Aziz's death Fakhr al-Din Jaharkas set the boy on the throne; the amirs, on the advice of al-Qadi al-Fadil, called al-Afdal from Salkhad to be his guardian. Al-Aziz had first meant the old eunuch Baha al-Din Qaraqush to have the title of atabeg, but the commanders and the head of the government offices, Ibn Mammati, pushed him aside (Wikipedia, Qaraqush).

Overlord

The Abbasid caliph an-Nasir li-Din Allah at Baghdad is named in the Friday sermon (khutba) as the source of lawful rule; he does not govern. Within the Ayyubid family al-Adil claims seniority, and the Salahiyya amirs have gone over to him.

What the realm holds

• Cairo (al-Qahira), the walled palace city of the Fatimids, with the citadel on the Muqattam spur still being built; Fustat (Misr), the old city and river port; Giza and Roda with the Nilometer
• Lower Egypt: the provinces of al-Sharqiyya (Bilbeis), al-Qalyubiyya (Qalyub), al-Daqahliyya, al-Gharbiyya (al-Mahalla), al-Minufiyya (Minuf), al-Buhayra (Damanhur), the frontier ports (thughur) of Alexandria and Damietta with the fort of Tinnis, Rosetta and Fuwwa
• Upper Egypt (al-Sa'id): Atfih, the Fayyum, al-Bahnasa, al-Ushmunayn, Asyut, Akhmim and Qus, the seat of the governor of the south, down to Aswan and the Nubian frontier
• The Red Sea: the port of Aydhab, shared with the Beja chiefs, and the desert road to Qus; al-Qulzum and al-Tur; the fort of Aila at the head of its gulf (its administration that winter not pinned)
• The western oases (al-Wahat: Kharga, Dakhla, Bahariyya, Farafra) and, loosely, Siwa
• The road across northern Sinai through al-Arish to Gaza, Egypt's gate to Syria
• The overlordship, often nominal, of the Bedouin of the Delta edges, Sinai and the deserts, and of the Beja of the Eastern Desert

How it was acquired

Saladin took Egypt from the inside as the last Fatimid vizier (1169) and ended the Fatimid caliphate in September 1171. At his death in March 1193 Egypt went to his son al-Aziz Uthman, who fought his brother al-Afdal and, with al-Adil, took Damascus from him in July 1196 (al-Aziz entered it on 3 Sha'ban 592, 3 July 1196, and handed it to al-Adil: Abu'l-Fida). On al-Aziz's death in November 1198 the throne passed to his son under the regency described above.

Al-Afdal left Salkhad on 27 Safar 595 (29 December 1198) with nineteen companions, disguised to slip past al-Adil's men, reached Bilbeis on 5 Rabi' I (5 January 1199), where the army came out to meet him, and walked on foot before his nephew to the vizier's palace in Cairo (Abu'l-Fida).

Allies and rivals

Allies that winter: al-Zahir Ghazi of Aleppo, the regent's full brother, partner in the siege of Damascus, but estranged since he accused al-Afdal of luring away one of his mamluks (Abu'l-Fida); the Asadiyya mamluks under Sayf al-Din Yazkuj and the Kurdish amirs. Rivals: al-Adil of Damascus and his sons (al-Kamil, who relieved Damascus with the Jazira troops; al-Mu'azzam Isa), and the Salahiyya under Fakhr al-Din Jaharkas, who serve al-Adil. Neutral or hedging: al-Mansur of Hama, who is bound by oath to al-Adil; al-Mujahid Shirkuh of Homs; the Zengids of the Jazira, who fought al-Kamil at Mardin.

The realm that morning

At first light on 1 January 1200 (about 12 Rabi' I 596; the Hijri year 596 began about 23 October 1199) Egypt is still al-Mansur's under al-Afdal's regency, but the regent is not in it: after the failed siege of Damascus he and al-Zahir camped at Marj al-Suffar until the last days of Safar 596 (about mid-December 1199) and then moved to Ras al-Ma' to winter, before giving up the plan, al-Afdal for Egypt and al-Zahir for Aleppo by way of al-Qaryatayn (Abu'l-Fida). The day he breaks camp is not pinned; it falls about the turn of the year. Al-Adil, with al-Kamil's Jazira troops and the Salahiyya, is at Damascus and will follow.

