Al al-Din
Encyclopedia
Al al-Din was a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

 mangonel
Mangonel
A mangonel was a type of catapult or siege engine used in the medieval period to throw projectiles at a castle's walls. The exact meaning of the term is debatable, and several possibilities have been suggested. Mangonel may also be indirectly referring to the 'mangon' a French hard stone found in...

 expert who served in Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...

’s army in the conquest of the Southern Song Dynasty.

In 1271 Kublai Khan dispatched envoys to obtain persons skilled in the management of mangonels from his kinsman Abaqa, the Ilkhan in Persia. The latter sent Al al-Din and Ismail
Ismail (mangonel expert)
Ismail was a Muslim Iraqi mangonel expert who served in Kublai Khan’s army in the conquest of the Southern Song Dynasty.In 1271 Kublai Khan dispatched envoys to obtain persons skilled in the management of mangonels from his kinsman Abaqa, the Ilkhan in Persia...

, together with their families, by post route to Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...

, where they began by building large mangonels which they erected in front of the city gates. Al-Din was subsequently attached to the staff of the general Alihaya, with whom he crossed the Yangtse River, being present at the capture of many towns. He died in 1312, loaded with honors, and was succeeded in his dignities by his son Mahasha 馬哈沙.
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