His rule began in June 1246, but was temporarily cut short in 1248 after he was forced to surrender Homs and then given Tall Bashir by his cousin an-Nasir Yusuf, the Emir of Aleppo.
Homs was one of the smaller kingdoms within the confederate Ayyubid empire and was usually dominated by its larger neighbors, but it gained influence during the reign of al-Mansur Ibrahim.
[3] Fearing this alliance would undermine his position, an-Nasir Yusuf, the Ayyubid emir of Aleppo and al-Ashraf's fourth cousin, reacted by attempting to annex Homs.
Based on the terms of his surrender, he was allowed to maintain control of the desert fortress of Palmyra and al-Rahba, a fortified site situated along the northern banks of the Euphrates River.
Al-Ashraf, who was in Damascus at the time of Aleppo's capture, traveled north to an area near the city to confer with Hulagu before he withdrew the bulk of his forces from Syria.
[5] With the arrival in Damascus of Kitbuqa, the Nestorian Christian general who oversaw affairs in Syria on behalf of the Mongols, al-Ashraf returned to the city.
From Homs, he led a Mongol-ordered expedition against Hama, ruled by his cousin al-Malik Mansur, who had fled to Egypt, with the order to disable the defences of that city.
Although he was stripped of his nominal position as viceroy of Damascus, al-Ashraf was allowed to continue ruling Homs as a vassal of the Mamluks as a reward for his cooperation.
[10] In 1249, at age 20, al-Ashraf married Amat al-Latif, the spiritual adviser of Saladin's sister and the daughter of a notable Damascus-based Hanbali scholar.