As commander and ruler in Egypt, al-Ikhshid was a patient and cautious man. He achieved his goals as much by diplomacy and ties to powerful personages in the Baghdad regime as by force, and even then he tended to avoid direct military confrontation whenever possible. His conflict with Ahmad ibn Kayghalagh was indicative of his approach: instead of a direct clash, the truce between the two gave al-Ikhshid the time to reconnoitre the situation in Egypt before acting. Although following in the footsteps of Ibn Tulun, his ambitions were more modest and his objectives more practical, as became particularly evident in his policies towards Syria and the rest of the Caliphate. Historically, possession of Syria, and particularly Palestine, was a foreign policy objective for many rulers of Egypt, to foreclose the most likely invasion route into the country. Ibn Tulun before and
Saladin after al-Ikhshid were two typical examples of Egyptian rulers who spent much of their reigns securing control of Syria, and indeed used Egypt mostly as a source of revenue and resources to accomplish this goal. Al-Ikhshid differed from them; Bacharach describes him as a "cautious, conservative realist". His goals were limited but clear: his main concern was Egypt proper and the establishment of his family as a hereditary dynasty over it, while Syria remained a secondary objective. Unlike other military strongmen of the time, he had no intention of entering the contest for control of Baghdad and the caliphal government through the all-powerful office of
amir al-umara; indeed, when Caliph
al-Mustakfi () offered him the post, he turned it down.
Conflict with Ibn Ra'iq Following the expulsion of the Fatimids from Egypt, al-Ikhshid had his troops occupy all of Syria up to Aleppo, allying himself, as Ibn Tulun had done, with the local tribe of
Banu Kilab to strengthen his hold over northern Syria. As governor of Syria, his remit extended to the borderlands (
thughur) with the
Byzantine Empire in
Cilicia. Thus, in 936/7 or 937/8 (most likely in autumn 937) he received an embassy from the Byzantine emperor,
Romanos I Lekapenos (), to organize a
prisoner exchange. Although carried out in the name of Caliph al-Radi, it was a special honour and an implicit recognition of al-Ikhshid's autonomy, since correspondence and negotiations for such events were normally directed to the caliph rather than provincial governors. The exchange took place in autumn 938, resulting in the release of 6,300 Muslims for an equivalent number of Byzantine captives. As the Byzantines held 800 more prisoners than the Muslims, these had to be ransomed and were gradually released over the next six months. While the
amir al-umara Ibn Ra'iq was in power in Baghdad (936–938) with al-Ikhshid's old friend al-Fadl ibn Ja'far ibn al-Furat as vizier, relations with Baghdad were good. Following Ibn Ra'iq's replacement by the Turk
Bajkam, however, Ibn Ra'iq received a nomination by the caliph to the governorship of Syria and in 939 marched west to claim it from al-Ikhshid's forces. Ibn Ra'iq's appointment enraged al-Ikhshid, who sent an envoy to Baghdad to clarify the situation. There Bajkam informed him that the caliph might appoint whomever he chose, but that it ultimately did not matter: it was military strength that would determine who was governor of Syria and even of Egypt, not any appointment by a figurehead caliph. If either Ibn Ra'iq or al-Ikhshid emerged victorious from the conflict, caliphal confirmation would soon follow. Al-Ikhshid was even more infuriated by the reply, and reportedly for a time even threatened to give one of his daughters to the Fatimid caliph al-Qa'im and to have coins minted and the
Friday prayer read in his name rather than the Abbasid caliph, until the Abbasids formally reconfirmed his position. The Fatimids themselves were preoccupied with the revolt of
Abu Yazid and were unable to offer any assistance. From
Raqqa, Ibn Ra'iq's troops swiftly took over the districts of northern Syria, where al-Ikhshid's brother Ubayd Allah was governor, while the Egyptian forces retreated south. By October or November, Ibn Ra'iq's men had reached Ramla and moved on into the
Sinai. Al-Ikhshid led his army against Ibn Ra'iq, but after a short clash at
al-Farama, the two men came to an understanding, dividing Syria between them: the areas from Ramla to the south would be under al-Ikhshid, and the areas to the north under Ibn Ra'iq. In May or June 940, however, al-Ikhshid learned that Ibn Ra'iq had once again moved against Ramla. Once more, the Egyptian ruler led his army to battle. Although defeated at
al-Arish, al-Ikhshid was able to quickly rally his troops and ambush Ibn Ra'iq, preventing him from entering Egypt proper and forcing him to retreat back to Damascus. Al-Ikhshid sent his brother, Abu Nasr al-Husayn, with another army against Ibn Ra'iq, but he was defeated and killed at
Lajjun. Despite his victory, Ibn Ra'iq opted for peace: he gave Abu Nasr an honourable burial and sent his son, Muzahim, as envoy to Egypt. True to his political strategy, al-Ikhshid accepted. The agreement saw the restoration of the territorial status quo of the previous year, but with al-Ikhshid paying an annual tribute of 140,000 gold
dinars. The deal was cemented by the marriage of Muzahim with al-Ikhshid's daughter Fatima.
