97
493–604/1100–1207
Akhlāṭ in eastern Anatolia
1. The Sökmenids
|
493/1100 |
Sökmen I al-Quṭbī |
|
506/1112 |
Ibrāhīm b. Sökmen I, Ẓahīr al-Dīn, d. 520/1126 |
|
520 or 521/1126 or 1127 |
Aḥmad b. Sökmen I or Ya‘qūb b. Sökmen I |
|
522/1128 |
Sökmen II b. Ibrāhīm, Nāṣir al-Dīn, d. 581/1185 |
2. The Sökmenid slave commanders
|
⊘ 581/1185 |
Begtimur, Sayf al-Dīn |
|
589/1193 |
Aq Sunqur Hazārdīnārī, Badr al-Dīn |
|
593/1197 |
Qutlugh, Shujā al-Dīn |
|
593/1197 |
Muḥammad b. Begtimur, al-Malik al-Manṣūr |
|
603–4/1207 |
Balabān, ‘Izz al-Dīn |
|
604/1207 |
Ayyūbid occupation of Akhlāṭ |
In 493/1100, the Turkish slave commander Sökmen took over the town of Akhlāṭ or Khilāṭ on the north-western shore of Lake Van, it having passed from Armenian control to that of the Seljuqs after the battle of Malāzgird or Mantzikert. As heirs to the local Armenian princes, Sökmen and his descendants over three generations assumed the title of Shāh-i Arman. They soon made Akhlāṭ into a base for warfare against the Armenians and Georgians, and the family acquired links with neighbouring dynasties like that of the Artuqids in Mayyāfāriqīn (see above, no. 96, 3), becoming part of a nexus of Turkish principalities in Jazīra and eastern Anatolia which formed a protective screen on the western fringes of the Great Seljuq empire. However, Sökmen II was childless, and on his death in 581/1185 Akhlāṭ was seized by a series of the Sökmenids’ slave commanders. But the Ayyūbids in Diyār Bakr and Jazīra had long coveted the town, and in 604/1207 it was taken over by Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb of Mayyāfāriqīn (see above, no. 30, 6).
Khalīl Ed’hem, 242; Zambaur, 229; Bosworth-Merçil-İpşirli, 85–7.
EI2 ‘Shāh-i Armanids’ (C. Hillenbrand).
O. Turan, Doğu Anadolu Türk devletleri tarihi, 83–106, with list and genealogical table at pp. 243, 279.