Arabic: الحدث الحمراء | |
  Shown within Turkey | |
| Alternative name | Adata |
|---|---|
| Location | Turkey |
| Region | Kahramanmaraş Province |
| Coordinates | 37°42′25″N37°27′36″E / 37.707°N 37.460°E |
Al-Ḥadath al-Ḥamrā' (Arabic for "Hadath the Red") or Adata (Greek : Ἃδατα) was a town and fortress near the Taurus Mountains (modern southeastern Turkey), which played an important role in the Byzantine–Arab Wars.
The town was located at ca. 1000 m altitude on the southern feet of the Taurus-Antitaurus range, near the upper course of the Aksu River in the Gölbaşı district. Its exact location has been lost, and it has been variously identified with locations north or south of Inekli lake. [1] [2]
Hadath became important in the early Middle Ages due to its strategic location: it was located in the fortified frontier zone, the Thughūr , that separated the Umayyad and Abbasid empires from the Byzantine Empire. The town lay to the southwest of the important Pass of Hadath/Adata (darb al-Ḥadath) which led over the Taurus into Byzantine Anatolia, but was also situated between the two major frontier strongholds of Marash/Germanikeia (mod. Kahramanmaraş) and Malatya/Melitene, and controlled passage from northern Mesopotamia to western Armenia. As such, it became a major base for the frequent Muslim invasions and raids into Byzantine territories, and was often targeted by the Byzantines in return. [1] [3]
It was conquered by the Arabs under Habib ibn Maslama during the reign of Caliph Umar (r. 634–644), and became a base for the annual invasions launched against Byzantine Anatolia under the Caliph Muawiyah (r. 661–680). [1] The Byzantines reclaimed the city in the 750s but did not reoccupy it permanently. In 778, the Byzantine general Michael Lachanodrakon sacked the city, but it was immediately rebuilt by Caliph Al-Mahdi (r. 775–785). Mahdi renamed it al-Mahdiya or al-Muhammadiya on this occasion, but these names failed to catch on. [1] [2] [4] Mahdi's successor Al-Hadi further repopulated the city with people from the surrounding region, but in the winter of 786, floods caused heavy damage to the city walls, which had been hastily rebuilt of sun-dried bricks. The Byzantine strategos of the Armeniacs, Nikephoros, learned of this and destroyed the city, burning it to the ground. [1] [5]
It was completely rebuilt, refortified and garrisoned by Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), who made it one of the most important towns in the Thughūr. It is in this incarnation that the town is best known from literary sources: it was protected by the fortress of al-Uhaydab ("Little Hunchback"), built on a hill, while the town itself was reportedly as big as Marash. [1] [2] Hadath continued to serve the Abbasids as a base for cross-frontier raids, but the Byzantines also attacked the city several times, sacking it in 841 and 879. [1] [6] The region around the town and especially the pass were the scene of frequent and bloody clashes, to the extent that the Arabs reportedly renamed it darb al-salāma ("pass of peace") in an attempt, as the Encyclopedia of Islam comments, "to exorcise the evil fate which seemed to be attached to it". [1] In 949/950, the Byzantines under Leo Phokas seized the town and razed it and its fortifications to the ground. It was rebuilt by the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla in 954, only to fall again to the Byzantines under Nikephoros Phokas in 957. [1] [2] [7] The Byzantines razed and destroyed the city, but by 970 it was rebuilt and became the center of a new small theme. [8]
The town thereafter descended into obscurity. It was captured by the Seljuks in 1150, and later by the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Under the Armenians it became a base for their raids against the surrounding Muslim states until 1272, when the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (r. 1260–1277) sacked it, massacred its inhabitants and burned it down. The town continued to exist for a while, named Göynük ("the Burned") by the Turks and Armenians and Alhan by the local Kurds. It is last mentioned in 1436, when the Mamluk Sultan Barsbay (r. 1422–1438) used it as his base for a campaign against the Turkic beylik of Dulkadir. [1] [2]
Hadath was a significant center for the Syriac Orthodox Church, which maintained a diocese of Hadath based in the city from the eighth through the twelfth centuries. Fourteen Jacobite bishops of Hadath between the eighth and eleventh centuries are mentioned in the lists of Michael the Syrian. [9]
Nikephoros II Phokas, Latinized Nicephorus II Phocas, was Byzantine emperor from 963 to 969. His career, not uniformly successful in matters of statecraft or of war, nonetheless greatly contributed to the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire during the 10th century. In the east, Nikephoros completed the conquest of Cilicia and retook the islands of Crete and Cyprus, opening the path for subsequent Byzantine incursions reaching as far as Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant; these campaigns earned him the sobriquet "pale death of the Saracens".
