Al-Aziz Uthman ibn al-Adil

Al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān ibn al-ʿĀdil (died 20 June 1233) was the Ayyubid 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.^[1] 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. When al-Muʿaẓẓam decided to raze the walls of Jerusalem, he protested unsuccessfully that he was able to defend the city. After al-Muʿaẓẓam dismantled all of his fortresses west of the Jordan River, he gave the territory to al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān.^[2] This included the former crusader castles of Beaufort, Chastel Neuf and Toron.^[3]

During the Sixth Crusade, in February or March 1228, al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān ambushed a group of crusaders near Tyre. 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 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.^[4] 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.^[5] Already by 1226, al-ʿAzīz had begun to call himself al-sultan in his inscriptions.^[6]

In the negotiations that followed, al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān acquired Baalbek.^[7] Following the siege of Damascus in June 1229, however, his brother al-Ashraf refused to hand it over.^[8] This betrayal did not cause a permanent rift. In 1230, al-ʿAzīz joined al-Ashraf's army that defeated the Khwarazmshah Jalāl al-Dīn at the battle of Yasi-chimen on 9 August.^[9] He was also present at the brief siege of Amida in 1232.^[10]

Al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān died not long after this last campaign, on 10 Ramaḍān 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.^[11]

Notes

1. Humphreys 1977, p. 144.
2. Humphreys 1977, p. 164.
3. Humphreys 1977, p. 186.
4. Humphreys 1977, p. 194–196.
5. Humphreys 1977, pp. 223 and 451n.
6. Humphreys 1977, p. 472n.
7. Humphreys 1977, p. 199.
8. Humphreys 1977, p. 207.
9. Humphreys 1977, p. 219.
10. Humphreys 1977, p. 222.
11. Humphreys 1977, p. 223.

Bibliography

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