Dawud ibn Mahmud

Dawud ibn Mahmud († 1143 in Tabriz ) was a prince of the Turkish Seljuk dynasty , who ruled a local prince in medieval Azerbaijan .

biography

Dawud was the eldest son of Sultan Mahmud II , who ruled over western Persia and Iraq , from whom he had already received the rule as prince ( malik ) over Azerbaijan with his own court as appanage during his lifetime . At the death of his father in 1131 he was enthroned as the new sultan by his vizier, but this act was neither recognized by the Caliph al-Mustarschid nor by the family senior Sultan Sandjar , who ruled over eastern Persia . Instead, the latter designated uncle Tughril II as the new sultan of western Persia, who also received the recognition of the caliph. Dawud, in turn, did not recognize his bypassing in the succession and tried to assert himself in the fight against his uncle, but his army was defeated in July / August 1132 near Hamadan in a field battle of Tughril. Dawud and his Atabeg Aq Sunqur al-Ahmadili were initially able to flee to Azerbaijan.

In order to continue the fight, Dawud allied himself in Tabriz with another uncle, Masud . Together they were able to move into Baghdad , where Masud received the official recognition of the caliph as sultan on December 9, 1132, which was manifested by the establishment of his name in the Friday sermon ( ḫuṭba ) . In the following year, Tughril II was driven back from Azerbaijan, which was again taken over by Dawud, now as Masud's vassal. For this he was married to one of his uncle's daughter. On May 25, 1133 be atabeg Aq Sunqur al-Ahmadili was of assassins murdered. When Tughril II finally died in 1134, Masud emerged as the actual victor in the struggle for succession and was thus the recognized sultan of western Persia and Iraq.

Dawud was reluctant to accept the loss of his father's throne, but he did not dare to openly revolt against the all-powerful Masud. Instead, he sought to undermine his rule by inciting the caliphs to emancipate them from sultan's rule. But Caliph al-Mustarschid was defeated in 1135, was arrested in Maragha , Azerbaijan , and murdered there by assassins that same year. In the following year, Sultan Masud deposed caliph al-Rashid in exchange for a more willing puppet and was forcibly exiled to Isfahan . Dawud intended to join forces with him in a revolt, but when he was still on the way to Isfahan in 1138, ar-Rashid was also assassinated there.

After that, Dawud stayed away from the power struggles. In 1143 he was finally murdered by four Syrian "Batinites" ( assassins ) in his residence city of Tabriz while bathing . Against the background of the disputes with Sultan Masud, it cannot be entirely ruled out that the series of successful attacks by the assassins against his opponents could not be carried out without his approval.

literature

• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines (1990), p. 356.

swell

• “News from the rule of the Seljuks” (Akhbār al-dawla al-saljūqiyya) , ed. and translated into English by Clifford Edmund Bosworth , The History of the Seljuq State (2011), pp. 68, 70, 74-76.
• Abū l-Fidāʾ , “A Brief History of Mankind” (al-Mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bashar), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux , Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 19, 24, 26.
• ʿIzz ad-Dīn Abūʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Athīr , "The Perfect Chronicle" (Al-Kāmil fī ʾt-taʾrīḫ), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 392–393.
• ʿIzz ad-Dīn Abūʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Athīr, "The Story of the Splendid Rule of the Atabegs" (Taʾrīḫ al-bāhir fīʾl-dawla al-atābakiyya), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, vol. 2.2 (1876) ), P. 92.
• Hamd Allah Mustawfi , "Selected Story" (Taʾrīḫ-i-guzīda) : ed. as a translation into English by Edward G. Browne, The Ta'ríkh-i-guzída or "Select history" of Hamdulláh Mustawfí-i-Qazwíní, Part 2 (1913), pp. 102-103.