In Cairo the boy sultan, his household, the treasury and the government offices (under the head of the offices, al-As'ad ibn Mammati) are held in his name; who commands the city and the citadel for the regent is not pinned. The provinces, the ports and the Red Sea road are quiet; there is no fighting on Egyptian soil that morning. Across the Sinai frontier the coast road through Rafah, Gaza and Darum is Ayyubid ground whose allegiance that winter is disputed between the Egyptian regency and al-Adil (dam records, drawn as contested); beyond Aila the Hisma is Bedouin country and Kerak and Shawbak are al-Adil's; beyond Aswan lies Christian Nubia (Makuria), beyond the Mariout and Siwa the Arab tribes of Barqa, and across the Red Sea the Hejaz.

The Nile flood of 1199 is not reported as a failure by Abu'l-Fida; the failure that brings famine is the flood of summer 1200 (likely course).

Threats

• Al-Adil's pursuit: he is free to march on Egypt as soon as the coalition breaks up, and the Salahiyya and many Egyptian amirs are already his
• Desertion: the regent's army is tired after a six-month siege, unpaid in part, and its amirs hold their iqta's in Egypt and can be bought
• The Nile: the flood of summer 1200 will fail and the famine of 1200-1202 will follow
• A new crusade from the West, still without a target
• Bedouin unrest on the Delta edges if the government weakens

Ruler and household

The boy sultan lives with his mother and brothers in the old palace quarter of Cairo; Abu'l-Fida has al-Afdal escort him to the vizier's palace (Dar al-Wizara), which Saladin's line used as its residence. The citadel is not yet a royal home: al-Kamil is the first ruler to live there, in 1206 (Wikipedia, Cairo Citadel). The household officers of 1199-1200 (the majordomo (ustadar), the keeper of the seal, the commander of the guard) are not pinned by name.

Officers

• Regent and commander of the armies (atabeg): al-Afdal Nur al-Din Ali, Saladin's eldest son, since January 1199; with the army in southern Syria on 1 January 1200
• Head of all the government offices (diwans): al-As'ad ibn Mammati, a convert of a Coptic family of Asyut, who had headed the army office (diwan al-jaysh) after his father and then all the offices under Saladin and al-Aziz; author of the survey of Egypt's villages, canals and taxes (Qawanin al-dawawin). He helped push Qaraqush aside in 1198 (Wikipedia, Qaraqush; Ibn Mammati)
• Elder statesman: al-Qadi al-Fadil (Abd al-Rahim al-Baysani), Saladin's head of chancery, retired, living in Cairo, about seventy; the amirs took his advice in calling al-Afdal (Abu'l-Fida). He dies on 26 January 1200 (likely course)
• The retired atabeg: Baha al-Din Qaraqush al-Asadi, Saladin's old eunuch, builder of the walls and the citadel, named atabeg for al-Mansur and soon forced to retire by the commanders and Ibn Mammati; he dies on 7 April 1201 (Wikipedia)
• Governors (walis) of Alexandria, Damietta, Qus (the south), Bilbeis (al-Sharqiyya) and the other provinces: names not pinned for 1 January 1200 (see the governors' records)
• Chief judge (qadi al-qudat) of Egypt and the market inspector (muhtasib) of Cairo and Fustat: not pinned for 1 January 1200

Army and iqta

The army of Egypt is a cavalry of mamluks and free horsemen paid chiefly by grants of land revenue for service (iqta'). The army office (diwan al-jaysh) assigns each amir (the muqta') the tax yield of named villages, assessed in army dinars (dinar jayshi), and the amir keeps his own mamluks and horsemen from it and must answer the summons; the sultan keeps his own lands (al-khass) and the revenues not granted out: customs, the poll tax on Christians and Jews (jizya), the mint, the monopolies. The regiments are the Salahiyya (Saladin's own mamluks), the Asadiyya (the mamluks of Saladin's uncle Asad al-Din Shirkuh), the Kurdish amirs (the Hakkari and other clans), the Turkmen, the sultan's guard (halqa) and Arab auxiliaries.

