the founder of the Ṭūlūnid Dynasty in Egypt and the first Muslim governor of Egypt to annex Syria.

As a child Aḥmad was taken into slavery and placed in the private service of the ʿAbbāsid (Abbāsid Dynastyʿ) caliph at Baghdad. Later he studied theology in the city of Tarsus (now in Turkey). He rose in the administrative structure of the ʿAbbāsid government and in 868 became a lieutenant in the service of the governor of Egypt. In Egypt he saw that the real centre of authority lay with the minister of finance, and during the next years he struggled to bring that department under his control. He was successful, and he became vice-governor. Using a rebellion in Palestine as a pretext, he purchased a large number of slaves to increase the strength of his army, which formed the basis of his personal authority. In 882, using the pretext of a holy war against the Byzantine Empire, he annexed Syria. Aḥmad never went so far as to declare formal independence from the ʿAbbāsid caliph, but the autonomy of his rule was clearly a threat to the caliphal authority, and he ceased to send any tribute to the ʿAbbāsid government. The caliph himself was preoccupied with other problems (see Zanj rebellion) and was unable to spare the military forces necessary to bring Aḥmad into submission.