"He is a child and this land is a borderland of Islam": Under-Age Rule and the Quest for Political Stability in the Ayyubid Period

Hirschler, Konrad

Abstract

Under-age rule started to play a salient role in the central Islamic lands during the late and post-Abbasid periods. The rule of children implied a potential instability which had to be compensated for. Considering the Ayyubid dynasty as an example it can be argued that in this period (1) under-age rule is mainly a non-legal concept, which has to be supplemented by the concepts of ‘independent rule’ and ‘prolonged under-age rule’, (2) under-age rule was taken seriously as a prelude to the following independent rule without regents striving to instrumentalise the under-age ruler for their own quest for power, (3) the uneven distribution of under-age rule among the Ayyubid principalities can be explained by the period’s flexible system of succession.

Citation

Hirschler, K. (2007). "He is a child and this land is a borderland of Islam": Under-Age Rule and the Quest for Political Stability in the Ayyubid Period. Al-Masāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, 19(1), 29-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110601068513

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Jan 9, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 3, 2024
• Print ISSN: 0950-3110
• Electronic ISSN: 1473-348X
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 29-46
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110601068513
• Keywords: Ayyūbid dynasty, Egypt – politics, Syria – politics, rulership – underage rulers