FIVE
Iraq and Jazīra before the Seljuqs
293–394/906–1004
Jazīra and northern Syria
1. The line in Mosul and Jazīra
| c. 254/868 | Hamdān b. Hamdūn al-Taghlibī, chief in Mārdīn and the Mosul region |
| 282–303/895–916 | al-Husayn b. Hamdān, caliphal governor in Jibāl and Diyār Rabī‘a, d. 306/918 |
| 293/906 | ‘Abdallāh b. Hamdān, Abu ‘1-Hayjā’, caliphal governor in Mosul |
| ⊘ 317/929 | al-Hasan b. Abi ‘l-Hayjā’ ‘Abdallāh, Abū Muhammad Nāsir al-Dawla, d. 358/969 |
| ⊘ 356/967 | Fadl Allāh b. al-Hasan, Abū Taghlib ‘Uddat al-Dawla al-Ghadanfar |
| 369/979 | Būyid conquest |
| 379–87/981–9 | al-Husayn b. al-Hasan, Abū ‘Abdallāh, and Ibrahim b. al-Hasan, Abū Tāhir, vassals of the Būyids |
| 387/989 | Conquest of Mosul by the ‘Uqaylids and of Diyār Bakr by the Marwānids |
2. The line in Aleppo and northern Syria
| ⊘ 333/944 | ‘Alī I b. Abi ’l-Hayjā’ ‘Abdallāh, Abu ‘l-Hasan Sayf al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 356/967 | Sharīf I b. ‘All, Abu ’l-Ma‘ālī Sa‘d al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 381/991 | Sa‘īd b. Sharīf, Abu ’l-Fadā’il Sa‘īd al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 392–4/1002–4 | ‘Alī II b. Sa‘īd, Abu ’l-Hasan, and Sarīf II b. Sa‘īd, Abu ’l-Ma‘āll, under the regency of Lu’lu’ |
| 394–406/1004–15 | Rule of Lu’lu’, d. 399/1009, and then of his son ⊘ Mansūr, Abū Nasr Murtadā ‘l-Dawla, as vassals of the Fātimids |
The Hamdānids came from the Arab tribe of Taghlib, long settled in Jazīra (although certain authorities alleged that they were only mawālī or clients of the Banū Taghlib). The founder of the family’s fortunes, Hamdānb. Hamdūn, appears in the later years of the ninth century as an ally of the Khārijīs of Jazīra, in rebellion against caliphal authority; later, the Hamdānids tended to follow the Shī‘ī inclinations of the majority of Arab tribes on the Syrian Desert fringes at that time. However, Hamdān’s son al-Husayn became a commander in the service of the f Abbāsids, and distinguished himself against the Carmathians or Qarāmita of the Syrian Desert (see below, no. 40). Another son, Abu ’l-Hayjā’ ‘Abdallāh, was in 293/905 appointed governor of Mosul, and ‘Abdallāh’s own son, al-Hasan, eventually followed him there as Nāsir al-Dawla, behaving as an independent ruler and extending his power westwards from the Hamdānids’ original centre of Diyār Rabfa into northern Syria. His son Abū Taghlib, called al-Ghadanfar ‘the Lion’ was unfortunate enough to confront the great Būyid amīrf Adud al-Dawla at the height of the latter’s power, when he had just in 376/978 taken over Iraq from his cousin ‘Izz al-Dawla (see below, no. 75). ‘Adud al-Dawla marched northwards and drove out Abū Taghlib, who fled to the Fātimids in a vain search for help. His two brothers were afterwards restored in Mosul by the Būyids, and reigned there for a while until another family of Arab amīrs, the ‘Uqaylids (see below, no. 38), took over the city.
Nevertheless, the junior branch of the Hamdānids remained in Syria, with Abū Taghlib’s famous uncle, Sayf al-Dawla, ruling there in the middle decades of the tenth century after capturing Aleppo, Hims and other towns from the Ikhshīdids (see above, no. 26). The establishment of the Hamdānid amirate in Syria coincided with a great resurgence of Byzantine fortunes under the energetic Macedonian emperors, and much of Sayf al-Dawla’s reign was occupied in defending his territories from the Greeks. His son Safd al-Dawla was unable to prevent the Byzantines from several times invading Syria and temporarily capturing Aleppo and Hims, although these were left to the Hamdānids as tribute-payers; moreover, a fresh threat arose in southern Syria from the appearance of the Fātimids and their expansionist policies. Finally, Sa‘īd al-Dawla’s son Sarld al-Dawla was killed, probably at the instigation of the former slave general of Sayf al-Dawla’s, Lu’lu’. Lu’lu’ at first ruled as regent for Sa’īd al-Dawla’s two sons, but later assumed power independently as a vassal of the Fātimids; his own son and successor Murtadā ’l-Dawla Mansūr had to flee and ended his days as a refugee in Byzantium.
