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Al-Kamil

Nasir ad-Din Muhammad
Al-Malik al-Kamil
Al-Kamil Muhammad al-Malik and Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor.jpg
Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right)
Sultan of Egypt
Reign 1218 – 6 March 1238
Predecessor Al-Adil I
Successor Al-Adil II
Sultan of Damascus
Reign 1238
Predecessor As-Salih Ismail
Successor Al-Adil II
Born c. 1177
Cairo, Egyptian Sultanate
Died 6 March 1238
Damascus, Damascus Sultanate
Issue As-Salih Ayyub
Al-Adil II
Full name
al-Malik al-Kamil Naser ad-Din Abu al-Ma'ali Muhammad
Dynasty Ayyubid
Father Al-Adil I
Religion Sunni Islam
Full name
al-Malik al-Kamil Naser ad-Din Abu al-Ma'ali Muhammad

Al-Kamil (Arabic: الكامل‎‎) (full name: al-Malik al-Kamil Naser ad-Din Abu al-Ma'ali Muhammad) (c. 1177 – 6 March 1238) was a Kurdish ruler, the fourth Ayyubid sultan of Egypt. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated the Fifth Crusade. He was known to the Frankish crusaders as Meledin, a name by which he is still referred to in the Western world. As a result of the Sixth Crusade, he ceded Jerusalem to the Christians and is known to have met with Saint Francis.

Al-Kamil was the son of sultan al-Adil ("Saphadin"), a brother of Saladin. Al-Kamil's father was laying siege to the city of Mardin in 1199 when he was called away urgently to deal with a security threat in Damascus. Al-Adil left al-Kamil to command the forces around Mardin continuing the siege. Taking advantage of the Sultan's absence, the combined forces of Mosul, Sinjar and Jazirat ibn Umar appeared at Mardin when it was on the point of surrender, and drew Al-Kamil into battle. He was badly defeated and retreated to Mayyafariqin. However dissent and weakness among his opponents meant that Al-Kamil was able to secure Ayyubid rule in the Jazira region by taking Harran.

In 596/1200, after proclaiming himself Sultan, Al-Adil invited Al-Kamil to come from the Eastern Territories to join him in Egypt as his viceroy (na'ib) in that country. Al-Adil's second son, Al-Muazzam Isa, had already been made prince of Damascus in 594/1198. It appears that Al-Adil allowed Al-Kamil a fairly high degree of authority, since he oversaw much of the work on the Cairo citadel, issued decrees in his own name, and even managed to persuade his father to dismiss the powerful minister Ibn Shukr. Al-Kamil remained viceroy until his father's death in 1218 when he became Sultan himself.

In 1218 when Al-Adil died, the Ayyubid domains were divided into three parts, with Al-Kamil ruling Egypt, his brother Al-Muazzam Isa ruling in Palestine and Transjordan, and a third brother, Al-Ashraf Musa in Syria and the Jazira. Nominally the other two recognised Al-Kamil's supremacy as Sultan. Unusually for an Ayyubid succession, there was no obvious dissent or rivalry between the brothers at this point, partly because just before Al-Adil's death, Egypt had been attacked by the forces of the Fifth Crusade.


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