The emirate of Mecca under Mukthir ibn Isa

Who rules

Name

Mukthir (Mukaththir) ibn Isa ibn Fulayta al-Hashimi al-Hasani

Title

Emir (amir) of Mecca, sharif of the house of the Hawashim

Since

Emir off and on from the night of 15 Rajab 571 (about 5 February 1176); sole emir since the amir al-hajj deposed his brother Dawud in 587 (1191-1192), and without a rival since Dawud's death in 589 (1193)

Born

not pinned

Family

The Hawashim (Hashimids), a Hasanid sharifian house named after Abu Hashim Muhammad ibn Ja'far, emir 1063-1094. Father: Isa ibn Fulayta, emir until his death on 2 Sha'ban 570 (about 5 March 1175). Brother and rival: Dawud ibn Isa, emir 570-571 and again at intervals, deposed in 587 for stripping the Ka'ba and the silver collar of the Black Stone, died at Nakhla in Rajab or Sha'ban 589 (July or August 1193); Dawud's son Ahmad is known only from a gravestone. Mukthir's own sons are not named in the sources read.

Confidence

high

Wikipedia articles on Mukaththir and Da'ud ibn Isa (from Ibn Fahd, Ghayat al-maram, al-Dhahabi, Ibn Mahfuz). Ibn Jubayr found Mukthir ruling in 1183-1184.

Overlord

He reads the Friday sermon (khutba) for the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah and, since the Ayyubid takeover of 1175, for the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, whose grain and subsidy keep Mecca alive. Which Ayyubid name is read in the winter of 1199-1200 (the boy al-Mansur under al-Afdal's regency, or al-Adil) is not pinned.

What the realm holds

• Mecca, the Haram and the sanctuary boundary (the haram) with Mina, Muzdalifa and Arafat
• the castle on Mount Abu Qubays above the Haram
• Jeddah, the port of Mecca, with its customs on merchants' goods
• the spring-fed palm valleys of Marr al-Zahran (Wadi Fatima) and Nakhla, where the Hawashim have estates
• the road stations to Jeddah (Hadda) and towards Medina (Usfan, Khulays)
• an influence over Ta'if and its Thaqif villages whose form is not pinned

How it was acquired

Hereditary in the Hawashim since about 1063; Mukthir took it from his brother by force in 571 (1176) and was restored by the Iraqi amir al-hajj in 587 (1191-1192).

Allies and rivals

Dependent on Ayyubid Egypt for grain and subsidy and on the caliph's caravan for gifts and legitimacy, but both have deposed or threatened the emirs (Tashtakin in 1176; Tughtekin in the 1180s). Rivals: the sharif Qatada ibn Idris of Wadi Yanbu and his sons; the Husaynid emirs of Medina, one of whom (al-Qasim ibn Muhanna) held Mecca for three days in 1176. The Bedouin round Mecca (Hudhayl and others) are paid, not ruled.

The realm that morning

Mukthir ibn Isa rules Mecca and Jeddah on 1 January 1200 (about 12 Rabi' I 596), alone, after Dawud's death in 1193. No fighting is dated to that winter. The pilgrimage of Dhu al-Hijja 595 (October 1199) is over and the next falls in Dhu al-Hijja 596 (September 1200). Egypt, his paymaster, is in civil war: the regent al-Afdal has just come back from the failed siege of Damascus and his uncle al-Adil is following him into Egypt.

Wealth

The pilgrimage above all: the gifts of the caliph, the sultans and the pilgrims, rents and services sold to pilgrims, and the yearly compensation from Egypt for the abolished pilgrim toll; customs at Jeddah on the India and Red Sea trade (pepper, spices, cloth); dates and fruit of Wadi Fatima, Nakhla and Ta'if; the endowments of the Haram. Mecca eats Egyptian grain brought through Aydhab and Jeddah, Yemeni grain, and what the highlanders of the Sarat (the Sarw) bring down to sell.

Military

Kinsmen, household and slave soldiers, and Bedouin hired for a season; the castle on Abu Qubays; no walls round the city are described for 1200 by the sources read. In 1176 the emir held out only three days against the Iraqi caravan's troops.

