Ahlachahs

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The empire of the Shah poor (Ahlachahs) and some of its neighbors around 1190
The realm of the Ahlachahs and some of its neighbors around 1206

The Ahlatschahs ( DMG Aḫlāṭ-Šāhs), also Armanschahs (Arman-Šāhs) or Shah-Armens , were primarily a number of Muslim rulers of Turkish origin who from 1100 to 1207 over an Eastern Anatolian - Armenian principality ( Beylik ) with the significant and wealthy center Ahlat commanded. They were therefore called the kings of Armenia . While the first four Ahlachahs still came from the local dynasty of the Sökmenids , the rulers after 1185 were their former Mamluk generals , who were mostly not related to each other and Ahlat eventually lost to the Ayyubids .

history

The principality on the shores of Lake Van came into being after the Battle of Manzikert (1071), as a result of which the victorious Seljuks snatched large parts of Anatolia from the Byzantines . Sökmen (I.) al-Qutbi, the founder and namesake of the Sökmenid dynasty, was a Turkish Mamluk of the Seljuk governor of Āzarbāydschān Qutb ad-Din Ismail ibn Yaquti (hence his Nisba al-Qutbi ). In 1100 he took over the city of Ahlat, where the Marwanids had ruled until then , and - as the successor to the Armenian (i.e. local) princes - the local ruler title Shāh-i Arman (شاه أرمن' Shah of the Armenians '), which was later also led by some Ayyubids.

The Ahlachahs were initially firmly integrated into the Greater Seljuk Empire. They maintained close contacts with other Islamic principalities in the region and repeatedly entered into alliances with the Artuqids of Mardin , the Zengids , the Saltuqids of Erzurum and the Ahmadili- Atabegs of Maragha - above all in order to jointly undertake lucrative campaigns against the Christian Georgians in the north . Relations with the Artuqids only intensified in the middle of the 12th century. Previously, in 1121, Il-Ghazi I had taken the city of Mayyafariqin , which had been conquered by Sökmen I in 1108. It is also noticeable that Shah Ibrahim did not take part in the Georgia campaign led by Il-Ghazi in the same year.

The Ahlachahs reached the zenith of their power under Nasir ad-Din Sökmen II. Ibn Ibrahim, who came to the throne as a child in 1128 and then ruled for 57 years. His empire - at times the most powerful in the region - extended in the east to Choy and Salamas , in the north via Sürmeli (near Iğdır ) to Kars and in the west included the regions of Musch , Sasun and Bitlis (where the Dilmachids ruled as vassals ). Sokmen was married to Shah-Banwar, the sister of Saltuq II; his own sister became the wife of Nadschm ad-Din Alpis I in 1146, which meant that the Artuqids of Mardin were supported against those of Hisn Kayfa . In 1161 he sent a large army to Aq-Sunqur II, with whose help the Atabeg of Maragha was able to achieve an important victory over the powerful Eldigüziden . The fact that Sökmen did not interfere in person in the power struggles in Azerbaijan was due to the fact that he and other Muslim princes in the region; in July / August of this year tried to retake the Shaddadid capital Ani , which had fallen to the Georgians shortly before . The battle that followed the siege ended with a victory for King Giorgis III. ; The Shah, who was forced to withdraw, had suffered very high losses, many of his men - including some members of the ruling family (such as the brother of Shah-Banwars) - had been taken prisoner, and his camp had been looted by the Georgians.
After this defeat, Sökmen, Aq-Sunqur II, Eldigüz and the Dilmatschide Fachr ad-Din jointly undertook a great campaign of revenge against the Georgians, who had also attacked Dvin and Gandscha beforehand . The more than 50,000-strong lord of the Muslims penetrated Georgian territory in January / February and defeated Giorgi's troops in a decisive battle on July 13th. The rich booty that the Shah-i Arman made in this campaign made up for the losses of 1161; According to al-Fariqi, the most important pieces included three chests, the first of which was the finest gold and silver vessels, the second the royal chapel, jeweled gold and silver crosses and gospels and the third the royal treasure (gold, silver, precious stones) contained. Sökken's return to Ahlat, during which the unique treasures were valued and exhibited, was the occasion of a great festival at which 300 oxen were slaughtered and their meat was distributed to those in need. King Giorgi was put to flight again when the Shah-i Arman and Eldigüz marched from Nightshivan against the city of Aq-Shahr in the summer of 1174 , plundered and burned it.
After 1175, Sökken's attention was mainly drawn to the political developments in the south. From 1184 the Shah-i Arman also controlled the Artuqiden-Beylik of his young nephew Husam ad-Din Yülük-Arslan here, but the last Sökmenide died the following year without leaving a male heir. As a result, Jahan-Pahlavan Muhammad ibn Eldigüz, who had married one of his daughters to the Shah, and the Ayyubid Saladin fought over the principality. While the latter - against whom Sökmen had allied himself with the Zengid Izz ad-Din Masud I in 1183 - wrested the Artuqid from Mardin Mayyafariqin, Ahlat now came under the rule of rapidly changing military leaders. The first of these, Saif ad-Din Beg-Temur, played Jahan-Pahlavan skillfully against Saladin.

. While the former Mamluk Sökmens II, weakened by internal struggles, the power of the Shah-Armens dwindled more and more: as part of new, aggressive campaigns that Queen Tamar in the early 13th century led to their Muslim neighbors, occupied Georgian troops Shirak , conquered Ani returned (as recently as 1199) and even advanced as far as the Ahlat area, to Ardschisch and Malazgirt . They took prisoners and pillaged the areas north of Lake Van without the Ahlachahs being able to offer them any resistance. Only after a fortress near Erzurum was attacked did the Seljuk Mughith ad-Din Toghril-Shah, who now ruled there, and the ruler of Ahlat defeat the Georgians, who, however, had to be expelled from the area around Ahlat the following year. In 1207, when the power in Ahlat was just being disputed again, Kars finally came under the rule of Tamar.

