Atsiz ibn Uwak

Atsiz ibn Uwak al-Chwarizmi ( Arabic أتسز بن اوق الخوارزمي, DMG Atsīz b. Uwaq al-Ḫwārizmī ; † September / October 1078 in Damascus ) was a Turkmen condottiere in the 11th century who paved the way for the rule of the Seljuks in Syria and Palestine .

Atsiz ("nameless") came from Khoresmia and apparently belonged to the Turkish conquering army of the Seljuks, which invaded Iraq in the middle of the 11th century through Persia . In the spring of 1071 he belonged to the retinue of Malik Shah I , when he crossed the Euphrates to the west and invaded Syria and conquered Aleppo . While the young Seljuk prince then turned his main forces to Anatolia, Atsiz was entrusted as commander of a partial contingent with the further subjugation of the Middle East and the Levant coast. In the same year he conquered the Palestinian provincial capital ar-Ramla and then Jerusalem , the city walls of which were partly destroyed by an earthquake in 1068. His triumphant advance was favored by the anarchy prevailing in Egypt , which had crippled the Shiite Fatimid caliphate for some time. He indicated the end of the rule of al-Mustansir in Jerusalem by erasing his name and installing the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph al-Qaim in the Friday sermon ( ḫuṭba ) .

In the following years Atsiz continued his conquest, isolated the heavily fortified Damascus from its surroundings and consolidated his rule by eliminating a Turkish rival in Tiberias . Only the sea fortress of Akkon could successfully hold its own against him. In June / July 1076 the starving people of Damascus opened the gates of their city, into which Atsiz could move without a fight and thus complete the subjugation of Syria. Malik Shah I, who in the meantime had risen to sultan, recognized him as ruling the land he had conquered by sending him honorary robes with horse, shield and sword. Atsiz then intended the final annihilation of the Fatimid caliphate by conquering Egypt and invaded the Nile Delta with his army in December 1076. But at the end of February 1077 he was crushed by the Fatimids under the vizier Badr al-Jamali near Cairo , where he lost a brother in the battle in addition to his entire camp. Atsiz himself was able to flee from the battlefield with only a few companions, but his defeat became a signal for the local population of Palestine to revolt against the Turkish occupiers. In Jerusalem the people were able to take control of the city walls and lock the family (ḥaram) of Atsiz in the Castle of David . But through a breach in the city wall, the newly formed Turks were able to penetrate the city and recapture it after a massacre of the insubordinate population. Up to three thousand people are said to have fallen victim to the Atsiz soldiers, only those who were able to save themselves in the mosques were spared. He then conquered the first port on the Levant coast with Jaffa and returned from there to Damascus, which he had to defend against a Fatimid counter-offensive in the spring of 1078. At the same time, the Ismaili missionary Hassan-i Sabbah (d. 1124), traveling incognito, had passed the Syrian capital on his way to the port of Beirut , from where he intended to travel on to Egypt by sea.

The defeat in Egypt finally heralded the end of Atsiz. Sultan Malik Shah I had persuaded them to appoint his brother Tutusch I as the new governor in Syria, who moved up with an army in front of Damascus in the summer of 1078, which caused the Fatimid besiegers to retreat to Egypt. In vain Atsiz hastened to assure the prince of his loyalty to him and the sultan, but he was strangled with a bowstring together with a brother in September / October 1078 ( Rabi I 471 AH ) on the orders of Tutusch .

swell

The works of Ibn al-Qalanisi (d. 1160), Sibt ibn al-Jschauzi (d. 1257) and Ibn Muyassar (d. 1278) provide information about the Turkish conquest of the Near East .

literature

• Heinz Halm : Caliphs and Assassins. Egypt and the Middle East at the time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. Munich: CH Beck, 2014.
• Lázló Rásonyi: Among the names of the first Turkish lords of Jerusalem. In: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 13 (1961), pp. 89-94.

annotation

1. ↑ For the name see Ibn al-Qalanisi. From Sibt ibn al-Jschauzi Atsiz was also called under the nickname "the Turkmen" (al-Turkumānī) .