Badr al-Din Lu'lu'

Badr al-Din Lu'lu' بَدْر الدِّين لُؤْلُؤ
Probable portrait of Badr al-Din Lu'lu'. Manuscript illustration from the Kitāb al-Aghānī of Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (Feyzullah Library No. 1566, Istanbul). He is wearing a Turkic dress, and is identified by his name "Badr al-Din Lu'lu'" on the țirāz bands .[1] Most of the attendants wear the kallawtah headgear.[2]
Zengid dynasty Governor of Mosul
Atabeg	1211-1234
Emir of Mosul
Rule	1234 – 1259
Predecessor	Nasir ad-Din Mahmud
Born	c. 1178
Died	1259 (aged 81)
Names Badr al-Din Lu'lu al-Malik al-Rahim
Religion	Sunni Islam

Badr al-Din Lu'lu' (Arabic: بَدْر الدِّين لُؤْلُؤ) (c. 1178-1259) (the name Lu'Lu' means 'The Pearl', indicative of his servile origins) was successor to the Zengid emirs of Mosul, where he governed in variety of capacities from 1234 to 1259 following the death of Nasir ad-Din Mahmud. He was the founder of the short-lived Luluid dynasty.^[3] Originally a slave of the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din Arslan Shah I, he was the first Middle-Eastern mamluk to transcend servitude and become an emir in his own right, founding the dynasty of the Lu'lu'id emirs (1234-1262), and anticipating the rise of the Bahri Mamluks of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt by twenty years (but postdating the rise of the Mamluk dynasty in India). He preserved control of al-Jazira through a series of tactical submissions to larger neighboring powers, at various times recognizing Ayyubid, Rûmi Seljuq, and Mongol overlords. His surrender to the Mongols after 1243 temporarily spared Mosul the destruction experienced by other settlements in Mesopotamia.