Al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān ibn al-ʿĀdil (died 20 June 1233) was the

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin ...

ruler of Banyas from 1218 until his death. Al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān was a younger son of Sultan al-ʿĀdil I. He was granted Banyas as an '' iqṭāʿ'' (fief) by his elder brother, al-Muʿaẓẓam, perhaps in 1218. In 1219, with ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak, he was left in charge of al-Muʿaẓẓam's Syrian principality when the latter went to join the Sultan al-Kāmil in Egypt against the

Fifth Crusade The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al-Adil, brother of Sala ...

. When al-Muʿaẓẓam decided to raze the

walls of Jerusalem The Walls of Jerusalem ( he, חומות ירושלים, ar, أسوار القدس) surround the Old City of Jerusalem (approx. 1 km2). In 1535, when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Suleiman I ordered the ruined city w ...

, he protested unsuccessfully that he was able to defend the city. After al-Muʿaẓẓam dismantled all of his fortresses west of the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...

, he gave the territory to al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān. This included the former crusader castles of Beaufort,

Chastel Neuf Hunin ( ar, هونين) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Galilee Panhandle part of Mandatory Palestine close to the Lebanese border. It was the second largest village in the district of Safed, but was depopulated in 1948.Gelber, 2006, p. 22 ...

and

Toron Toron, now Tibnin or Tebnine in southern Lebanon, was a major Crusader castle, built in the Lebanon mountains on the road from Tyre to Damascus. The castle was the centre of the Lordship of Toron, a seigneury within the Kingdom of Jerusa ...

. During the

Sixth Crusade The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actu ...

, in February or March 1228, al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān ambushed a group of crusaders near

Tyre Tyre most often refers to: * Tire, the outer part of a wheel * Tyre, Lebanon, a Mediterranean city Tyre or Tyres may also refer to: Other places Lebanon * Tyre District * See of Tyre, a Christian diocese *Tyre Hippodrome, a UNESCO World Heritag ...

. He killed or captured some seventy horsemen in one of the few military actions of the crusade. Later that year, he entered a conspiracy to seize

Baalbek Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roman ...

from Bahrām Shāh. Failing that, he attempted to take the town by siege until ordered to desist by his nephew, al-Nāṣir Dāʾūd. This caused a rift between the two and al-ʿAzīz joined al-Kāmil with the army of Banyas at Nablus in August 1228, when the sultan was preparing to dispossess al-Nāṣir. At this time, al-Kāmil may have recognized al-ʿAzīz as autonomous in Banyas. Thereafter, he would cease to owe his position to the ruler of Damascus. Already by 1226, al-ʿAzīz had begun to call himself '' al-sultan'' in his inscriptions. In the negotiations that followed, al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān acquired Baalbek. Following the siege of Damascus in June 1229, however, his brother al-Ashraf refused to hand it over. This betrayal did not cause a permanent rift. In 1230, al-ʿAzīz joined al-Ashraf's army that defeated the ''

Khwarazmshah Khwarazmshah was an ancient title used regularly by the rulers of the Central Asian region of Khwarazm starting from the Late Antiquity until the advent of the Mongols in the early 13th-century, after which it was used infrequently. There were a to ...

'' Jalāl al-Dīn at the

battle of Yasi-chimen A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and forc ...

on 9 August. He was also present at the brief siege of Amida in 1232. Al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān died not long after this last campaign, on 10 ''

Ramaḍān , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. C ...

'' 630 AH (20 June 1233). He was succeeded in Banyas by his eldest son, al-Ẓāhir Ghāzī, who soon died and was succeeded by a younger son, al-Ṣaʿīd Ḥasan.

Notes

Bibliography

*{{cite book , title=From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260 , first=R. Stephen , last=Humphreys , publisher=State University of New York Press , year=1977 1233 deaths 13th-century Ayyubid rulers