Ikhshidid dynasty in the context of "List of heads of state of Egypt"

Lebanese Turkmen (Turkish: Lübnan Türkmenleri; Arabic: أتراك لبنان, Atrāk Lubnān), also known as the Lebanese Turks or Lebanese Turkish people are people of Turkish ancestry that live in Lebanon. The historic rule of several Turkic dynasties in the region saw continuous Turkish migration waves to Lebanon during the Tulunid rule (868–905), Ikhshidid rule (935–969), Seljuk rule (1037–1194), Mamluk rule (1291–1515), and Ottoman rule (1516–1918).

Today, many of the Turkish Lebanese community are the descendants of the Ottoman Turkish settlers to Lebanon from Anatolia. However, with the declining territories of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, ethnic Turkish minorities from other parts of the former Ottoman territories found refuge in Ottoman Lebanon, especially Algerian Turks after the French colonization of North Africa in 1830, and Cretan Turks in 1897 due to unrest in Greece.

The Fatimid conquest of Egypt took place in 969 when the troops of the Fatimid Caliphate under the general Jawhar captured Egypt, then ruled by the autonomous Ikhshidid dynasty in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate.

The Fatimids launched repeated invasions of Egypt soon after coming to power in Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) in 909, but failed against the still-strong Abbasid Caliphate. By the 960s, however, while the Fatimids had consolidated their rule and grown stronger, the Abbasid Caliphate had collapsed, and the Ikhshidid regime was facing prolonged crisis: foreign raids and a severe famine were compounded by the death in 968 of the strongman Abu al-Misk Kafur. The resulting power vacuum led to open infighting among the various factions in Fustat, the capital of Egypt. The atmosphere of crisis was deepened by the simultaneous advances of the Byzantine Empire against the Muslim states of the Eastern Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Fatimid agents operated openly in Egypt, and the local elites increasingly came to accept and even welcome the prospect of a Fatimid takeover in hopes of ending the instability and insecurity.

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ṭughj ibn Juff ibn Yiltakīn ibn Fūrān ibn Fūrī ibn Khāqān (8 February 882 – 24 July 946), better known by the title al-Ikhshīd (Arabic: الإخشيد) after 939, was an Abbasid commander and governor who became the autonomous ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria (Levant) from 935 until his death in 946. He was the founder of the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled the region until the Fatimid conquest of 969.

The son of Tughj ibn Juff, a general of Turkic origin who served both the Abbasids and the autonomous Tulunid rulers of Egypt and Syria, Muhammad ibn Tughj was born in Baghdad but grew up in Syria and acquired his first military and administrative experiences at his father's side. He had a turbulent early career: he was imprisoned along with his father by the Abbasids in 905, was released in 906, participated in the murder of the vizier al-Abbas ibn al-Hasan al-Jarjara'i in 908, and fled Iraq to enter the service of the governor of Egypt, Takin al-Khazari. Eventually he acquired the patronage of several influential Abbasid magnates, chiefly the powerful commander-in-chief Mu'nis al-Muzaffar. These ties led him to being named governor first of Palestine and then of Damascus. In 933, he was briefly named governor of Egypt, but this order was revoked after the death of Mu'nis, and Ibn Tughj had to fight to preserve even his governorship of Damascus. In 935, he was re-appointed to Egypt, where he quickly defeated a Fatimid invasion and stabilized the turbulent country. His reign marks a rare period of domestic peace, stability and good government in the annals of early Islamic Egypt. In 938 Caliph al-Radi granted his request for the title of al-Ikhshid, which had been borne by the rulers of his ancestral Farghana Valley. It is by this title that he was known thereafter.