Al-Mustansir (Cairo)

Al-Mustansir المستنصر بالله الثاني
38th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate 1st Abbasid Caliph in Cairo
Tenure	13 June 1261– 28 November 1261
Predecessor	Al-Musta'sim as Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad
Successor	Al-Hakim I
Died	28 November 1261
Issue	Al-Hakim I (possibly)
Father	Al-Hasan, son of Abu Bakr, son of Al-Mustarshid
Religion	Islam

Al-Mustansir (Arabic: المستنصر بالله الثاني‎) was a member of the Abbasid house who, following the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, was installed as Caliph in Cairo, Egypt by the Mamluk Sultans in 1261. He was sent with an army east to recover Baghdad, but was killed in a Mongol ambush in 1261, and was succeeded by his kinsman (and rival caliph, having been proclaimed by the ruler of Aleppo) Al-Hakim I. The line of Cairo caliphs he founded lasted until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, but they were little more than religious figureheads for the Mamluks.

References

• "Biography of Al-Mustansir II" (in Arabic). Islampedia.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-11.

Bibliography

• Garcin, Jean-Claude (1967). "Histoire, opposition, politique et piétisme traditionaliste dans le Ḥusn al Muḥādarat de Suyûti" [History, opposition, politics and traditionalistic pietism in Suyuti's Ḥusn al Muḥādarat] (PDF, 14.62 MB). Annales Islamologiques (in French) (Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale) 7: 33–90. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
• Holt, P. M. (1984). "Some Observations on the 'Abbāsid Caliphate of Cairo". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) 47 (3): 501–507. doi:10.1017/s0041977x00113710. JSTOR 618882. (subscription required (help)).