Threats

• Qatada ibn Idris and his sons, masters of Wadi Yanbu and Wadi al-Safra, already in league with sharifian clans and the Meccan notables
• the Nile failure of summer 1200 and the famine in Egypt from October 1200, which will cut the grain and the subsidy
• the Ayyubid civil war in Egypt and a change of master in Cairo
• the Iraqi amir al-hajj, who has deposed emirs before
• Bedouin raids on the pilgrim roads

Family and household

The Hawashim kinsmen; the emir's household and slave soldiers ('abid); his deputies at Jeddah and in the valleys. No minister or deputy is named for 1200 in the sources read.

Great families

The Banu Shayba, hereditary keepers of the key of the Ka'ba (chief not pinned for 1200); the other Hasanid sharifian clans of the Hejaz (Banu Harab, Banu Isa, Banu Ali, Banu Ahmad, Banu Ibrahim, Banu Yahya), several of them now in Qatada's camp; the scholars and imams of the four Sunni schools at the Haram, and the Zaydi party that follows the sharifs' own Zaydi rite; the Meccan merchants and the hosts and guides of the pilgrims.

Religion

The sharifs are Zaydi Shi'is by tradition; the Haram has Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali imams praying at their own stations (Ibn Jubayr). The Ayyubids have pressed for Sunni forms: Tughtekin is said to have stopped the Shi'i words in the call to prayer (not verified here).

Coinage and khutba

Khutba for the caliph al-Nasir and then the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt (name for this winter not pinned). Coins: Tughtekin struck gold and silver in Saladin's name at Mecca in the 1180s (Ibn al-Athir); no Meccan issue of 1199-1200 is known to me.

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. 9 February 1200 (21 Rabi' II 596) and the weeks afterAl-Adil enters Cairo and soon takes the sultanate; the khutba in Mecca will in time name al-Adil as the Ayyubid sovereign.Depends on: Al-Adil winning in Egypt (Latin East map, egy-egypt) and Mukthir following Cairo. Stopped by: Al-Afdal holding Egypt; Mukthir refusing the change.
2. Dhu al-Hijja 596 (about September 1200)The pilgrimage: the Iraqi caravan under the caliph's amir al-hajj, the Syrian and Egyptian pilgrims and the Yemenis gather at Mecca and Arafat.Depends on: Safe roads and Egyptian grain. Stopped by: Bedouin closing the roads; famine.
3. From summer 1200; famine from October 1200 (597 AH)The Nile flood of 1200 fails and the Egyptian famine follows; grain and subsidy for the Hejaz shrink, prices rise in Mecca.Depends on: The flood (natural). Stopped by: Nothing in play; Yemeni grain may soften it.
4. 597-599 AH (the earliest report: 597, which begins about 11 October 1200; most likely 1201-1203)Qatada's son Hanzala marches on Mecca; Mukthir flees to Wadi Nakhla, where he dies in 600 (1203-1204). The Meccan notables accept Qatada, who later has the khutba read for the caliph and the Ayyubid al-Kamil and founds the house that rules Mecca until 1925.Depends on: Qatada's strength and the notables' consent; Ayyubid and Abbasid indifference. Stopped by: An Ayyubid or Abbasid force backing Mukthir; Medina or the Bedouin turning on Qatada; Qatada's death.

Places of note

• Castle on Mount Abu Qubays: The emirs' fortress above the Haram, surrendered by Mukthir to Tashtakin in 1176.
• Arafat: The plain of the standing on 9 Dhu al-Hijja.

Where the sources disagree

• The date Qatada took Mecca is given as 597, 598 or 599 AH (1200-1203); the English Wikipedia list of sharifs gives 1201. The 597 report (Ibn Mahfuz) would fall after 11 October 1200 at the earliest, so on 1 January 1200 Mukthir rules in every version.
• A family table in the English Wikipedia article on the sharifs of Mecca shows an 'ibn Dawud' reigning 1196-1201; the fuller articles drawn from Ibn Fahd have Mukthir ruling alone from 589 (1193) to the Qatadid takeover. We follow the latter.
• The date of Tughtekin's coinage and interference at Mecca (usually given as 581 AH, 1185-1186) is not checked here.

Evidence: The succession is well recorded in the Meccan chronicles (Ibn Fahd, al-Fasi) as reported by Wikipedia; nothing is dated to the winter of 1199-1200 itself.

On the map: The emir's real ground is the city, the sanctuary, Jeddah and a few spring valleys; the outline joins them for the map. Ta'if is drawn in its own record.

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 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
• 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