The Hamdānids achieved renown as patrons of Arabic literature, above all for Sayf al-Dawla’s encouragement of the poet al-Mutanabbī; and this last amīr also secured a great contemporary reputation – though he was as often unsuccessful as successful in war – as a leader in the holy war against the Greeks. Yet although they came to rule over prosperous regions, with many centres of urban commercial activity, the Hamdānids still retained a considerable admixture of the irresponsibility and destructiveness of Bedouins. Syria and Jazīra inevitably suffered from the ravages of war, but these were aggravated by their tyranny and rapacity, as recorded by the traveller and geographer Ibn Hawqal, and the latter years of the Hamdānids were ones of decline and impotence.
Lane-Poole, 111–13; Zambaur, 133–4; Album, 21.
EI2 ‘Hamdānids’ (M. Canard).
M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de Jazîra et de Syrie, I, Algiers 1951.
Ramzi J. Bikhazi, The Hamdānid Dynasty of Mesopotamia and Northern Syria 254–404/868–1014, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor 1981.
c. 350–c. 545/c. 961–c. 1150
Ḥilla and central Iraq
| c. 350/c. 961 | ‘Alī I b. Mazyad al-Asadī al-Nāshīn, Sanā’ al-Dawla, governor for the Būyids in central Iraq |
| 408/1017 | Dubays I b. ‘All I, Abu ’1-A’azz (al-Agharr?) Nūr al-Dawla |
| 474/1082 | Mansūr b. Dubays I, Abū Kāmil Bahā’ al-Dawla |
| 479/1086 | Sadaqa I b. Mansūr, Abu ’l-Hasan Sayf al-Dawla Fakhr al-Dln, ‘Malik al-‘Arab’ |
| 501/1108 | Dubays II b. Sadaqa I, Abu ’l-A’azz (al-Agharr?) Nūr al-Dawla |
| 529/1135 | Sadaqa II b. Dubays II, Sayf al-Dawla |
| 532/1138 | Muhammad b. Dubays II |
| 540/1145 | ‘Alī II b. Dubays II |
| 545- ?/1150- ? | Muhalhil b. ‘All II |
| 558/1163 | Occupation of Hilla by caliphal forces |
The Mazyadids belonged to the North Arab Asad tribe, and were strongly Shī‘ī in sympathy. The family acquired a hold on the region between Hīt and Kūfa when lands there were conveyed to them during the reign of the Būyid amīr Mu‘izz al-Dawla at some date between 345/956 and 352/963. The beginnings of ‘Alī b. Mazyad’s reign there must be put back, according to George Makdisi, to well before the date in the early eleventh century usually given in older Western sources. It seems also that the Mazyadid capital Hilla was already in the early eleventh century a permanent settlement and not a mere encampment, and that it gradually merged with and replaced the former Jami‘ayn; under the great Sadaqa I b. Mansūr, the town was enclosed by a strong wall and became the fortified centre of Mazyadid power in Iraq.
Despite their Bedouin origins, the Mazyadids showed themselves skilful organisers and diplomatists, making themselves a significant power in the shifting pattern of alliances in the Iraq of the Seljuq period. Their early rivals were the ‘Uqaylids of Mosul and Jazīra (see below, no. 38), who in the reign of Dubays I b. ‘All I supported Dubays’s brother Muqallad in the latter’s bid for the Mazyadid amirate. When Toghril and the Seljuqs appeared in Iraq, Dubays feared the Turkish invaders and supported the pro-Fātimid, Turkish general Arslan Basāsīrī in Baghdad. During the troubled reign of the Seljuq Berk-yaruq, Sadaqa I, the so-called ‘King of the Arabs’ (Rex Arabum in the Latin Crusader sources), acquired a position of great influence; but once sultan Muhammad b. Malik Shah (see below, no. 91, 1) was firmly on the throne, he moved against his overmighty vassal, and in 501/1108 defeated and killed Sadaqa in battle. The later Mazyadids allied with various Turkish amīrs against sultan Mas‘īd b. Muhammad, and Hilla was occupied on various occasions by Seljuq and caliphal troops. Sadaqa’s son Dubays II achieved great fame in the eyes of the Frankish Crusaders, among others, and was a great patron of the Arabic poets of his time, but was murdered by one of the Assassins (see above, no. 29 and below, no. 101) at the same time as the caliph al-Mustarshid was killed.
