Alp-Tigin (Damascus)

Alp-Tigin or Alp-Tegin ( Arabic ألب تكين 'The brave prince') was a military leader of Turkish descent from the 10th century who, after unsuccessful battles against the Buyids in Iran, moved west with 300 armored riders at the end of January 975, where he was in Homs in the service of the Hamdanid- Emir Sad ad -Daula Abu l-Maali Sharif b. Ali kicked. The Emir of Aleppo enfeoffed him with the cities of Maarrat Misrin, Maarrat an-Numan and Kafr Tab. The Byzantine Empire , the Fatimids and the Abbasids (or their military leaders) were fighting over Syria at this time , so that there were repeated clashes here came, which included local forces. Soon afterwards, the leader of the Damascus youth militias, Ibn al-Maward, also gave Alp-Tigin control of the city of Damascus . In mid-May 975, Alp-Tigin and his troops arrived in front of the city. The city authorities then entered into negotiations with him, at the end of which they offered him rule over Damascus and demanded that he break the loosely existing supremacy of the Fatimids and also disempower the city's youth militias under al-Maward. The Fatimid troops withdrew upon receiving news of his coming to the Biqa plain. Alp-Tigin accepted the offer of the notables and entered Damascus with his troops. In the following time he tried to overthrow the militias and ensured the security of the city and its surroundings against the Uqail Beduins, whose leader Zalim had to cede the city of Baalbek to him.

Baalbek was occupied by Byzantine troops on May 29, 975 under the orders of Emperor Johannes Tzimiskes . Since his rule in the city was not yet consolidated, Alp-Tigin entered into negotiations with the emperor together with the militia leader al-Maward. He accused al-Maward of being an obstacle to an agreement. Johannes Tzimiskes then had this arrested. Alp-Tigin was obliged to pay a tribute by the emperor. The information on this varies among the chroniclers. John of Antiocheia reports that the notables of Damascus committed themselves in a kind of deed of surrender to the payment of 60,000 dinars per year and to the provision of hostages, but both were later dropped; whereas the Muslim sources report a one-off payment of 30,000 dinars, with which the emperor's departure was bought. Damascus was not placed under the suzerainty of the emperor. The personal contacts between the Kaiser and Alp-Tigin were friendly. The emperor is said to have been particularly impressed by Alp-Tigin's riding skills. To get the militias under control, Alp-Tigin came to an arrangement with their new leader Qassam. Through him as an intermediary, he sent them monetary payments.

The greatest threat to the rule of Alp-Tigin in Damascus now posed the Fatimids of Cairo , against whom he allied himself with the Qarmatians , who were enemies of the Fatimids. At the beginning of 976 he equipped their troops arriving in Damascus with weapons and horses. While the Qarmatians went south to war, Alp-Tigin succeeded in conquering the cities of Sidon , Tire and Acre . However, the Qarmatians withdrew to Eastern Arabia after fighting with the Fatimid general Jawhar. Only a few supported Alp-Tigin in the following. Dschauhar reached Damascus at the head of an army of 20,000 men on July 22, 976, and had a fortified camp built in front of its walls. Due to supply shortages and the renewed deployment of the Qarmatians under al-Hasan al-Asam, Jawhar retreated to ar-Ramla and then to Askalon , where the Qarmatians and the troops of Alp-Tigin defeated him in a three-day battle. As a result, he was besieged in Damascus. After a year and three months, Dschauhar gave in and obtained his withdrawal in exchange for a fee in March 978. John of Antiocheia claims that Dschauhar had allowed Alp-Tigin to rule Syria in the future on behalf of the Fatimids, but this information is used by modern authors doubted.

The Fatimid caliph al-ʿAzīz had his unsuccessful military leader disempowered and led an army to Syria himself in the early summer of the same year. Meanwhile, Alp-Tigin received support from fled Buyiden princes, who commanded a Dailamite mercenary army, which from then on reinforced Alp-Tigin's troops. On August 15, 978, on the river Mühlen ( Nahr at-Tawahin ), the Alp-Tigin troops were quickly defeated by the Fatimids. He himself was captured while on the run and brought to Cairo in October 978 in the wake of the caliph. After his capture, Alp-Tigin was treated with honor - probably because of his knightly habitus - and accepted into the service of the caliph. He left his army of Dailamites and Turks to the Fatimids.

literature

• Heinz Halm : The Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt (973-1074). Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-48654-1 .