Abu al-Misk Kafur

Abu al-Misk Kafur (Arabic: أبو المسك كافور) (905–968), also called al-Laithi, al-Suri, al-Labi was a dominant personality of Ikhshidid Egypt and Syria.

[1] Originally a black slave, probably from Nubia, he was made vizier of Egypt, becoming its de facto ruler from 946 after the death of his master, Muhammad bin Tughj.

[2] Abu al-Misk Kafur, whose name means "musky camphor",[3] is described by the sources variously as coming from Abyssinia (Ethiopia), the Bilad al-Sudan (Land of the Blacks) or Nubia, the latter being the most probable.

Though subsequent historians have portrayed him as a just and moderate ruler, he owes a great deal of his fame to the scathing satirical poems directed against him by al-Mutanabbi, a medieval Arab poet.

Kafur died in April 968, and was buried in Jerusalem next to the Ikhshidid emirs, at a location close to the Gate of the Tribes on the Temple Mount.

It was customary for mamluks (that is, former slaves) to enter the military organization and even reach high positions in it,[8] and many Africans such as Kafur were employed in various occupations and maintained a cohesive culture interacting with that of their hosts.

[9] Kafur's rise to power, from being an African slave to the ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria, is one of the earliest examples in Islamic history of a sovereign with the lowliest of origins.

[6] Earlier Kafur's master, Muhammad ibn Tughj, trusted him to handle the military campaigns of Syria and Hejaz (in the Arabian peninsula).

Kafur also enrolled the services of competent administrators and merchants, such as Yaqub ibn Killis, contributing to his economic accomplishments.

[2] In addition to the mosques and the hospital, Kafur constructed a number of sumptuous palaces, and the Kāfūriyya gardens in his capital.