‘Alī II b. Dubays II died in 545/1150, and seems to have been succeeded in Hilla by his son Muhalhil. But the latter is a shadowy figure, and nothing is known of his reign in Hilla or of the length of this tenure of power; the town was in 558/1163 definitively incorporated in the territories of the resurgent ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Mustanjid, and the power there of both the Mazyadids and the Banū Asad ended.
The Mazyadids do not appear to have minted coins of their own.
Lane-Poole, 119–20; Zambaur, 137.
El2Asad’ (W. Caskel), ‘Mazyad, Banū’ (C. E. Bosworth).
G. Makdisi, ‘Notes on Hilla and the Mazyadids in medieval Islam’, JAOS, 74 (1954), 249–62.
Abd al-Jabbār Nājī, al-Imāra al-Mazyadiyya, dīrdsa fī wad‘ihā al-siyāsī wa ’l-iqtisādī wa ’l-ijtimā‘ī, Basra 1970.
372–478/983–1085
Diyār Bakr
| (372/983 | Bādh al-Kurdī, seized various towns of Diyār Bakr from the Hamdānids) |
| ⊘ 380/990 | al-Hasan b. Marwān, Abū ‘Alī |
| ⊘ 387/997 | Sa‘īd b. Marwān, Abū Mansūr Mumahhid al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 401/1011 | Ahmad b. Marwān, Abū Nasr Nasr al-Dawla |
| 453/1061 | Nasr b. Ahmad, Abu ’l-Qāsim Nizām al-Dīn |
| 472–8/1079–85 | Mansūr b. Nasr, Nāsir al-Dawla, d. 489/1096 |
| 478/1085 | Seljuq conquest |
The Marwānids of Diyār Bakr, Khilāt and Malāzgird were Kurdish in origin. The founder Bādh was a Kurdish chief who seized various strongholds on the frontiers of Armenia and Kurdistan; taking advantage of the decline of Būyid influence there after ‘Adud al-Dawla’s death in 372/983 (see below, no. 75), he took over Diyār Bakr from the Hamdānids (see above, no. 35), held Mosul for a time and even threatened Baghdad at one point.
His nephew al-Hasan b. Marwān firmly based the dynasty in the captured towns of Mayyāfārīqln and Āmid, but it was his younger brother Nasr al-Dawla Ahmad, Ibn Marwān, who ruled for over fifty years and who raised the Marwānid principality to a height of splendour and affluence. The strategic position of Diyār Bakr, commanding as it did the routes from Syria and Anatolia to Iraq and the east, meant that Ibn Marwān needed a skilful diplomatic policy to survive between powerful neighbours, all struggling for influence in the area. He recognised the ‘Abbāsid caliph at the outset, but he also had the Fātimids as neighbours in northern Syria; Fātimid cultural influence was strong in his domains, and he may for a while have acknowledged the Fātimid caliph al-Mustansir (see above, no. 27) as his suzerain. Before this, he had been forced for a time to pay tribute to the ‘Uqaylids of Mosul (see below, no. 38) and in 421/1030 to cede to them Nisībīn. Reigning as he did over a numerous Christian population in Diyār Bakr, he had amicable relations with the Byzantines, and the Emperor Constantine X Ducas used Ibn Marwān’s good offices to get the captured Georgian prince Liparit freed by the Seljuq sultan Toghrïl. The Oghuz nomads and their flocks were ejected from Diyār Bakr in 433/1041–2, and Toghrïl himself did not appear there until 448/1056, when Ibn Marwān became his vassal. Within his lands, such towns as Āmid, Mayyāfāriqīn and Hisn Kayfā enjoyed much prosperity under Marwānid rule and there was a vigorous cultural life; the local historian of Mayyāfāriqīn, Ibn al-Azraq, describes how Ibn Marwān lightened taxes and carried out many public and charitable works there.
On his death in 453/1061, his territories were divided between his sons Nasr and Sa’id, but the power of the Marwānids was now waning. The cupidity of the caliphal vizier Fakhr al-Dawla Ibn Jahīr (who had previously been in Ibn Marwān’s service) was now aroused; although the Marwānids had done the Seljuqs no harm, Fakhr al-Dawla and his son ‘Amīd al-Dawla secured permission from the sultan, Malik Shah, to invade the Marwānid lands with a Seljuq army. In 478/1085, after stiff fighting, the attackers were victorious and the Marwānid principality was incorporated in the Seljuq empire. The last Marwānid, Mansūr b. Nasr, lived on in Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umar for another decade or so, but over the next centuries Diyār Bakr was to be predominantly under the control of Turkmen dynasties and to become increasingly Turkicised.
Lane-Poole, 118; Zambaur, 136; Album, 21.
