Battle of Balanjar (652)

Balanjar was a Khazar possession in the North Caucasus. The Arabs raided it as early as 642, after their conquests in Transcaucasia.^[1] Where exactly the town lay is not clear.^[2]

The first Arab–Khazar war is counted from 642 to 652.^[3] Its end falls at Balanjar, where the Arab leader ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rabīʿa died.^[4] Balādhurī names his brother Salmān ibn Rabīʿa as the man killed there.^[5] In his account the khagan met Salmān with cavalry beyond the Balanjar river, and 4,000 Muslims fell with him.^[5] How the fighting went beyond this is not entered here.

The battle belongs to the Arab–Khazar wars. The second war, from 722, ended in the campaign of Marwan.^[6]

References

^ Sinor 1990, p. 265
^ Golden 1992, p. 237
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 41
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 55–57
^ a b al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 319
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 58–87

Sources

al-Balādhurī

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
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)