bby_629318 - ARTUQIDS OF MARDIN - HUSAM AL DIN YULUQ ARSLAN Dirhem

ARTUQIDS OF MARDIN - HUSAM AL DIN YULUQ ARSLAN

(1184–1195/ AH 580-591)

The Artukides were a tribe of Ouigour (Turks from Turkestan), whose chief Urtuk being the eponymous founder of a dynasty established in Dyarbakir and Mardin, strategic points on the silk road, giving access to Anatolia, to Syria, Iraq and Iran. They were eventually absorbed into the Turkmen federation of the "Black Sheep". Hosam ed din Yuluq Arslan, nicknamed the "Bald Lion", distinguished himself alongside Saladin during the battle of Hattin (1187), a severe defeat inflicted on the Crusaders which led to the fall of Jerusalem after eighty years of Latin occupation. The “Bald Lion has the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad (Nasir el din) as his overlord, in theory, for his true overlord is Saladin..