The vast nation, sometimes called Turks, sometimes Tatars, was distributed, according to all Oriental geographers, over all the countries of Northern Asia, from the river Jihun or Oxus to Kathay or China. That the Turks and the Arabs, both bent upon a persistent policy of conquest, should come into more or less hostile contact was inevitable. The struggle was a long one, and during the numerous engagements many prisoners were taken on both sides. Those Turks who fell into the hands of the Arabs were sent to the different provinces of their domain, where they became slaves of the chief emirs and of the caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in the eyes of the caliphs, they were soon transferred to their personal retinue. The distrust which the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court, whose claims they were only able to appease by making vassals of them, caused them to commit the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves, who, barbaric and illiterate as they were, now living in the midst of princes, soon acquired a knowledge of Muhammedanism, the sciences, and, above all, the politics of the country.
It was not long before they were able to fill the most responsible positions, and, given their freedom by the caliphs, were employed by the government according to their abilities. Not only were they given the chief positions at court, but the government of the principal provinces was entrusted to them. They repaid these favours later by the blackest ingratitude, especially when the formation of a Turkish guard brought a number of their own countrymen under their influence. Ever anxious to augment his own body-guard, and finding the number of Turks he annually received as tribute insufficient, el-Mutasim purchased a great many for the purpose of training them for that particular service. But these youths speedily abused the confidence shown them by the caliph, who, perceiving that their insolence was daily growing more insupportable to the inhabitants of Baghdad, resolved to leave the capital, rebuild the ancient city of Samarrah and again make it the seat of the empire.
At this time the captain of the caliph’s guard was one Tulun, a freedman, whom fate would seem to have reduced to servitude for the purpose of showing that a slave might found a dynasty destined to rule over Egypt and Syria. Tulun belonged to the Toghus-ghur, one of the twenty-four tribes composing the population of Turkestan. His family dwelt near Lake Lop, in Little Bukhara. He was taken prisoner in battle by Nuh ibn Assad es-Samami, then in command at Bukhara. This prince, who was subject to the Caliph Mamun, paid an annual tribute of slaves, Turkish horses, and other valuables. In the year 815 a. d., Tulun was among the slaves sent as tribute to the caliph, who, attracted by his bearing, enrolled him in his own body-guard.
Before long he had so gained the caliph’s confidence that Mamun gave him his freedom and the command of the guard, at the same time appointing him Emir es-sitri, prince of the veil or curtain. This post, which was a mark of the greatest esteem, comprised the charge of the personal safety of the sovereign, by continually keeping watch without the curtain or rich drapery which hung before the private apartments, and admitting no one without a special order. Tulun spent twenty years at the court of el-Mamun and of his successor, Mutasim, and became the father of several children, one of which, Ahmed ibn Tulun,* known later as Abu l’Abbas, was the founder of the Tulunide dynasty in Egypt and Syria.
* Ahmed ibn Tulun was, according to some historians, born at
Baghdad in the year 220 of the Hegira, in the third year of
the reign of el-Mutasim b’ Illah. Others claim Samarrah as
his birthplace. His mother, a young Turkish slave, was named
Kassimeh, or some say, Hachimeh. Some historians have denied
that Ahmed was the son of Tulun, one of them, Suyuti, in a
manuscript belonging to Marcel, quotes Abu Asakar in
confirmation of this assertion, who pretends he was told by
an old Egyptian that Ahmed was the son of a Turk named Mahdi
and of Kassimeh, the slave of Tulun. Suyuti adds that Tulun
adopted the child on account of his good qualities, but this
statement is unsupported and seems contradicted by
subsequent events.
Before Ahmed ibn Tulun had reached an age to take part in political affairs, two caliphs succeeded Mutasim b’lllah. The first was his son Harun abu Jafar, who, upon his accession, assumed the surname el-Wathik b’lllah (trusting in God). Wathik carried on the traditional policy of continually changing the governors of the provinces, and, dying in the year 847, was succeeded by his half-brother Mutawakkil. In the following year the new caliph confided the government of Egypt to Anbasa, but dismissed him a few months later in favour of his own son el-Muntasir ibn el-Mutawakkil, whom two years afterwards the caliph named as his successor to the throne. El-Muntasir was to be immediately succeeded by his two younger brothers, el-Mutazz b’lllah and el-Mujib b’lllah.
Mutawakkil then proceeded to divide his kingdom, giving Africa and all his Eastern possessions, from the frontier of Egypt to the eastern boundary of his states, to his eldest son. His second son, el-Mutazz, received Khorassan, Tabaristan, Persia, Armenia, and Aderbaijan as his portion, and to el-Mujib, his third son, he gave Damascus, Hemessa, the basin of the Jordan, and Palestine.
These measures, by which the caliph hoped to satisfy the ambitions of his sons, did not have the desired effect. Despite the immense concessions he had received, el-Muntasir, anxious to commence his rule over the whole of the Islam empire, secretly conspired against his father and meditated taking his life. Finding that in Egypt he was too far from the scene of his intrigues, he deputed the government of that country to Yazid ibn Abd Allah, and returned to his father’s court to encourage the malcontents and weave fresh plots. His evil schemes soon began to bear fruit, for, in the year 244 of the Hegira, his agents stirred up the Turkish soldiery at Damascus to insurrection on the ground of deferred payment. Whereupon the caliph paid them the arrears, and left Damascus to retire to Samarrah.
