Battle of Ardabil (730)

In 730 the Khazars beat an Arab army on the plain of Ardabil, in what is now north-western Iran.^[1] Barjik, a son of the khagan, led the Khazars.^[2] The Arabs were led by their governor, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah.^[3] After three days of fighting Jarrah fell.^[3] Only about a hundred of his men escaped, and the Khazars stormed Ardabil.^[4] One standard history calls it perhaps the greatest defeat that the Arabs ever suffered from the Khazars.^[5]

Background

The battle belongs to the second phase of the Arab–Khazar wars, counted from 722 to 737.^[6] In these years the Khazars invaded the lands south of Bab al-Abwab.^[7] The sources say nothing of any tie between the Khazars and the Türgesh, who pressed on the Arab possessions in Central Asia in the same decades.^[8] It is therefore an open question whether the two campaigns were connected.^[8]

Sources

The battle is told by Ṭabarī, by Ibn al-Athīr and, in Persian, by Bal’amī.^[1] The year given is 112 of the Hijra, which is 730.^[5] Al-Balādhurī tells it too, and in his account Jarrah fought the Khazars at Warthān, followed them towards Ardabil and was killed there with his men after a battle of three days.^[3]

The Arab answer

The Arabic accounts go on to a counterstroke under Said ibn Amr.^[9] In it the head of Jarrah is said to be fixed above the car of the Khazar commander, in the middle of the Khazar ranks.^[10] One standard history judges that this part of the story belongs to romance more than to history.^[11] It does, however, keep early elements, among them the name “enemy of God” for the khagan or his son.^[11] Al-Balādhurī confines himself to saying that Said raised the siege of Warthān and put the Khazars to flight.^[12]

Later interpretations

The first, private step of the Khazar court towards Judaism may have followed this campaign. The step would then have been taken under a commander called Bulan, between 730 and 740.^[13] Omeljan Pritsak holds this view, and it is one of several dates proposed for the conversion.^[13] A second suggestion sees in Bulan the “Bulkhan” of the Georgian chronicle in the campaign of 730.^[14] The khagan would then have taken part.^[14]

References

^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 69–70
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 63, 69
^ a b c al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 323
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 70
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 69
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 58
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 66–69
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 140
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 71–73
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 73
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 74
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 324
^ a b Pritsak 1978, p. 274–275
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 161

Sources

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Omeljan Pritsak, The Khazar Kingdom's Conversion to Judaism (1978)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
al-Balādhurī; Philip K. Hitti (trans.), The Origins of the Islamic State, Bd. I (Kitāb Futūḥ al-buldān) (1916)