| Siege of Kars | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Georgian–Seljuk wars | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Emirate of Kars |  Kingdom of Georgia | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | David Soslan Zakare II Mkhargrdzeli Ivane I Mkhargdzeli Sargis Tmogveli Shalva Akhaltsikheli Ivane Akhaltsikheli | ||||||
The Siege of Kars was a siege laid by the Kingdom of Georgia against the Emirate of Kars. It ended with the Georgian victory and annexation of Kars to the Georgian Kingdom.
Sökmen II, the last ruler of the Sultanate of Khlat from the dynasty known after its title, Shah-Armens , died in 1185, which led to decades of struggle over Khlat between various actors. Both Eldiguzids and Saladin of Ayyubid dynasty intervened, although one of Sökmen's mamluks, Beytimur, managed to supersede them through cunning diplomacy. [1] However, this was only beginning of the internal power struggles and external pressures, which ensued over the next years. During this period, a series of mamluks ruled over Khlat and its power rapidly declined. [2] In 1206, the revolution in Khlat made the mamluk Balaban a new ruler, although the people of Khlat offered the town to Artuqid. Meanwhile, Najm al-Din, Ayyubid ruler of Mayyāfāriqīn, besieged Khlat, reviving the claims of his family over the town. However, this siege ended with no success for Ayyubid. At the same time, Georgians, which also contested control over Khlat, decided to take advantage of the turmoil there to annex Kars, which was a dependency of the Sultanate of Khlat. [3] Local Meskhetian forces under Sargis Tmogveli and Shalva Akhaltsikheli had been blockading Kars intermittently for some years, and Queen Tamar of Georga decided to send a special army under David Soslan and brothers Zakaria and Ivane Mkhargrdzelis to assist their efforts. [4] [5]
According to contemporary Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, Georgians besieged the fortress of Kars and pressed hard on those within. They collected the revenue of the region for several years. The emir of Kars asked the rulers of Khlat for help, but its rulers did not provide any assistance. After the long siege, the emir of Kars, seeing that no assistance was coming, decided to hand over his domain to Georgians in exchange for a large amount of money and a fiefdom for him. [6] Due to the significance of Kars, Tamar decided not to give it away as a favor as she had done in the case of Ani and Dvin, and she subjected Kars to the royal court, appointing Ivane Akhaltsikheli as it ruler. [4]
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
The Ayyubid dynasty, also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin had originally served the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din, leading Nur ad-Din's army in battle against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made Vizier. Following Nur ad-Din's death, Saladin was proclaimed as the first Sultan of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliphate, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond the frontiers of Egypt to encompass most of the Levant, in addition to Hijaz, Yemen, northern Nubia, Tarabulus, Cyrenaica, southern Anatolia, and northern Iraq, the homeland of his Kurdish family. By virtue of his sultanate including Hijaz, the location of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the first ruler to be hailed as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a title that would be held by all subsequent sultans of Egypt until the Ottoman conquest of 1517. Saladin's military campaigns in the first decade of his rule, aimed at uniting the various Arab and Muslim states in the region against the Crusaders, set the general borders and sphere of influence of the sultanate of Egypt for the almost three and a half centuries of its existence. Most of the Crusader states, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem, fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders reconquered the coast of Palestine in the 1190s.
The Artuqid dynasty was established in 1102 as an Anatolian Beylik (Principality) of the Seljuk Empire. It formed a Turkoman dynasty rooted in the Oghuz Döğer tribe, and followed the Sunni Muslim faith. It ruled in eastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. The Artuqid dynasty took its name from its founder, Artuk Bey, who was of the Döger branch of the Oghuz Turks and ruled one of the Turkmen beyliks of the Seljuk Empire. Artuk's sons and descendants ruled the three branches in the region: Sökmen's descendants ruled the region around Hasankeyf between 1102 and 1231; Ilghazi's branch ruled from Mardin and Mayyafariqin between 1106 and 1186 and Aleppo from 1117–1128; and the Harput line starting in 1112 under the Sökmen branch, and was independent between 1185 and 1233.
The Battle of Basiani was fought between the armies of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljukid Sultanate of Rum in the Basiani Valley, 60 km north-east of the city of Erzurum in what is now northeast Turkey. The date of the battle has been debated, but recent scholarship tends to favor the years 1203 or 1204. According to modern Turkish historians, the site of the battle is usually identified as the castle of Micingerd (Mazankert).
The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval Eurasian monarchy that was founded in c. 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar the Great from the 11th to 13th centuries. Georgia became one of the pre-eminent nations of the Christian East and its pan-Caucasian empire and network of tributaries stretching from Eastern Europe to Anatolia and northern frontiers of Iran, while also maintaining religious possessions abroad, such as the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Iviron in Greece. It is the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia.