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī, better known by his regnal name al-Mahdī, was the third Abbasid Caliph who reigned from 775 to his death in 785. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur.
Bilad al-Sham, often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates. It roughly corresponded with the Byzantine Diocese of the East, conquered by the Muslims in 634–647. Under the Umayyads (661–750), Bilad al-Sham was the metropolitan province of the Caliphate and different localities throughout the province served as the seats of the Umayyad caliphs and princes.
The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars from the 7th to 11th centuries between multiple Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim Arab Caliphates conquered large parts of the Christian Byzantine empire and unsuccessfully attacked the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. The frontier between the warring states remained almost static for three centuries of frequent warfare, before the Byzantines were able to recapture some of the lost territory.
Between 780–1180, the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid & Fatimid caliphates in the regions of Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and Southern Italy fought a series of wars for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. After a period of indecisive and slow border warfare, a string of almost unbroken Byzantine victories in the late 10th and early 11th centuries allowed three Byzantine Emperors, namely Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes and finally Basil II to recapture territory lost to the Muslim conquests in the 7th century Arab–Byzantine wars under the failing Heraclian Dynasty.
ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū'l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn Ḥamdūn ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī, more commonly known simply by his honorific of Sayf al-Dawla, was the founder of the Emirate of Aleppo, encompassing most of northern Syria and parts of the western Jazira.
The Battle of Krasos took place during the Arab–Byzantine Wars in August 804, between the Byzantines under Emperor Nikephoros I and an Abbasid army under Ibrahim ibn Jibril. Nikephoros' accession in 802 resulted in a resumption of warfare between Byzantium and the Abbasid Caliphate. In late summer 804, the Abbasids had invaded Byzantine Asia Minor for one of their customary raids, and Nikephoros set out to meet them. He was surprised, however, at Krasos and heavily defeated, barely escaping with his own life. A truce and prisoner exchange were afterwards arranged. Despite his defeat, and a massive Abbasid invasion the next year, Nikephoros persevered until troubles in the eastern provinces of the Caliphate forced the Abbasids to conclude a peace.
Melias or Mleh was an Armenian prince who entered Byzantine service and became a distinguished general, founding the theme of Lykandos and participating in the campaigns of John Kourkouas against the Arabs.
Al-ʿAwāṣim was the Arabic term used to refer to the Muslim side of the frontier zone between the Byzantine Empire and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates in Cilicia, northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. It was established in the early 8th century, once the first wave of the Muslim conquests ebbed, and lasted until the mid-10th century, when the Byzantine advance overran it. It comprised the forward marches, comprising a chain of fortified strongholds, known as al-thughūr, and the rear or inner regions of the frontier zone, which was known as al-ʿawāṣim proper. On the Byzantine side, the Muslim marches were mirrored by the institution of the kleisourai and the akritai.
The Theme of Cappadocia was a Byzantine theme encompassing the southern portion of the namesake region from the early 9th to the late 11th centuries.
The Abbasid invasion of Asia Minor in 782 was one of the largest operations launched by the Abbasid Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire. The invasion was launched as a display of Abbasid military might in the aftermath of a series of Byzantine successes. Commanded by the Abbasid heir-apparent, the future Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid army reached as far as Chrysopolis, across the Bosporus from the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, while secondary forces raided western Asia Minor and defeated the Byzantine forces there. As Harun did not intend to assault Constantinople and lacked ships to do so, he turned back.
