A!-Kami! (d. 1238)

Ayyubid sultan of Egypt (1218-1238).

Al-Malik al-Kamil Muhammad ibn Ahmad, born around 1177/1180, was the son of Sultan al-‘§dil. When al-‘§dil died in 1218, Egypt was facing the crisis of the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221), which was besieging the port of Dami-etta. Al-Kamil attempted to buy off the crusaders by offering them all the former Frankish territories west of the Jordan; this offer was refused and Damietta fell to the crusaders in 1219. Al-Kamil was rescued by reinforcements from his kinsmen in Syria and also helped by the flooding of the Nile and disagreements among the crusaders. In 1221 the crusaders withdrew from the Nile Delta under truce.

In 1226 al-Kamil sent an embassy to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, making him the same offer he had previously made to Pelagius, if Frederick would support him against the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, al-Mu‘azzam. In 1227 al-Kamil, allied with al-Ashraf Musa of al-Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), ousted their kinsman al-Nasir Dawud from Damascus. Al-Ashraf Musa took Damascus, whereas al-Kamil received Palestine and Transjordan. By the time Frederick arrived in Palestine in 1228, al-Kamil no longer wanted his assistance, but the emperor still posed enough of a threat for al-Kamil to enter into negotiations with him. In 1229 he restored to the Christians most of the city of Jerusalem as well as some of the other territories that had been conquered by his uncle Saladin, while keeping the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock under Muslim control.

Al-Kamil’s concessions were widely unpopular, and al-Nasir Dawud sponsored propaganda for a renewed jihad (holy war). Al-Kamil disliked his eldest son, al-Salih Ayyub, and sent him to al-Jazira. However, after al-Kamil’s death, al-Salih Ayyub was ultimately successful in establishing himself as his father’s heir in Egypt.

-Robert Irwin

Bibliography

Gottschalk, Hans L., Al-Malik al-Kamil von Egypten und seine Zeit (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1958).

Humphreys, R. Stephen, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193-1260 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977).