38 Facts About Badr al-Jamali

Badr al-Jamali was unable to prevent the loss of most of Syria to local potentates and Turkoman warlords, but managed to hold on to the coastal cities, making Acre his base.

Badr al-Jamali landed in Egypt in late 1073, rapidly eliminated his rivals, and was appointed vizier with plenipotentiary powers, making him a quasi-sultan or military dictator, with the caliph relegated to his religious duties as Isma'ili imam.

Badr al-Jamali managed to restore order in Egypt and initiated major administrative reforms, defeated Turkoman attempts to invade Egypt, and recovered control over Palestine and the Hejaz.

Badr al-Jamali initiated a series of new constructions, including the Juyushi Mosque and the new city wall of Cairo, some of whose gates stand to this day.

Badr al-Jamali's tenure saved the Fatimid regime, but began a period where the vizierate was dominated by military strongmen who held power on their own, rather than through caliphal appointment, and who increasingly sidelined the caliphs to puppet rulers.

Badr al-Jamali initiated a wave of Armenian migration into Egypt, and was the first of a series of viziers of Armenian origin, who played a major role in the fortunes of the Fatimid Caliphate over the subsequent century.

Badr al-Jamali was of Armenian ethnic origin, and born sometime between 1005 and 1008; he is recorded as being over 80 years of age at the time of his death.

Badr al-Jamali was purchased as a military slave by Jamal al-Dawla ibn Ammar, ruler of Tripoli, whence he acquired his epithet of 'al-Jamali'.

At some point, Badr al-Jamali married the daughter of Ruqtash, a Turkoman officer in the Fatimid army.

Badr al-Jamali was unable to halt the collapse of the Fatimid state's authority in the region, specifically the Emirate of Aleppo.

Badr al-Jamali was instructed to bring Mahmud to heel, and turned to the latter's deposed uncle, Atiyya ibn Salih, promising him assistance to regain control of Aleppo.

Badr al-Jamali was replaced by Qutb al-Dawla Bariz Tughan, likely invested as governor by Ibn Hamdan.

The quarrels between the and the Fatimid soldiers continued, with Badr al-Jamali sending one of his officers to help the latter organize.

Ramla and coastal Palestine answered to Ibn Hamdan, while Badr al-Jamali held the coastal cities of Acre, Ascalon, Sidon, and Caesarea.

Badr al-Jamali aimed to subdue Tyre, which by virtue of its position cut his territories in half, but his first attack on the city was thwarted by the presence of al-Kutami's troops.

Badr al-Jamali defeated him and returned to lay siege to Tyre.

Badr al-Jamali was joined by Turks from Egypt, opponents of Ibn Hamdan, who had seized control of Cairo.

Conversely, Badr al-Jamali recruited to his cause the Oghuz clan of the Nawikis, that was fleeing the onslaught of the Seljuks, to combat the Bedouin.

At that point, Badr al-Jamali invited the rival officers to a sumptuous banquet, where they were assassinated.

The military foundation of Badr al-Jamali's power was exemplified by the title of, which not only became the name most commonly associated with him, but was used by Badr al-Jamali as his proper patronymic.

The historian Heinz Halm argues that to all intents and purposes, Badr al-Jamali's position was analogous to that of sultan, adopted a few decades earlier by the Seljuk ruler Tughril Beg to frame his authority vis-a-vis the Abbasid caliph.

Michael Brett on the other hand points out that the amplitude of powers vested in Badr al-Jamali was unprecedented, and included matters of religion, which properly belonged to al-Mustansir's sphere of authority as imam, as well as the dispensation of justice, a core attribute of sovereignty.

Brett insists that Badr al-Jamali was not a "sultan coming in from the outside like Tughril Beg and Saladin, but an insider identified with the dynasty and its cause".

Once nominated as vizier, Badr al-Jamali began a purge, not only among the remaining Turkish officers, but among the high officials.

The vizierate alone had changed hands dozens of times during the preceding anarchy, and Badr executed many of its holders, as well as s The confiscated properties of all the purged officers and officials helped replenish the empty caliphal treasury.

Badr al-Jamali proceeded to clear the Delta from east to west.

Badr al-Jamali proceeded against them in summer 1076, taking the Bedouin by surprise in their camp at night and killing most of them, while others were pursued until they drowned in the Nile.

The local autonomous ruler, Kanz al-Dawla, fled to the Nubians, but was handed over to Badr al-Jamali and executed in Cairo.

Badr al-Jamali retained overall control of religious affairs, and sponsored the building of both mosques and churches.

Badr al-Jamali abolished and replaced them with 23 provinces, which in broad outlines survive to the present day.

Badr al-Jamali sponsored the Armenian Church, which became a serious rival to the Coptic Church and established its own, separate hierarchy.

One such chieftain, Soglu, captured Acre, where Badr al-Jamali had left his wife and children.

Badr al-Jamali then launched a raid into the borders of Egypt and captured the Fatimid-held port city of Jaffa, before returning to Damascus, declaring that next he would repeat his invasion of Egypt.

Badr al-Jamali countered this threat by launching his own invasion of Syria, sending his general Aftekin al-Juyushi to attack Damascus.

Badr al-Jamali did not last long against Atsiz and was forced to flee to Rufaynah in the north.

In 1079, Badr al-Jamali sent his fellow Armenian, Nasr al-Dawla, against Atsiz in Damascus, while from the north the Seljuks under Tutush approached the city.

Al-Mustansir tried to regain the powers he had ceded to him, but the majority of Badr al-Jamali's officers supported the succession of Badr al-Jamali's son al-Afdal as vizier.

Badr al-Jamali built the Juyushi Mosque on the Muqattam Hill, in memory of his son al-Awhad, who rebelled in Alexandria and was killed in 1085.