Turan-Shah

Shams ad-Din Turanshah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din known simply as Turanshah (Arabic: توران شاه بن أيوب) (died 27 June 1180) was the Ayyubid emir (prince) of Yemen (1174–1176), Damascus (1176–1179), Baalbek (1178–1179) and finally Alexandria where he died in 1180. He is noted for strengthening the position of his younger brother, Sultan Saladin, in Egypt and playing the leading role in the Ayyubid conquests of both Nubia and Arabia.

Arrival in Egypt

Saladin was vizier to the Fatimid caliph al-Adid. In 1171, Nur al-Din Zengi, the Zengid Sultan of Syria, allowed Turanshah to travel to Egypt to join his brother, at a time of rising tensions between Nur al-Din and Saladin. Nur al-Din empowered Turanshah to supervise Saladin, hoping to provoke dissension between the brothers. However, this attempt failed as Turanshah was immediately granted an immense amount of land by Saladin who was in the process of rebuilding the power structure of the Fatimid state around himself and his relatives. The iqta' or "fief" given to Turanshah comprised the major cities of Qus and Aswan in Upper Egypt as well as the Red Sea port of Aidab. Turanshah was the main force behind the suppression of a revolt staged in 1169 by the Black African garrisons of the Fatimid army. Turanshah attempted to restructure the Egyptian army so that its top positions composed only of ethnic Kurds.

Turanshah developed a close relationship with the poet courtier Umara al-Yamani, who had been a power player in Fatimid politics before Saladin's ascendancy to the vizierate in 1169.