Year 996 (CMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Year 998 (CMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
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.
Boris II was emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria from 969 to 977.
Fraxinetum or Fraxinet was the site of a Muslim stronghold at the centre of a frontier state in Provence between about 887 and 972. It is identified with modern La Garde-Freinet, near Saint-Tropez. The fortress was established by Muslims from al-Andalus. From this base, the Muslims raided up the Rhône Valley, into Piedmont and as far as the Abbey of Saint Gall. Their main business was slave-raiding of Europeans for export to Islamic markets. For a time, they controlled the passes through the western Alps. They withstood several attempts to oust them, but were finally defeated by the combined forces of the Provençal and Piedmontese nobility at the battle of Tourtour in 972.
The Miknasa was a Zenata Berber tribe of the Maghreb.
The Maghrawa or Meghrawa were a large Zenata Berber tribal confederation whose cradle and seat of power was the territory located on the Chlef in the north-western part of today's Algeria, bounded by the Ouarsenis to the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the north and Tlemcen to the west. They ruled these areas on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba at the end of the 10th century and during the first half of the 11th century.
Christian Settipani is a French genealogist, historian and IT professional, currently working as the Technical Director of a company in Paris.
A series of Crusader invasions of Egypt were undertaken by the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1163 to 1169 to strengthen its position in the Levant by taking advantage of the weakness of the Fatimid Caliphate.
Lebanese Shia Muslims, communally and historically known as matāwila, are Lebanese people who are adherents of Shia Islam in Lebanon, which plays a major role alongside Lebanon's main Sunni, Maronite and Druze sects. The vast majority of Shia Muslims in Lebanon adhere to Twelver Shi'ism, making them the only major Twelver Shia community extant in the Levant.
Damian Dalassenos was a Byzantine aristocrat and the first known member of the Dalassenos noble family. He is known for his service as the military governor (doux) of Antioch in 996–998. He fought the Fatimids with some success, until he was killed at the Battle of Apamea on 19 July 998.
The Battle of Apamea was fought on 19 July 998 between the forces of the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate. The battle was part of a series of military confrontations between the two powers over control of northern Syria and the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo, which in turn were part of the larger series of regional conflicts known as the Arab–Byzantine wars. The Byzantine regional commander, Damian Dalassenos, had been besieging Apamea, until the arrival of the Fatimid relief army from Damascus, under Jaysh ibn Samsama. In the subsequent battle, the Byzantines were initially victorious, but a lone Kurdish rider managed to kill Dalassenos, throwing the Byzantine army into panic. The fleeing Byzantines were then pursued, with much loss of life, by the Fatimid troops. This defeat forced the Byzantine emperor Basil II to personally campaign in the region the next year, and was followed in 1001 by the conclusion of a ten-year truce between the two states.
The navy of the Fatimid Caliphate was one of the most developed early Muslim navies and a major force in the central and eastern Mediterranean in the 10th–12th centuries. As with the dynasty it served, its history is in two phases. The first was c. 909 to 969, when the Fatimids were based in Ifriqiya ; the second lasted until the end of the dynasty in 1171, when they were based in Egypt. During the first period, the navy was employed mainly against the Byzantine Empire in Sicily and southern Italy, where it enjoyed mixed success. It was also in the initially unsuccessful attempts to conquer Egypt from the Abbasids and brief clashes with the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba.
Abū'l-Futūh Barjawān al-Ustādh was a eunuch palace official who became the prime minister (wāsiṭa) and de facto regent of the Shia Fatimid Caliphate in October 997, and held the position until his assassination. Of obscure origin, Barjawan became the tutor of heir-apparent al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who became caliph in 996 with the death of al-Aziz Billah. On al-Hakim's coronation, power was seized by the Kutama Berbers, who tried to monopolize government and clashed with their rivals, the Turkic slave-soldiers. Allied with disaffected Berber leaders, Barjawan was able to seize the reins of government for himself in 997. His tenure was marked by a successful balancing act between the Berbers and the Turks, as well as the rise of men of diverse backgrounds, promoted under his patronage. Militarily, Barjawan was successful in restoring order to the Fatimids' restive Levantine and Libyan provinces, and set the stage for an enduring truce with the Byzantine Empire. The concentration of power in his hands and his overbearing attitude alienated al-Hakim, however, who ordered him assassinated and thereafter assumed the governance of the caliphate himself.
The Ifranid Emirate of Tlemcen or Ifranid Kingdom of Tlemcen, was a Kharijite state, founded by Berbers of the Banu Ifran in the eighth century, with its capital at Tlemcen in modern Algeria.
Christopher was Chalcedonian Patriarch of Antioch from 960 to 967.
The Banu Ammar were a family of Shia Muslim magistrates (qadis) who ruled the city of Tripoli in what is now Lebanon from c.1065 until 1109.
Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Tamimi was an Sunni Arab military commander, in the service of the Fatimid Caliphate as head of the Arab jund of Ifriqiya. He was active as early as 913. From 937 to 941 he was the governor of Sicily, leading the brutal suppression of a large-scale anti-Fatimid revolt. He was captured and killed in 944, during the anti-Fatimid rebellion of Abu Yazid.
Niketas, possibly surnamed Abalantes, was a Byzantine military commander who in 964 led a major expedition against the Fatimid Caliphate in Sicily, was defeated, and spent a few years in captivity, where he copied the Codex Parisinus gr. 497 manuscript.
This article lists historical events that occurred between 901–1000 in modern-day Lebanon or regarding its people.
