Al-Ashraf Muzaffar ad-Din Musa () was the last, albeit titular,

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

of Egypt as the puppet of Izz ad-Din Aybak.

Origins

The family origins of Al-Ashraf Musa are not entirely clear. According to Lane-Poole, Al-Ashraf Musa was a descendant of

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

and the great grandson of

Az-Zahir Ghazi Al-Malik az-Zahir Ghiyath ud-din Ghazi ibn Yusuf ibn Ayyub (commonly known as az-Zahir Ghazi; 1172 – 8 October 1216) was the Kurdish Ayyubid emir of Aleppo between 1186 and 1216. He was the third son of Saladin and his lands included northern ...

, Amir of Aleppo, who had struggled against

Al-Adil Al-Adil I (, in full al-Malik al-Adil Sayf ad-Din Abu-Bakr Ahmed ibn Najm ad-Din Ayyub, ,‎ "Ahmed, son of Najm ad-Din Ayyub, father of Bakr, the Just King, Sword of the Faith"; 1145 – 31 August 1218) was the fourth Sultan of Egypt, Sultan o ...

for supremacy in the Ayyubid domains. His grandfather, the son of Az-Zahir, was al-Aziz Mohammad, also Amir of Aleppo, while his father, son of al-Aziz, was

An-Nasir Yusuf An-Nasir Yusuf (; AD 1228–1260), fully al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn al-Aziz ibn al-Zahir ibn Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shazy (), was the Ayyubid Kurdish Emir of Syria from his seat in Aleppo (1236–1260), and the S ...

, Amir of Aleppo, and later Damascus. However, if this were the case he would have been titular head of a government in Egypt which was fighting his own father. According to other sources he was the son of Yusuf, and grandson of al-Mas'ud Yusuf. Al-Mas'ud Yusuf, the son of Sultan

Al-Kamil Al-Malik al-Kamil Nasir ad-Din Muhammad (; – 6 March 1238), titled Abu al-Maali (), was an Egyptian ruler and the fourth Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated the Fifth Crusade. He was known to the Franki ...

of Egypt, was the last Ayyubid ruler of Yemen. After the Ayyubids were expelled from Yemen his family moved to Cairo.

Accession

Ayyubid rule in Egypt had effectively come to an end in 1250 when the

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

s murdered

Al-Muazzam Turanshah Turanshah, also Turan Shah (), (? – 2 May 1250), (''epithet:'' al-Malik al-Muazzam Ghayath al-Din Turanshah ()) was a ruler of Egypt, a son of Sultan As-Salih Ayyub. A member of the Ayyubid Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt for a brief peri ...

. For a brief period Shajar ad-Durr ruled as Sultana, but she was soon replaced by Izz ad-Din Aybak. The murder of Turanshah meant that while the Mamluks controlled Egypt, the Ayyubid family remained in control of the Emirates in Palestine and Syria. Mamluk rule in Egypt was not secure, and following the death of Turanshah, the Ayyubid

, ruler of Aleppo, was welcomed into Damascus and began preparations to send an army into Egypt to make himself Sultan. The Mamluks understood that if he reached Cairo he would find enough of a welcome to seriously threaten their power. For this reason, they decided it would be prudent to have a nominal Ayyubid Sultan in power in Cairo, to give their rule a veneer of legitimacy. For this reason Aybak stood down after less than a week as Sultan, and the six-year-old Al-Ashraf Musa, was proclaimed Sultan in his place.

Deposition

An-Nasir Yusuf's assaults on Egypt were repelled, and in 1253 an agreement was reached whereby he withdrew, leaving Egypt in Mamluk control. In 1254, a new potential threat to Aybak's rule emerged when Faris ad-Din Aktai, leader of the Bahri Mamluks, asked permission to move into the citadel of Cairo with his future wife, who was the sister of the Ayyubid ruler al-Malik al-Mansour of Hama. Sensing that Aktai would use this marriage to give himself legitimacy as Sultan, Aybak had him murdered. After this, Aybak resolved to rule on his own authority and decided he had no further need of a titular Ayyubid Sultan on whose behalf he claimed to act. Thereafter he deposed al-Ashraf Musa and sent him back to live with his aunt, proclaiming himself Sultan a second time.Humphreys, R. Stephen, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus 1193-1260, p.326

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Ashraf Musa Date of birth unknown Sunni Muslims 13th-century Ayyubid sultans of Egypt Ayyubid sultans of Egypt Medieval child monarchs 13th-century Egyptian people 13th-century Muslims

Origins

Accession

Deposition

See also

References