Imagine a ruler who, during his illness, had Muslim, Christian and Jewish subjects all praying for his recovery with their holy books in their hands. After his death, prayers should be read for his soul in mosques, churches, monasteries and synagogues. This blessed ruler who conquered hearts is none other than Tolunoğlu Ahmed. Such a founder would suit the Tolunids (868-905), the first Muslim-Turkish state formally affiliated with the Abbasid Caliphate.

If you think this is enough to make you want to get to know Ahmed bin Tolun closely, here you go:
Ahmed, a Turkish soldier in the service of the Abbasid state, was born in Baghdad in September 835. After receiving a very good military and religious education in Tarsus, he returned to Samerra in the first year of Mustain Billah’s caliphate (862).

Ahmed’s fate would change completely when the Abbasid caliph al-Mu’tazz gave Ahmed’s stepfather Bayıkbeg the post of governor of Egypt. Bayıkbeg, who did not want to leave the capital, sent his son here as his deputy. Ahmed, who reached the city of Fustat, the center of Egypt at that time, on September 15, 868, would establish a state here in a short time.