A muster of the army of Egypt in 1181, which al-Maqrizi copied from al-Qadi al-Fadil's journal, counted about 8,600 horsemen (figure quoted from the modern literature, not re-read); there is no figure for 1200. The grants are scattered over the Delta and the valley, which is why, when al-Adil comes in January, al-Afdal's men will have gone home to their villages to graze their horses (Abu'l-Fida). The Fatimid black infantry was destroyed in 1169 and the Fatimid Armenian regiments dispersed.

Treasury

No figures. Revenue comes from the land tax in coin and kind collected by the iqta' holders and the state, the customs of Alexandria and Damietta (where the Italians and other Franks pay heavy duties on landing their goods), the Red Sea dues at Aydhab and Qus, the poll tax, the mint and the state monopolies (alum, natron, the balsam of al-Matariyya). The siege of Damascus has been paid for out of it through 1199; the chroniclers present al-Aziz as open-handed.

Its state that winter is not pinned.

Nile and harvest

Everything rests on the summer flood measured at the Nilometer on Roda. Abu'l-Fida records no failure for the flood of 1199 (595 AH); some modern summaries date the famine 1199-1202, but the low flood that Abu'l-Fida and the eyewitness Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi describe is that of summer 1200 (596 AH), which did not reach fourteen cubits (Abu'l-Fida). The winter crops of 1199-1200 (wheat, barley, beans, flax) are in the ground on 1 January; whether prices are already rising is not pinned.

The great famine, with plague and the eating of corpses in Cairo and Fustat, comes in 597 AH (October 1200 to September 1201) and lasts into 1202 (likely course).

Trade

Mediterranean: Venetians, Pisans and Genoese, with Provencals and Byzantine Greeks, come to Alexandria (and to Damietta) for pepper, spices, sugar, alum, flax and cotton, and bring timber, iron, pitch and arms that Egypt lacks; Rome forbids the trade in war materials, and in December 1198 Innocent III allowed the Venetians to keep trading with Egypt in other goods. The Italians live in their own walled inns (fondaco, funduq) at Alexandria. Indian Ocean: the Karimi merchants and the Jewish India traders bring pepper and spices from Aden to Aydhab, across the desert to Qus and down the Nile to Fustat and Alexandria; pilgrims for Mecca take the same road.

Inside Egypt: the linen of the Delta towns (Damietta, Tinnis before its abandonment, Sammanud, al-Mahalla), sugar from the valley and the Fayyum, the alum of the deserts, grain to the Hejaz.

Relations

Franks

At peace. The truce made by al-Adil with King Aimery in 1198 holds on the Palestine frontier (jer and dam records); Egypt sent no army against the Franks in 1199. The crusade preached in the West since 1198 has a leader since Theobald III of Champagne was chosen at Ecry on 28 November 1199 (campaign notes, Part 8.4); its target is not yet chosen, and Egypt is not yet named.

Italians

Commercial partners needed by both sides: Pisa (fondaco at Alexandria since the Fatimid treaty of 1154, renewed with Saladin), Venice (fondaco at Alexandria; papal licence of December 1198 for non-war goods) and Genoa. See Pisans of Alexandria, Venetians of Alexandria, Genoese of Alexandria.

Caliph

The Abbasid caliph an-Nasir (since 1180) is named in the khutba and on the coins with the ruler; Baghdad recognises al-Adil as sultan only in 1207 (Wikipedia, Ayyubid dynasty).

Ayyubid kin

Ayyubid Yemen is ruled by al-Mu'izz Isma'il, son of Saladin's brother Tughtekin; Abu'l-Fida dates his claim to the caliphate to 599 AH (1202-1203), later. Al-Zahir of Aleppo is the regent's ally; al-Adil and his sons are his enemies.

Nubia

Peace with Makuria since a Nubian army drove Saladin's Kurdish garrison out of Lower Nubia in 1175; King Moses George is attested in 1186, the king of 1200 is not pinned. The Banu Kanz, expelled from Aswan after their pro-Fatimid rising of 1174, now live in Maris (Lower Nubia).

Hejaz

Egypt feeds the holy cities with grain and protects the pilgrims; Saladin abolished the toll on pilgrims at Aydhab and Jidda and compensated the amir of Mecca (Ibn Jubayr).

