power. Khumarawayh's son Jaysh was a drunkard who executed his uncle, Mudar ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun; he was deposed after only a few months and replaced by his brother Harun ibn Khumarawayh. Harun too was a weak ruler, and although a revolt by his uncle Rabi'ah in Alexandria was suppressed, the Tulunids were unable to confront the attacks of the Qarmatians which began at the same time. In addition, many commanders defected to the Abbasids, whose power revived under the capable leadership of al-Muwaffaq's son, Caliph al-Mu'tadid (). Finally, in December 904, two other sons of Ibn Tulun, Ali and Shayban, murdered their nephew and assumed control of the Tulunid state. Far from halting the decline, this event alienated key commanders in Syria and led to the rapid and relatively unopposed reconquest of Syria and Egypt by the Abbasids under Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Katib, who entered Fustat in January 905. With the exception of the great Mosque of Ibn Tulun, the victorious Abbasid troops pillaged al-Qata'i and razed it. Offspring According to al-Balawi, from his various wives and concubines, Ibn Tulun had 33 children, 17 sons and 16 daughters. The only modern edition of al-Balawi provides the following list: Male children: Abū al-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās (the eldest), Abū al-Jaysh Khumārawayh, Abū al-Ashāʾir Muḍar, Abū al-Mukarram Rabīʿah, Abū al-Maqānib Shaybān, Abū Nāhiḍ 'Iyāḍ, Abū Maʿd ʿAdnān, Abū al-Karādīs Kazraj, Abū Ḥabshūn ʿAdī, Abū Shujāʿ Kindah, Abū Manṣūr Aghlab, Abū Lahjah Maysarah, Abū al-Baqāʾ Hudā, Abū al-Mufawwaḍ Ghassān, Abū al-Faraj Mubārak, Abū ʿAbdallāh Muhammad, and Abū al-Fataj Muẓaffar. Female children (note that only 15 names are listed): Fāṭimah, Lamīs, (unreadable), Ṣafiyyah, Khadījah, Maymūnah, Maryam, ʿĀʾishah, Umm al-Hudā, Muʾminah, ʿAzīzah, Zaynab, Samānah, Sārah, and Ghurayrah. Legacy Despite the brief duration of his dynasty, Ibn Tulun's rule was a seminal event not only for Egypt, but for the entire Islamic world. For Egypt itself, his reign marks a turning point as the country for the first time since the Pharaohs ceased being a passive province subject to a foreign imperial power, and became once again a political actor in its own right. The new realm Ibn Tulun forged, encompassing Egypt and Syria as well as the Jazira and Cilicia, and to a lesser extent the eastern parts of the Maghreb, established a new political zone separated from the Islamic lands further east, restoring in a fashion the frontier that had existed between the Roman/Byzantine and