Al-Salih Ismail

As-Salih Imad ad-Din Abu'l Fida Isma'il, better known as as-Salih Isma'il, (1326 – 1345 ) was the Bahri Mamluk sultan of Egypt between June 1342 and August 1345. He was the fourth son of an-Nasir Muhammad to succeed the latter as sultan. His reign saw a level of political stability return to the sultanate. Under his orders or those close to him, his two predecessors and brothers, al-Ashraf Kujuk and an-Nasir Ahmad, were killed. He was succeeded by another brother, al-Kamil Sha'ban.

Early life and family Isma'il was born in 1324 or 1325 and was likely named after the Ayyubid emir of Hama at the time, Abu'l Fida Isma'il. The latter was a highly favored emir of Isma'il's father, the Mamluk sultan an-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1310–1341). Isma'il's mother was a concubine of an-Nasir Muhammad, whose name is not provided by the Mamluk-era sources. On 11 July 1343, he married a daughter of Emir Baktamur as-Saqi and had a daughter with her. He was 17 at the time of his accession to the sultanate in June, but was already well known for his piety. succeeded in early July 1344, and an-Nasir Ahmad was captured and soon murdered on the secret orders of Isma'il, who hired a mercenary to accomplish the task. Meanwhile, al-Ashraf Kujuk, who was a young child at the time and was under the care of his mother after being ousted from the sultanate in January 1342, was killed along with his mother as a result of Isma'il's mother's hatred of the ex-sultan; Isma'il had become gravely ill in late 1344 and his mother blamed his illness on al-Ashraf Kujuk's alleged sorcery. In July 1345, Isma'il became bed-ridden and died in August. His stepfather, Arghun al-Ala'i, who had acquired several concurrent senior posts under Isma'il,

Legacy Isma'il was deemed the best of an-Nasir Muhammad's sons by the Mamluk-era historian Ibn Taghribirdi. However, according to historian Peter Malcolm Holt, Isma'il' "made little impression on the course of events in his short reign". Isma'il was praised by the Mamluk-era historian Ibrahim al-Qaysarani as the "renewer" (mujaddid) of the Islamic faith in the sultanate during the closing of the first 100 years of Mamluk rule.