West

Beyond Barqa, Saladin's former mamluk Sharaf al-Din Qaraqush still fights in Tripolitania and Ifriqiya alongside the Banu Ghaniya against the Almohads, on his own account (outside).

Churches

The Coptic patriarch John VI (1189-1216) keeps his seat at the Hanging Church (al-Mu'allaqa) in Fustat (Wikipedia); the Greek (Melkite) patriarch of Alexandria (holder not checked here), the Armenians of Cairo, the monastery of St Catherine on Sinai (St Catherine's). Jews, Rabbanite and Karaite, are strongest in Fustat, where Moses Maimonides, physician to al-Qadi al-Fadil and to al-Afdal, is the leading figure of the community. Copts still fill the government offices, several as converts. The surviving Fatimid princes are kept under guard in Cairo.

Coinage

Gold dinars and silver-copper dirhams struck at Cairo and Alexandria in the names of the caliph and the ruler; copper coins for small change. Whether al-Afdal's name as atabeg appears on al-Mansur's coins is not pinned.

The host

The field army of Egypt (the Asadiyya, the Kurds, part of the halqa and the provincial amirs) is with al-Afdal in southern Syria; the Salahiyya have gone over to al-Adil. Garrisons hold the Cairo citadel, Alexandria, Damietta, Tinnis, Bilbeis, Qus, Aswan and Aila. The fleet (al-ustul), rebuilt by Saladin and famous for destroying Reynald of Chatillon's Red Sea raiders in 1183 under the admiral Husam al-Din Lu'lu', was largely lost at Acre in 1191; its strength in 1200 is not pinned.

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. Late December 1199 or early January 1200 (not pinned to the day)Al-Afdal and al-Zahir give up their winter camp at Ras al-Ma'; al-Afdal returns to Egypt with the army, al-Zahir to Aleppo by al-Qaryatayn (Abu'l-Fida).Depends on: The quarrel between the brothers and the failure of the siege. Stopped by: A renewed common plan between the brothers, or a deal with al-Adil.
2. January 1200Back in Egypt, al-Afdal's amirs scatter to their villages to graze and water their horses; al-Adil, following him, enters Egypt while the army is dispersed (Abu'l-Fida).Depends on: Al-Adil's decision to pursue in winter and the custom of sending the horses to the spring grass. Stopped by: Al-Afdal keeping his army together at Bilbeis or on the Sinai road.
3. Late January 1200 (day not pinned)Al-Afdal, with the troops he has with him, fights al-Adil near Bilbeis, at a place the French translation of Abu'l-Fida gives as Es-Sa'ili, is routed and flees to Cairo.Depends on: The armies meeting before al-Afdal can gather the regiments; the Egyptian amirs' loyalty. Stopped by: A victory for al-Afdal, or the Asadiyya and the Kurds deserting al-Adil instead.
4. 26 January 1200 (7 Rabi' II 596)Al-Qadi al-Fadil dies in Cairo, about seventy years old (Wikipedia; Abu'l-Fida notes his death in the same passage). A natural death.Depends on: Nothing in play; it happens unless play changes his circumstances. Stopped by: Nothing likely.
5. Early February 1200After an eight-day siege of Cairo al-Afdal surrenders it on terms: Mayyafariqin, Hani and Samosata in exchange. Al-Adil agrees and does not keep his word (his son al-Awhad keeps Mayyafariqin); al-Afdal goes to Salkhad and later holds Samosata and Saruj. Al-Adil enters Cairo on 21 Rabi' II 596, 9 February 1200 (Abu'l-Fida); other accounts give 5 February (Wikipedia, fr).Depends on: The defeat near Bilbeis and al-Afdal's lack of a relieving army. Stopped by: Cairo holding out, al-Zahir marching south, or the Cairo garrison refusing to open the gates.
6. February to late 1200 (sources differ)Al-Adil first governs as the boy's guardian, then sets him aside, has the khutba and the coins in his own name and takes the title of sultan (Abu'l-Fida, undated in the passage read); Wikipedia gives 17 February 1200, and the Wikipedia article on al-Mansur says within days of the entry into Cairo. Al-Mansur stays in Egypt; Abu'l-Fida reports his removal to Aleppo with his mother and brothers only under 599 AH (1202-1203).Depends on: Al-Adil holding Cairo and the amirs accepting a grown man over a boy. Stopped by: A rising of the Asadiyya and the Kurds, or a coalition of Saladin's sons restoring al-Mansur.
7. 1200 (month not pinned)Al-Adil calls his son al-Kamil from the Jazira to be his deputy (na'ib) in Egypt (Wikipedia, al-Kamil); al-Adil's vizier Safi al-Din ibn Shukr takes over the offices, and Ibn Mammati falls, loses his property and flees to Aleppo (date of his flight not pinned; he dies there in 1209).Depends on: Al-Adil's conquest. Stopped by: Al-Adil losing Egypt.
8. Summer and autumn 1200 (596 AH)The Nile flood fails, stopping short of fourteen cubits (Abu'l-Fida); grain prices soar and the great famine of 597 AH (October 1200 to September 1201) begins, followed by plague, flight from the villages and mass death, described by the eyewitness Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi; the shortage runs into 1202.Depends on: The rains of the Ethiopian highlands, beyond any player's reach. Stopped by: Nothing in play can stop the low flood; stored grain, imports from Syria and the West, and the ruler's relief can soften it.