Conflict with the Hamdanids Peace did not last for long, as the political turmoil in Baghdad continued. In September 941, Ibn Ra'iq assumed once more the post of
amir al-umara at the invitation of Caliph
al-Muttaqi (), but he was not as powerful as before. Unable to stop the advance of another strongman,
Abu'l-Husayn al-Baridi of
Basra, both Ibn Ra'iq and the caliph were forced to abandon Baghdad and seek the help of the
Hamdanid ruler of
Mosul. The latter soon had Ibn Ra'iq assassinated (April 942) and succeeded him as
amir al-umara with the
laqab of
Nasir al-Dawla. Al-Ikhshid used the opportunity to reoccupy Syria for himself, joining his forces in person in June 942, and venturing as far as Damascus, before returning to Egypt in January 943. The Hamdanids also staked claim on Syria at the same time, but the sources do not record details of their expeditions there. Nasir al-Dawla's position as
amir al-umara also proved to be weak, and in June 943 he was ousted by the Turkish general
Tuzun. In October, Caliph al-Muttaqi, fearing that Tuzun intended to replace him, fled the capital and sought refuge with the Hamdanids. Although Nasir al-Dawla and his brother
Sayf al-Dawla sheltered the caliph, they also did not confront Tuzun's troops, and in May 944 they reached an agreement that gave Upper Mesopotamia and northern Syria to the Hamdanids in exchange for recognizing Tuzun's possession of Iraq. Nasir al-Dawla sent his cousin
al-Husayn ibn Sa'id to take over the Syrian provinces allotted to him in this agreement. The Ikhshidid forces either defected or retreated, and al-Husayn swiftly took over the districts of Qinnasrin and
Hims. In the meantime, al-Muttaqi with Sayf al-Dawla had fled to Raqqa before Tuzun's advance, but the caliph grew increasingly suspicious of the Hamdanids, and wrote to al-Ikhshid (perhaps as early as the winter of 943), asking for aid. The latter immediately responded by leading an army into Syria. The Hamdanid garrisons withdrew before him, and in September 944, al-Ikhshid reached Raqqa. Distrusting the Hamdanids given their treatment of Ibn Ra'iq, he waited until Sayf al-Dawla had left the city before entering it to meet the caliph. Al-Ikhshid tried without success to persuade al-Muttaqi to come with him to Egypt, or at least to stay in Raqqa, while the caliph tried to get al-Ikhshid to march against Tuzun, which al-Ikhshid refused. The meeting was not entirely fruitless, as al-Ikhshid secured an agreement that virtually repeated the terms of a similar treaty between the Tulunid Khumarawayh and Caliph
al-Mu'tamid in 886. The caliph recognized the authority of al-Ikhshid over Egypt, Syria (with the
thughur), and the
Hejaz (carrying with it the prestigious guardianship of the
two holy cities of
Mecca and
Medina), for a period of thirty years, with the right of hereditary succession for al-Ikhshid's sons. This development had already been anticipated by al-Ikhshid the previous year, when he named his son Unujur as his regent during his absences from Egypt, although Unujur had not yet come of age, and had required an oath of allegiance (''
bay'a) to be sworn to him. Nevertheless, as Michael Brett comments, the territories conferred were "mixed blessings", as the holy cities were exposed to Qarmatian raids, while the marches of the thughur'' were increasingly menaced by the Byzantines, and Aleppo (with northern Syria) was coveted by the Hamdanids. As it happened, al-Muttaqi was persuaded by the emissaries of Tuzun, who protested his loyalty, to return to Iraq, only to be seized, blinded and deposed on 12 October and replaced by al-Mustakfi. Al-Mustakfi reconfirmed al-Ikhshid's governorship, but by this point it was an empty gesture. According to J. L. Bacharach, although the 13th-century historian
Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi reports that al-Ikhshid immediately took the ''bay'a'' and read the Friday prayer in the new caliph's name, based on the available numismatic evidence, he appears to have delayed recognition of both al-Mustakfi and his
Buyid-installed successor
al-Muti () for several months by refraining from including them in his coinage, in an act that was a deliberate and clear statement of his
de facto independence from Baghdad. This independence was also acknowledged by others; the contemporary
De Ceremoniis records that in the correspondence of the Byzantine court, the "Emir of Egypt" was accorded a golden seal worth four
solidi, the same as the caliph in Baghdad. in the 9th and 10th centuries Following his meeting with al-Muttaqi, al-Ikhshid returned to Egypt, leaving the field open for the ambitious Sayf al-Dawla. The Ikhshidid forces left behind in Syria were relatively weak, and the Hamdanid leader, having gained the support of the Banu Kilab, had little difficulty in capturing Aleppo on 29 October 944. He then began extending his control over the provinces of northern Syria down to Hims. Al-Ikhshid sent an army under the eunuchs
Abu al-Misk Kafur and Fatik against the Hamdanid, but it was defeated near
Hama and retreated back to Egypt, abandoning Damascus and Palestine to the Hamdanids. Al-Ikhshid was then forced to once again campaign in person in April 945, but at the same time he sent envoys proposing to Sayf al-Dawla an agreement along the lines of the one with Ibn Ra'iq: the Hamdanid prince would get to keep northern Syria, while al-Ikhshid would pay him an annual tribute for the possession of Palestine and Damascus. Sayf al-Dawla refused and reportedly even boasted that he would conquer Egypt itself, but al-Ikhshid held the upper hand: his agents managed to bribe several Hamdanid leaders, and he won over the citizens of Damascus, who barred their gates before the Hamdanid and opened them for al-Ikhshid. The two armies met near Qinnasrin in May, where the Hamdanids were defeated. Sayf al-Dawla fled to Raqqa, leaving his capital Aleppo to be captured by al-Ikhshid. Nevertheless, in October the two sides came to an agreement, broadly on the lines of the earlier Ikhshidid proposal: al-Ikhshid acknowledged Hamdanid control over northern Syria and even consented to sending an annual tribute in exchange for Sayf al-Dawla's renunciation of all claims on Damascus. The Hamdanid ruler was also to marry one of al-Ikhshid's daughters or nieces. For al-Ikhshid, the maintenance of Aleppo was less important than southern Syria with Damascus, which was Egypt's eastern bulwark. Provided that these remained under his control, he was more than willing to allow the existence of a Hamdanid state in the north. The Egyptian ruler knew that he would have difficulty in asserting and maintaining control over northern Syria and Cilicia, which had traditionally been influenced more by Upper Mesopotamia and Iraq. By abandoning its claims on these distant provinces, not only would Egypt be spared the cost of maintaining a large army there, but the Hamdanid emirate would also fulfil the useful role of a
buffer state against incursions from both Iraq and a resurgent Byzantine Empire. Indeed, throughout al-Ikhshid's rule, and that of his successors, relations with the Byzantines were quite friendly, as the lack of a common border and the common hostility to the Fatimids guaranteed that the interests of the two states did not clash. Despite Sayf al-Dawla's attempt to push again into southern Syria soon after al-Ikhshid's death, the border agreed in 945 held, and even outlived both dynasties, forming the dividing line between Mesopotamian-influenced northern Syria and the Egyptian-controlled southern part of the country until the
Mamluks seized the entire region in 1260. ==Death and legacy==