al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah

Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah was an Arab governor. He died in 730 at Marj Ardabil, where a Khazar army under Barjik, the khagan’s son, defeated his force.^[1]

Al-Balādhurī says that al-Jarrah fought the Khazars in the desert of Warthan. When they withdrew toward Ardabil, he engaged them in battle. After three days of fighting he was killed together with his men.^[2] Theophanes tells of the defeat in brief. He writes that the son of the Chagan, the ruler of Chazaria, invaded Media and Armenia and killed the Arab general Garachos together with his army.^[3] Garachos is identified with al-Jarrah.^[4] Theophanes puts this under the year 727/8, and the Arabic accounts date the battle to 730.^[5]

The accounts of al-Ṭabarī, Ibn al-Athīr and Bal’amī give the course of the battle. Al-Jarrah and his men held the plain of Marj Ardabil for two days. On the third day al-Jarrah fell, and about a hundred men escaped. The Khazars then stormed Ardabil.^[6] One modern account calls the defeat perhaps the greatest that the Arabs ever suffered at the hands of the Khazars.^[5]

The Arabic tradition adds a counterstroke by Said ibn Amr against a Khazar army with al-Jarrah’s head at its centre. One modern account says that this story belongs to romance more than to history, although it keeps early elements.^[7] Al-Balādhurī says only that Said raised the siege of Warthan and put the Khazars to flight.^[8]

References

^ Dunlop 1954, p. 69–70
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 323
^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 563
^ Scott 1997, p. 563
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 69
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 70
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 71–74
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 324

Sources

al-Balādhurī
Theophanes the Confessor (after Theophylact Simocatta)

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
al-Balādhurī; Philip K. Hitti (trans.), The Origins of the Islamic State, Bd. I (Kitāb Futūḥ al-buldān) (1916)
Cyril Mango, Roger Scott (trans.), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (1997)