Where the sources disagree

• Date of al-Adil's entry into Cairo: Abu'l-Fida gives 21 Rabi' II 596 (9 February 1200); French Wikipedia 5 February 1200; English Wikipedia 'February 1200 (Rabi' II 596)'. Not pinned closer than 5-9 February.
• Date al-Adil took the sultanate: Wikipedia (al-Adil I, al-Afdal) gives 17 February 1200 and the Wikipedia article on al-Mansur says 'within days'; Abu'l-Fida says only that he first acted as guardian and then took power and the title. Treat as not pinned within 1200.
• End of the siege of Damascus: English Wikipedia says December 1199; Abu'l-Fida has the princes leave the siege for Marj al-Suffar and stay there until the last days of Safar 596 (about mid-December 1199). The siege lines were therefore abandoned before mid-December; the coalition broke up about the turn of the year.
• Arrival before Damascus in 1199: Abu'l-Fida's French translation as read gives 10 June 1199; French Wikipedia gives 14 June, with al-Adil back in Damascus on 8 June.
• Al-Mansur's age: Abu'l-Fida and the Wikipedia article on al-Zahir say nine at his accession; the Wikipedia article on al-Mansur says twelve and gives two birth years (1186, 1189).
• The famine is often dated 1199-1202 (Wikipedia list of famines; Wikipedia on al-Adil: 'low flooding of the Nile between 1199 and 1202 (595-98)'), but the first failure that Abu'l-Fida records is the flood of 596 AH (summer 1200). We could not read Abd al-Latif's own text to check his figures.

Evidence: The chronology of the succession and the civil war is well recorded in the Arabic chronicles (Ibn al-Athir, Abu Shama, Ibn Wasil, Abu'l-Fida, al-Maqrizi); we read Abu'l-Fida's account in the French translation and modern summaries. The administration (Ibn Mammati, al-Makhzumi) is well described in general, but the names of governors, iqta' holders and household officers on 1 January 1200 are mostly not pinned. No figures are given for the treasury.

On the map: Egypt was a ribbon of watered land in a desert. The polygons trace the flood plain and the Fayyum; the snapping to modern units will widen the valley. The deserts are drawn as Bedouin and Beja provinces under at most nominal Ayyubid lordship; the oases, the Red Sea ports and the Sinai road are shown as Egyptian points.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career. Read online
• History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, Mawhub ibn Mansur ibn Mufarrij and continuators (Various) (compiled in Arabic 1088 to 1094 from Coptic lives; continued for the patriarchs of 1102 to 1243 and later). The Coptic church's own record. Read online
• The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193. Read online
• The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (after 1193, probably between about 1198 and 1228, at Aleppo). Ends with Saladin's death in March 1193 and so gives no event of 1200, but it is the formative portrait of the Ayyubid house of 1200: al-Adil, al-Afdal, al-Aziz and al-Zahir Ghazi as Saladin's lieutenants, the Mosul and Jazira campaigns, the war of Acre and the treaty of Jaffa of 1192. Read online

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