‘In the background of Ibn Tulun’s portrait, Matthew Gordon’s alert pen sketches a vivid landscape of ninth-century Egypt, transporting the reader into the heart of the major political and social issues of that transitional century. A book to be put in all hands, both enlightened amateurs and specialists of medieval Islam.’

– Mathieu Tillier, Professor of History of Medieval Islam, Sorbonne University

‘Meticulously researched, this book offers the first book-length study in English dedicated to Ahmad son of Tulun, the ninth-century Turkish governor sent from the Abbasid capital to rule the rich province of Egypt. Moving between the person of Ibn Tulun and the historical circumstances that formed him and with which he had to wrestle, Mathew Gordon offers an exceptionally engaging study of a crucial period in the Islamic history of Egypt and the caliphate more broadly. Scholars and interested readers will be attracted to the precise yet accessible and delightfully lively image that Gordon presents of this unusual historical figure.’

– Petra Sijpesteijn, Professor of Arabic, Leiden University