Ahmad ibn Tulun (September 835-March 884) was the Sultan of the Tulunids from 867 to 884, preceding Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad.
Biography[]
Ahmad was born in September 835 to a family of Sunni Muslims and in 850 he was trained as a soldier in Samarra. He served against the Byzantine Empire in Tarsus, Cilicia, and Caliph al-Musta'in gave him a concubine in 863 on his return to Baghdad. In September 868 he was sent to Egypt as the regent for Governor Bayik Bey, but Ahmad instead usurped power and formed his own independent state, the Tulunids. Within four years, he had removed the Abbasid Caliphate from control of Egypt, establishing his own army and financial system. He also built a new capital, al-Qata'i, north of Fustat. In 878, he conquered Syria and the frontier districts along the Byzantine border, but his campaigns in Syria and Anatolia met with failure and he died in 884 after returning from a failed siege of Tarsus the year earlier.