“He is a child and this land is a borderland of Islam”: Under-age Rule and the Quest for Political Stability in the Ayyūbid Period1

Abstract

During the late and post-‘Abbāsid periods, dynasties in Islamic lands witnessed numerous under-age rulers. Given the personalised nature of pre-modern rule, the succession of a child to the throne posed a potential threat both to the polity's stability and to the dynasty's survival. The Ayyūbid family confederation in Egypt and Syria provides, due to the considerable number of under-age rulers in its various branches, fine examples that illustrate the complex relationships between under-age rule and political stability. After discussing the legal concept of maturity and the principal modes of succession dominant in the period, this article considers the issue of regents, arguing that under-age rule was generally conducted without frictions as two main strategies were employed in order to avoid instability. On the one hand, the flexible concept of succession allowed reaction to the various internal challenges that arose over time. On the other hand, a sense of solidarity within the confederation could be activated in order to fight back against external powers that tried to take advantage of these periods of potential weakness. 1This article is based on a paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 11–14 July 2005 in the panel Aspects of Medieval Political Culture in the Latin West, the Byzantine Commonwealth, and the Islamic World: Under-Age Rule. I would like to thank the organisers of the panel for their invitation as well as those present in the session, the anonymous readers of this article, and Alex Metcalfe for their helpful comments. In addition I would like to thank Suzanne Ruggi for reading a draft version of this article.