FIVE

Iraq and Jazīra before the Seljuqs

35

The Ḥamdānids

293–394/906–1004

Jazīra and northern Syria

1. The line in Mosul and Jazīra

2. The line in Aleppo and northern Syria

The Hamdānids came from the Arab tribe of Taghlib, long settled in Jazīra (although certain authorities alleged that they were only mawālī or clients of the Banū Taghlib). The founder of the family’s fortunes, Hamdānb. Hamdūn, appears in the later years of the ninth century as an ally of the Khārijīs of Jazīra, in rebellion against caliphal authority; later, the Hamdānids tended to follow the Shī‘ī inclinations of the majority of Arab tribes on the Syrian Desert fringes at that time. However, Hamdān’s son al-Husayn became a commander in the service of the f Abbāsids, and distinguished himself against the Carmathians or Qarāmita of the Syrian Desert (see below, no. 40). Another son, Abu ’l-Hayjā’ ‘Abdallāh, was in 293/905 appointed governor of Mosul, and ‘Abdallāh’s own son, al-Hasan, eventually followed him there as Nāsir al-Dawla, behaving as an independent ruler and extending his power westwards from the Hamdānids’ original centre of Diyār Rabfa into northern Syria. His son Abū Taghlib, called al-Ghadanfar ‘the Lion’ was unfortunate enough to confront the great Būyid amīrf Adud al-Dawla at the height of the latter’s power, when he had just in 376/978 taken over Iraq from his cousin ‘Izz al-Dawla (see below, no. 75). ‘Adud al-Dawla marched northwards and drove out Abū Taghlib, who fled to the Fātimids in a vain search for help. His two brothers were afterwards restored in Mosul by the Būyids, and reigned there for a while until another family of Arab amīrs, the ‘Uqaylids (see below, no. 38), took over the city.

Nevertheless, the junior branch of the Hamdānids remained in Syria, with Abū Taghlib’s famous uncle, Sayf al-Dawla, ruling there in the middle decades of the tenth century after capturing Aleppo, Hims and other towns from the Ikhshīdids (see above, no. 26). The establishment of the Hamdānid amirate in Syria coincided with a great resurgence of Byzantine fortunes under the energetic Macedonian emperors, and much of Sayf al-Dawla’s reign was occupied in defending his territories from the Greeks. His son Safd al-Dawla was unable to prevent the Byzantines from several times invading Syria and temporarily capturing Aleppo and Hims, although these were left to the Hamdānids as tribute-payers; moreover, a fresh threat arose in southern Syria from the appearance of the Fātimids and their expansionist policies. Finally, Sa‘īd al-Dawla’s son Sarld al-Dawla was killed, probably at the instigation of the former slave general of Sayf al-Dawla’s, Lu’lu’. Lu’lu’ at first ruled as regent for Sa’īd al-Dawla’s two sons, but later assumed power independently as a vassal of the Fātimids; his own son and successor Murtadā ’l-Dawla Mansūr had to flee and ended his days as a refugee in Byzantium.

The Hamdānids achieved renown as patrons of Arabic literature, above all for Sayf al-Dawla’s encouragement of the poet al-Mutanabbī; and this last amīr also secured a great contemporary reputation – though he was as often unsuccessful as successful in war – as a leader in the holy war against the Greeks. Yet although they came to rule over prosperous regions, with many centres of urban commercial activity, the Hamdānids still retained a considerable admixture of the irresponsibility and destructiveness of Bedouins. Syria and Jazīra inevitably suffered from the ravages of war, but these were aggravated by their tyranny and rapacity, as recorded by the traveller and geographer Ibn Hawqal, and the latter years of the Hamdānids were ones of decline and impotence.

Lane-Poole, 111–13; Zambaur, 133–4; Album, 21.

EI² ‘Hamdānids’ (M. Canard).

M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de Jazîra et de Syrie, I, Algiers 1951.

Ramzi J. Bikhazi, The Hamdānid Dynasty of Mesopotamia and Northern Syria 254–404/868–1014, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor 1981.