Saladin was son of a Kurdish chief called Eyyub, and hence the dynasty is termed Eyyubite.  His capital was Cairo.  He fortified the city, using the little pyramid for material, and, abandoning the luxurious palace of the Fatimites, laid the foundations of the Citadel on the nearest crest of the Mokattam range, and to it transferred his residence.  After a prosperous rule over Egypt and Syria of above twenty years he died, and his numerous family fell into dissension.  At last his brother Adlil, gaining the ascendency, achieved a splendid reign not only at home, but also in the East, from Georgia to Aden.  He died of grief at the taking of Damietta by the crusaders, and his grandson Eyyub succeeded to the throne.

It was now that the Charizmian hordes fell upon Syria, and, with horrible atrocities, sacked the holy city.  Forming an alliance with these barbarians, the Sultan sent the mameluke general Beibars to join them against his uncle, the Syrian prince Ismail, between whom and the crusaders an unholy union had prevailed.  Near Joppa the combined army of Franks and Moslems met at the hands of Beibars and the eastern hordes, with a bloody overthrow; and thus all Syria again fell under Egypt.  To establish his power both at home and abroad, the Sultan bought vast numbers of Turkish mamelukes; and it was he who first established them as Baharites on the Nile.  His son Turan was the last Eyyubite sultan.

In his reign Louis IX of France invaded Egypt, and, advancing upon Cairo, was defeated and taken prisoner.  Turan allowed him to go free; and for this act of kindness, as well as for attempts to curb their outlawry, he was pursued and slain by the Baharite mamelukes, who thereupon seized the government.

The leading mamelukes chose one of themselves, the emir Eibek, to be head of the administration.  He contented himself at first to govern in the name of Eyyub’s widow, who, indeed, had been in complicity with the assassins of her stepson Turan.  The Caliph of Bagdad, however, objected to a female reigning even in name, and so Eibek married the widow; and still further to conciliate the Eyyubites of Syria and Kerak, elevated to the title of sultan a child of the Eyyubite stock.

This concession notwithstanding, Nasir the Eyyubite, ruler of Damascus, advanced on Egypt, but, deserted by his Turkish slaves, was beaten back by Eibek, who returned in triumph to the capital.  He soon found it, however, impossible to hold the turbulent mamelukes in hand, for, with the victorious general Aktai at their head, they scorned discipline and defied authority.  Eibek, therefore, compassed the death of Aktai, on which the Baharite emirs all rose in rebellion.  They were defeated.  Many were slain and cast into prison; the rest fled to Nasir, and eventually to Kerak.  Among the latter were Beibars and Kilawun, of whom we shall hear more hereafter.

Eibek was now undisputed Sultan, recognized as such by all the powers around.  And so he bethought him of taking a princess of Mosul for another wife; on which the Sultana, already estranged, caused him to be put to death; and she too, in the storm that followed, was assassinated by the slave girls of still another wife.