Barjik

Barjik was a son of the khagan of the Khazars. In 730 he commanded the Khazar army at Marj Ardabil.^[1] The Khazar army defeated the force of the Arab governor al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah after a battle of three days, and al-Jarrah fell.^[2] The Khazars then stormed Ardabil.^[3] Theophanes calls the leader of the Khazar army in the year 727/8 only “the son of the Chagan”.^[4]

The name Barjik comes from Bal’amī’s Persian version of al-Ṭabarī.^[5] Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī gives forms such as Barsnik, and the manuscripts of both give the name in many garbled forms.^[6] Al-Ṭabarī himself does not name the Khazar leader.^[5] One suggestion, made with hesitation, is that the name could be read Barčıng, a Turkic name from the word for silk.^[7] One modern account calls the victory perhaps the greatest defeat that the Arabs ever suffered at the hands of the Khazars.^[1]

References

^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 69
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 323
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 70
^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 563
^ a b Golden 1980, p. 157
^ Golden 1980, p. 157–158
^ Golden 1980, p. 159–160

Sources

al-Balādhurī
Theophanes the Confessor (after Theophylact Simocatta)

Literature

Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)
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)