Shams Al-Din Lu'lu' Al-Amini
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Shams al-Dīn Luʾluʾ al-Amīnī (died 3 February 1251) was one of the regents of Aleppo for the Ayyūbid ruler al-Nāṣir Yūsuf and later his chief advisor and the commander-in-chief of his armies. He dominated the government of al-Nāṣir from 1242 until his death.


Early life and regency

Shams al-Dīn Luʾluʾ. was a native of
Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...
of
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origin. He was a
freedman A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...
(''ʿatīq'') of Amīn al-Dīn Yumn, who was in turn a freedman of Nūr al-Dīn Arslān Shāh ibn Masʿūd, ruler of Mosul. In 1225 or 1226, he invited his fellow Mosul native, Ibn Bāṭīsh, back to Aleppo, where the latter had previously lived in 1205–1206 and 1223. According to Ibn al-ʿAdīm's biographical dictionary of Aleppo, Ibn Bāṭīsh lived with Shams al-Dīn, who relied on his advice in conducting his affairs. According to ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn Shaddād, Shams al-Dīn founded a school in Aleppo. By 1236, Shams al-Dīn held the rank of
emir Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person po ...
. In that year, he was one of two emirs appointed to the four-man regency council for the seven-year-old al-Nāṣir, the other being ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿUmar ibn Mujallī. The
vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...
Ibn al-Qifṭī also sat on the council, while actual power was exercised by the child's grandmother, Ḍayfa Khātūn, who was represented on the council by Jamāl al-Dawla Iqbāl al-Khātūnī. The regency formally ended with her death in 1242, but, as the ruler was still a child, Shams al-Dīn was the ''de facto'' head of government in Aleppo. He remained throughout his life the commander-in-chief of the Aleppan army. Towards the end, however, he was distrusted by the Turkic ''
mamlūk 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-soldi ...
''s (slave soldiers) of the elite ʿAzīziyya and Nāṣiriyya contingents.


Commander-in-chief and chief advisor

In May 1246, Shams al-Dīn, in alliance with Emir al-Manṣūr of Homs, led the army of Aleppo against the Khwarāzmians. Because of his greater experience with the Khwarāzmians, al-Manṣūr took command of the combined army and on 18 May crushed the Khwarāzmian power in Syria permanently in a battle near the Lake of Homs. The head of the Khwarāzmian leader, Baraka Ḵhān, was given to Shams al-Dīn, who had it hung from the gate of the citadel in Aleppo. In 1248, Shams al-Dīn convinced al-Nāṣir Yūsuf to annex Homs, then ruled by al-Ashraf Mūsā, to prevent it from forming a potent alliance with al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb of Egypt. He led the army himself that successfully besieged Homs from May to August 1248. The Egyptian siege that soon followed, led by Fakhr al-Dīn ibn al-Shaykh, was broken off at the insistence of the ʿAbbāsid caliph,
al-Mustaʿṣim Abu Ahmad Abdallah ibn al-Mustansir bi'llah (), better known by his regnal title Al-Mustaʿṣim bi-llāh (; 1213 – 20 February 1258), was the 37th and last caliph from the Abbasid dynasty ruling from Baghdad. He held the title from 1242 unti ...
, and because of the impending
Seventh Crusade The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, it aimed to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Nea ...
. As a result, Egypt recognized al-Nāṣir as ruler of Homs. Shams al-Dīn moved with al-Nāṣir to
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
after its conquest in 1250. He urged al-Nāṣir to send an embassy to
Karakorum Karakorum (Khalkha Mongolian: Хархорум, ''Kharkhorum''; Mongolian script:, ''Qaraqorum'') was the capital city, capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260 and of the Northern Yuan, Northern Yuan dynasty in the late 14th and 1 ...
to make formal submission to Mongke, Great Khan of the
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. Ultimately,
Zayn al-Dīn al-Ḥāfiẓī Zayn may refer to: People * Zain (name) (), an Arabic name meaning "beauty" or "grace" ** Zayn Malik (born 1993), also known mononymously as Zayn, British recording artist and former member of One Direction See also * Zayn ad-Din (disambiguation) ...
was sent in 1250 and returned with formal recognition of al-Nāṣir's position from the Great Khan. Following the ''mamlūk'' uprising in Egypt, Shams al-Dīn urged al-Nāṣir to re-conquer Egypt for the dynasty. Ibn Wāṣil records that his own ''mamlūk''s had begun to favour their Turkic co-ethnics in Egypt. During the invasion of Egypt, he was captured at the
battle of Kurāʿ The Battle of al-Kura ({{Langx, arz, معركة الكورة) was a military clash in medieval Egypt between an army of the Mamluks ruling Egypt and an army of the Ayyubids ruling Syria. The battle occurred on February 2, 1251, on a stretch of la ...
on 3 February 1251. Despite the entreaties of Ḥusām al-Dīn ibn Abī ʿĀlī, who believed the captive was a valuable hostage, the Mamlūk ruler, Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak, ordered Shams al-Dīn executed. Ibn Wāṣil blames his defeat and capture on his own "mismanagement", but admits that had he "not been killed ... he would have entered Cairo" at the head of the other commanders such as al-Muʿaẓẓam Tūrānshāh ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, who were actually brought to
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
as captives. The death of his "guiding spirit" and "chief advisor" was a major blow to al-Nāṣir, whose reign never again saw the succession of triumphs that had characterized it under Shams al-Dīn.


Notes


Bibliography

* * * *{{cite book , last=Morray , first=David W. , title=An Ayyubid Notable and his World: Ibn al-ʿAdīm and Aleppo as Portrayed in his Biographical Dictionary of People Associated with the City , publisher=E. J. Brill , year=1994 1251 deaths Emirs 13th-century regents People from Mosul People from Aleppo Slaves from the Ayyubid Sultanate Syria under the Ayyubid Sultanate Freedmen Generals of the Ayyubid Sultanate 13th-century slaves