The 806 invasion of Asia Minor was the largest of a long series of military operations launched by the Abbasid Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire. The expedition took place in southeastern and central Asia Minor, where the two states shared a long land border.
The Battle of Marash was fought in 953 near Marash between the forces of the Byzantine Empire under the Domestic of the Schools Bardas Phokas the Elder, and of the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla, the Byzantines' most intrepid enemy during the mid-10th century. Despite being outnumbered, the Arabs defeated the Byzantines who broke and fled. Bardas Phokas himself barely escaped through the intervention of his attendants, and suffered a serious wound on his face, while his youngest son and governor of Seleucia, Constantine Phokas, was captured and held a prisoner in Aleppo until his death of an illness some time later. This debacle, coupled with defeats in 954 and again in 955, led to Bardas Phokas' dismissal as Domestic of the Schools, and his replacement by his eldest son, Nikephoros Phokas.
The Battle of Raban was an engagement fought in autumn 958 near the fortress of Raban between the Byzantine army, led by John Tzimiskes, and the forces of the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo under the famed emir Sayf al-Dawla. The battle was a major victory for the Byzantines, and contributed to the demise of Hamdanid military power, which in the early 950s had proven a great challenge to Byzantium.
The Battle of Andrassos or Adrassos was fought on 8 November 960 between the Byzantines, led by Leo Phokas the Younger, and the forces of the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo under the emir Sayf al-Dawla. It was fought in an unidentified mountain pass in the Taurus Mountains.
The siege of Chandax in 960-961 was the centerpiece of the Byzantine Empire's campaign to recover the island of Crete which since the 820s had been ruled by Muslim Arabs. The campaign followed a series of failed attempts to reclaim the island from the Muslims stretching as far back as 827, only a few years after the initial conquest of the island by the Arabs, and was led by the general and future emperor Nikephoros Phokas. It lasted from autumn 960 until spring 961, when the main Muslim fortress and capital of the island, Chandax was captured. The reconquest of Crete was a major achievement for the Byzantines, as it restored Byzantine control over the Aegean littoral and diminished the threat of Saracen pirates, for which Crete had provided a base of operations.
The Byzantine conquest of Cilicia was a series of conflicts and engagements between the forces of the Byzantine Empire under Nikephoros II Phokas and the Hamdanid ruler of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla, over control of the region of Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia. Since the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Cilicia had been a frontier province of the Muslim world and a base for regular raids against the Byzantine provinces in Anatolia. By the middle of the 10th century, the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate and the strengthening of Byzantium under the Macedonian dynasty allowed the Byzantines to gradually take the offensive. Under the soldier-emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, with the help of the general and future emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Byzantines overcame the resistance of Sayf al-Dawla, who had taken control of the former Abbasid borderlands in northern Syria, and launched a series of aggressive campaigns that in 964–965 recaptured Cilicia. The successful conquest opened the way for the recovery of Cyprus and Antioch over the next few years, and the eclipse of the Hamdanids as an independent power in the region.
The Mesopotamian campaigns of John Tzimiskes were a series of campaigns undertaken by the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes against the Fatimid Caliphate in the Levant and against the Abbasid Caliphate in Syria. Following the weakening and collapse of the Hamdanid Dynasty of Aleppo, much of the Near East lay open to Byzantium, and, following the assassination of Nikephoros II Phokas, the new emperor, John Tzimiskes, was quick to engage the newly successful Fatimid Dynasty over control of the near east and its important cities, namely Antioch, Aleppo, and Caesarea. He also engaged the Hamdanid Emir of Mosul, who was de jure under the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and his Buyid overlords, over control of parts of Upper Mesopotamia (Jazira).
The sack of Aleppo in December 962 was carried out by the Byzantine Empire under Nikephoros Phokas. Aleppo was the capital of the Hamdanid emir Sayf al-Dawla, the Byzantines' chief antagonist at the time.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)