EI2 ‘Djahīr (Banū)’ (Cl. Cahen), ‘Marwanids’ (Carole Hillenbrand), ‘Nasr al-Dawla’ (H. Bowen).
H. F. Amedroz, ‘The Marwānid dynasty at Mayyāfāriqln in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D.’, JRAS (1903), 123–54.
c. 380–564/c. 990–1169
Iraq, Jazīra and northern Syria
1. The line in Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umar, Nisībīn and Balad of Muhammad
b. al-Musayyab al-‘Uqaylī
| ⊘ c.380/c. 990 | Muhammad b. al-Musayyab, Abu ’l-Dhawwād |
| ⊘ 386/996 | ‘All b. Muhammad, Abu ’l-Hasan Janah al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 390/1000 | al-Hasan b. Muhammad, Abū ‘Amr Sinān al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 393/1003 | Mus‘ab b. Muhammad, Abū Marah Nūr al-Dawla |
2. The line in Mosul and later in Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umar, Nisībīn and Balad,
also of the al-Musayyab line
| c. 382/c. 992 | Muhammad b. al-Musayyab, Abu ’l-Dhawwād |
| ⊘ 386/996 | al-Muqallad b. al-Musayyab, Abū Hassān Husām al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 391/1001 | Qirwāsh b. al-Muqallad, Abu ’l-Manī‘ Mu’tamid al-Dawla |
| 442/1050 | Baraka b. al-Muqallad, Abū Kāmil Za‘im al-Dawla |
| 443/1052 | Quraysh b. Abi ’l-Fadl Badrān, Abu ’l-Ma‘āll ‘Alam al-Din |
| ⊘ 453/1061 | Muslim b. Quraysh, Abu ’l-Makārim Sharaf al-Dawla |
| 478/1085 | Ibrahim b. Quraysh, Abū Muslim |
| 486–9/1093–6 | ‘Alīb. Muslim |
| 489/1096 | Seljuq conquest |
3. The line in Takrīt of Ma‘n b. al-Muqallad’s descendants
| ? | Rāfi‘ b. al-Husayn b. |Ma‘n, Abu ’l-Musayyab |
| 427/1036 | Khamīs b. Taghlib, Abu Man‘a |
| 435/1044 | Abū Ghashshām b. Khamis |
| 444/1052 | Īsā b. Khamīs |
| 448/1056 | Nasrb. Īsā |
| 449–?/1057– ? | Rule of Abu ‘1-Ghana’im as governor on behalf of ‘Isa’s widow, and then Seljuq occupation |
| 487/1094 | Tharwān b. Wahb, Bahā’ al-Dawla |
| ? | Kathīrb.Wahb |
| ? | al-Mansūr b. Kathīr |
| 496– ?/1103– ? | Muhammad b. Rāft‘ |
5. The line in ‘Ukbarā of Ma‘n b. al-Muqallad’s descendants
| ⊘ 401/1011 | Gharīb b. Muhammad, Abū Sinān Sayf al-Dīn Kamāl al-Dawla |
| 425– ?/1034– ? | Abu ‘1-Rayyān b. Gharīb |
6. The other minor branches at Āna and al-Hadītha and at Qal‘at Ja‘bar (for details, see Lane Poole and Zambaur, he. cit.)
The ‘Uqaylids came from the great North Arab Bedouin tribal group of ‘Āmir b. Sa‘sa‘a, which also included the Khafāja of the Iraq desert fringes and the Muntafiq of the Batā’ih or marshlands of lower Iraq. With the decay of the last Hamdānids of Mosul (see above, no. 35, 1), the town passed to the ‘Uqaylid Muhammad b. al-Musayyab, who held it as a nominal vassal of the Būyid amīr Bahā’ al-Dawla. After Muhammad’s death, there were internecine struggles for power among his sons, but control over Mosul and the other ‘Uqaylid towns and fortresses in Jazīra eventually came to his nephew Qirwāsh b. al-Muqallad. At a time when Būyid influence in Iraq was weakening, Qirwāsh’s main problem was to preserve intact his dominions in face of the new threat from the Turkmen invaders of western Persia and Iraq during the third and fourth decades of the eleventh century, and this work of defence necessitated alliances with another threatened power in Iraq, the Mazyadids of Hilla (see above, no. 36).