The danger that the Ayyubids, expanding from today's northern Iraq and Syria in the direction of Anatolia, posed not only for the Ahlachahs, was by no means averted. When the residents of Ahlat invited the Artuqid ruler of Mardin (because of his kinship with the Sökmenids) to take over the government of their city, the Ayyubide al-Malik al-Ashraf Musa was jealous of such an increase in power and tried to move from Harran to Mardin conquer. A former Mamluk Sökmens named Balaban used this development to take over power as the new Shah-i Arman in Ahlat in 1207. When al-Malik al-Auhad Nadschm ad-Din Ayyub von Maiyafariqin - another Ayyubid who had already expanded his possessions at the expense of the Ahlachahs - moved against Izz ad-Din Balaban, he was able to repel the attack and al -Auhads was unsuccessful because Balaban Mughith had called ad-Din Toghril-Shah of Erzurum for help. Later, however, the Toghril Shah betrayed Balaban, killed him and tried to occupy Ahlat himself. The population then called on al-Auhad, who took the strategically very important city in 1207 and put an end to the rule of the Ahlachahs.

Legacies

The Ahlatschahs shaped Ahlat as their capital. Some impressive and partly richly decorated grave stones here represent their most important legacy. It is currently being sought, this along with other monuments in Ahlat on the List of World Heritage of UNESCO take.

Some of the poems that the great Persian poet Chaqani wrote towards the end of his life are dedicated to Shams ad-Din Mahmud ibn Ali, who served Shah-i Arman as governor in Arjish .

Ruler list

The Sökmenids :

  • Sökmen (I.) al-Qutbi (al-Quṭbī), r. 1100-1112
  • Zahir ad-Din Ibrahim ibn Sökmen (Ẓahīr ad-Dīn Ibrāhīm), r. 1112-1126 / 27
  • Ahmad ibn Sökmen or Yaqub ibn Sökmen (Aḥmad or Yaʿqūb), r. 1126 / 27-1128
  • Nasir ad-Din Sökmen (II.) Ibn Ibrahim (Nāṣir ad-Dīn), r. 1128-1185

Non-dynastic Mamluk rulers :

  • Saif ad-Din Beg-Temür , reg. 1185-1193
  • Badr ad-Din Aq-Sunqur Hazardinari (Hazārdīnārī), r. 1193-1197
  • Shuja ad-Din Qutlugh (Šuǧāʿ ad-Dīn Qutluġ), r. 1197
  • al-Malik al-Mansur Muhammad ibn Beg-Temür (al-Malik al-Manṣūr Muḥammad), r. 1197-1207
  • Izz ad-Din Balaban (ʿIzz ad-Dīn), reg. 1207

Sources and literature

  • Ibn al-Aṯīr : Al-Kāmil fi ʼt-taʾrīḫ , ed. By Carolus Johannes Tornberg : Chronicon quod perfectissimum inscribitur , Lugdunum Batavorum (Leiden) 1867–1874
  • Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī: Taʾrīḫ al-Fāriqī, ad-Daula al-Marwānīya , ed. B. ʿA. ʿAwaḍ, Beirut 1984
  • Vladimir Fyodorovich Minorsky : Studies in Caucasian History , London 1953
  • Osman Turan : Doğu Anadolu Türk Devletleri Tarihi , Istanbul 1973
  • ACS Peacock: Article "Georgia and the Anatolian Turks in the 12th and 13th Centuries" in Anatolian Studies , 56 (2006), pp. 127-146
  • Clifford Edmund Bosworth : The new Islamic dynasties - A chronological and genealogical manual. Edinburgh 2004, ISBN 0-7486-0684-X , p. 197
  • MC Lyons and DEP Jackson: Saladin: the Politics of the Holy War , Cambridge 1982
  • Claude Cahen : Pre-Ottoman Turkey - A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071-1330 , London 1968

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ mostly with Arabic lettersسُكمانwritten; he is not to be confused with the eponymous founder of the Artuqid dynasty, who ruled in the immediate vicinity at the same time
  2. ↑ z. B. from 1210 by al-Malik al-Ashraf Musa
  3. ↑ Zengi married a daughter of Sökmens II.
  4. ↑ The first Ahmadili was still known for coveting the possessions of the Shah-i Arman.
  5. ↑ A first clash between the Sökmenids and Bagratids occurred in 1125, 1130 or 1137/38 and probably ended with a Georgian victory.
  6. ^ Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey , p. 107
  7. ^ Including Saltuq II and the Dilmachid prince; Alpi had only got as far as Malazgirt with his army when he learned of the defeat of the Muslims.
  8. ↑ Minorsky, Studies , pp. 93 f.
  9. ↑ Here the sick Seljuk Sultan Arslan was waiting for the two of them to return.
  10. ↑ Beg-Temür is the only Ahlatschah in whose name coins are known
  11. ↑ For example, Musch had fallen to him.
  12. ↑ The Bagratids then continued to try to conquer Ahlat, until an Ayyubid-Georgian peace agreement was finally concluded after the campaign of 1210/11.
  13. ↑ On the Roads of Anatolia - Van by Yüksel Oktay. Published in the Los Angeles Chronicle ( September 28, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Tentative World Heritage Sites by UNESCO