al-Mustansir II (1205-28 November 1261) was the Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 1260 to 1261, succeeding al-Musta'sim and preceding al-Hakim I. He was the first of the Abbasids to rule from Cairo, but only as a figurehead.
Biography[]
al-Mustansir was born in 1205 to the House of Abbasid, a dynasty of Sunni Muslim Bedouin. al-Mustansir was installed as the Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1260 from Cairo in the Qutuzid Sultanate, as the former Abbasid capital of Baghdad had been sacked by the Ilkhanate in 1258. al-Mustansir was little more than a figurehead, but he had immense religious power; on 19 January 1260, his calls for a jihad against Hulegu Khan were answered from as far west as the Mali Empire and as far east as the Qutuzid Sultanate. However, on 28 November 1261 he was killed in a Mongol ambush while leading an army towards Baghdad, and he was succeeded by al-Hakim I.