The Saltukids or Saltuqids were a dynasty ruling one of the Anatolian beyliks of the Seljuk Empire, founded after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) and centered on Erzurum. The Saltukids ruled between 1071 and 1202. The beylik was founded by Emir Saltuk, one of the Turkmen commanders of the Great Seljuk Alp Arslan. The beylik fought frequently against the Georgian Kingdom for hegemony of the Kars region. The center of the beylik, Erzurum, was briefly re-occupied by the Byzantine Empire between 1077 and 1079, and was besieged by the Georgian King Giorgi III in 1184. It comprised the entirety of present-day Erzurum and Bayburt provinces, lands east of Erzincan, most of Kars, and lands north of Ağrı and Muş provinces during its height.
The Shah-Armens, also known as Ahlatshahs or Begtimurids, was a Turkoman Sunni Muslim Anatolian beylik of the Seljuk Empire, founded after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) and centred in Ahlat on the northwestern shore of the Lake Van. This region comprised most of modern-day Bitlis and Van, and parts of Muş provinces.
Ghias ad-din was a member of the Seljuk dynasty of Rum and husband of Queen Rusudan of Georgia from c. 1223 to 1226. A son of the emir of Erzurum Mugith al-Din Tughril Shah, he converted to Christianity on his father's order so as he could marry the queen of Georgia. Ghias ad-din's position at the Georgian court was weak and the spousal relationship was strained due to Rusudan's unfaithfulness. He shifted back and forth across the religious and political divide during the Khwarezmid invasion of Georgia in 1226. Around the same time, he was repudiated by Rusudan, and thereafter disappears from records, leaving two children behind, a daughter, Tamar, and a son, David.
The Georgian–Seljuk wars, also known as Georgian Crusade, is a long series of battles and military clashes that took place from c. 1048 until 1213, between the Kingdom of Georgia and the different Seljuqid states that occupied most of Transcaucasia. The conflict is preceded by deadly raids in the Caucasus by the Turks in the 11th century, known in Georgian historiography as the Great Turkish Invasion.
Baarin is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located in Homs Gap roughly 38 kilometers (24 mi) southwest of Hama. Nearby localities include Taunah and Awj to the south, Aqrab and Houla to the southeast, Nisaf, Ayn Halaqim and Wadi al-Uyun to the west, Masyaf, Deir Mama and Mahrusah to the north, and Deir al-Fardis and al-Rastan to the east. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Baarin had a population of 5,559 in the 2004 census. Baarin is also the largest locality in the Awj nahiyah ("subdistrict") which comprises thirteen villages with a population of 33,344. The village's inhabitants are predominantly Alawites.
Al-Mansur I Muhammad was the Ayyubid emir of Hama, son of Al Muzaffar Taqi ad-Din Umar and grandson of Nur ad-Din Shahanshah, brother of Saladin and Al-Adil. He ruled from 1191 to 1219.
Al-Mansur II Muhammad was the Ayyubid emir of Hama 1244–1284, son of al-Muzaffar II Mahmud and grandson of al-Mansur I Muhammad. He was the great-great grandson of Saladin’s brother Nur ad-Din Shahanshah. His mother was Ghaziya Khatun.
Al-Rahba, also known as Qal'at al-Rahba, which translates as the "Citadel of al-Rahba", is a medieval Arab fortress on the west bank of the Euphrates River, adjacent to the city of Mayadin in Syria. Situated atop a mound with an elevation of 244 meters (801 ft), al-Rahba oversees the Syrian Desert steppe. It has been described as "a fortress within a fortress"; it consists of an inner keep measuring 60 by 30 meters, protected by an enclosure measuring 270 by 95 meters. Al-Rahba is largely in ruins today as a result of wind erosion.
Ivane Akhaltiskheli was a Georgian military commander, and a Court official of the Kingdom of Georgia. He was member of the House of Toreli-Akhaltsikheli, and the brother of Shalva Akhaltsikheli.
The Thirty Years' Truce or Truce of Khlat was a truce agreed to by Queen Tamar of Georgia and Al-Adil I, an Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt in October, 1210.
Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn al-Muqaddam was the 1st Emir of Baalbek under Ayyubid Dynasty, Although he was not from Ayyubid origin. He was a military commander first in the service of Nur ad-Din, the Zengid ruler of Syria and Iraq, later of Saladin, the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, Syria and Iraq.
The siege of al-Shughur took place in August 1188 between the Ayyubid Sultanate led by Saladin and the Principality of Antioch, who held modern-day Jisr al-Shughur. Saladin captured the two forts, Shughr-Bakas, lying there.
Tughril Shah, also Abdu'l Harij Muhammad Mughis ad-din Tughril Shah ibn Kılıç Arslan II (r.1202-1225) was a Turkoman king of the "Seljuqs of Erzurum", following the fall of the Saltukids in the region, one of the Anatolian beyliks. He was another son of Kılıç Arslan II, who in 1186 had partitionned his kingdom in Anatolia between several of his numerous sons. He was succeeded by his son Rukn al-Din Jahanshah bin Tughril.
The Siege of Ani was the unsuccessful siege of the city of Ani, by the Seljukid coalition arranged by the ruler of Shah-Armens in 1161. The large Muslim army was defeat by the Georgian King George III at the gates of Ani.