Under Qirwāsh’s great-nephew Muslim b. Quraysh, the ‘Uqaylid dominions reached their greatest extent and stretched almost from Baghdad as far as Aleppo. As a Shī‘ī, Muslim’s natural inclination was to support the Fātimids against the strongly Sunnī Seljuqs, but he allied with the Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah in order to secure the Mirdāsid territories in northern Syria (see above, no. 28). But a further switch to the Fātimids brought Seljuq armies to Mosul, forcing Muslim to flee to Āmid and Aleppo, where he was eventually killed fighting the Seljuq rebel Sulaymān b. Qutalmïsh (478/1085). ‘Uqaylids survived in Mosul as governors on behalf of the Seljuqs until Tutush b. Alp Arslan in 486/1093 imposed on the town his own ‘Uqaylid nominee, and shortly afterwards the line there was extinguished. Other branches of the ‘Uqaylids persisted, however, as local lords in central Iraq and Diyār Mudar for several more decades, the branch at Raqqa and Qal‘at Ja‘bar lasting up to 564/1169 under a descendant of Badrān b. al-Muqallad, when Nūr al-Dīn Mahmūd b. Zangi (see below, no. 93) took over there. After the general loss of their power in Iraq, the Banū ‘Uqayl moved southwards to their former eastern Arabian pasture grounds in Hajar and Yamāma, and established there a line of the Shaykhs of the Banū ‘Usfūr.
It seems that the‘Uqaylids were not entirely a predatory Bedouin dynasty, but had introduced some features at least of the standard pattern of ‘Abbāsid administration into their land; thus it is mentioned that Muslim b. Quraysh had a postmaster or intelligence officer (sahib al-khabar) in every village of his principality. Several members of the dynasty were famed as poets. The passing of the ‘Uqaylids and the Mazyadids marks the end of a period during which Arab amirates had held power over large stretches of Iraq and Syria, maintaining themselves between the great powers of the Fātimids, the Būyids and the Seljuqs. The generally Shī‘ī sympathies of these amirates, and their strategic positions commanding the routes westwards into Diyār Bakr and Anatolia, inevitably brought them up against the expanding Sunnī Seljuqs and their Turkmen followers needing pasture land for their herds. Henceforth, political and military leadership in Iraq, Jazīra and Syria was to be almost exclusively in Turkish hands.
Lane-Poole, 116–17, with a genealogical table; Zambaur, 37, 135; Album, 21.
EI1‘‘Okailids’ (K. V. Zetterstéen).
H. C. Kay, ‘Notes on the history of the Banu ‘Okayl’, JRAS, new series, 18 (1886), 491–526, with a genealogical table facing p. 526.
380–c. 474/990–c. 1081
Ḥarrān, Sarūj, Qal‘at fa‘bar and Raqqa
| ⊘ 380/990 | Waththāb b. Sābiq al-Numayrī, Abū Qawārn Mu‘ayyid al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 410/1019 | Shabīb b. Waththāb, Abū Nasr Sanīat al-Dawla |
| ⊘ 431/1040 |
|
| ⊘ 431–55/1040–63 | Manf b. Shabib, Abu ’l-Zimām Najīb al-Dawla Radī ’l-Dawla, eventually sole ruler |
Numayrids in Harrān until c. 474/c. 1081, but the names of these rulers unrecorded |
The Numayrids were a line of amīrs who flourished during the late tenth and the eleventh centuries in several towns of Diyār Mudar: briefly at Edessa, more continuously at Harrān, Sarūj, Qal’at Ja’bar and Raqqa. Their name derives from the North Arab tribal group to which they belonged, hence their origins were parallel to those of the Mirdāsids of Aleppo (see above, no. 28). Tribesmen of Numayr were early involved in the fighting in northern Syria and Jazīra as auxiliaries of such powers as the Hamdānids, until Waththāb in 380/990 made himself independent of the Hamdanids at Harrān, from where he conquered other fortresses of the region. The first Numayrids found themselves forced to pay tribute to the Greeks on their western borders, and were unable to hold on to Byzantine Edessa, which they had temporarily captured. As the Fātimids expanded into northern Syria, Shabīb b. Waththāb in 430/1038 recognised the Fātimid caliph al-Mustansir, although after the Fātimid attempt to hold Baghdad, made by Arslan Basāsīrī, failed in 452/1060, the Numayrids probably changed allegiance to the ‘Abbāsids. But the advent of the Seljuqs was fatal for the Numayrids, as for other petty principalities of the region, like that of the Marwānids (see above, no. 37). The names of the last Numayrid rulers in Harrān are unknown to us. Their town fell in the end to the Seljuqs’ allies, the ‘Uqaylids (see above, no. 38), although members of the family were still to be found holding fortresses into the next century.
Zambaur, 138 (vague and inaccurate); Album, 22.
D. S. Rice, ‘Medieval Harrān. Studies on its topography and monuments. I’, Anatolian Studies, 2 (1952), 36–84, with a genealogical table at p. 84.