1177: Ibn al-ʿAdīm on a Zengid Commander of “Frankish” Origin

Abstract

This extract from Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s Zubdat al-ḥalab min taʾrīḫ Ḥalab, indicates that Saʿd al-Dīn Kumuštikīn, a military commander and eunuch in Zengid service, was of “Frankish origin” (aṣluhu faranǧī). The article examines the veracity of this claim and discusses its potential implications. If accurate, it provides important contextual information about the importance attached to ethno-religious identity by political elites in the crusader-era Levant. Even if we dispute Kumuštikīn’s “Frankish” descent, the manner in which these events were framed by Ibn al-ʿAdīm and his contemporaries provides insight into how “authorial agency” shaped the historiographical documentation of the transition from Zengid to Ayyūbid rule in sixth/twelfth- and seventh/thirteenth-century Syria and Egypt.