Marwan ibn Muhammad

Marwan ibn Muhammad was an Umayyad general. In 737 he won a dramatic victory over the khagan of the Khazars. He later became caliph.^[1]

The campaign of 737

Marwan entered the Khazar lands with two armies. One went through Derbent and the other through the Darial pass.^[2] He first agreed to a truce, on the pretext that he would march against the Alans. Then he advanced into the Khazar country.^[3] He reached Samandar, and the khagan withdrew from his capital. Marwan did not besiege the capital. He turned north along the Volga into the country of the Burtas.^[4]

Al-Balādhurī says that the chief of the Khazars was offered Islam or war. He answered that he had accepted Islam and asked that someone be sent to present it. Marwan confirmed him as ruler of his kingdom.^[5] Other Arabic chronicles add that Marwan sent two jurists, among them ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Khawlānī.^[6] The conversion lasted little longer than the Arab soldiers stayed on Khazar ground.^[1]

The Arabs kept their hold over much of Transcaucasia. This had never been seriously threatened. They did not move their rule beyond Bab al-Abwab, the Derbent pass.^[1]

The khagan’s faith in 737

No evidence in the Arabic sources shows that the khagan was a Jew when he received religious instruction in 737.^[7] The same account finds it remarkable that the khagan should have become a Muslim in 737 and a Jew about three years later. It suggests that the religious and political situation must have been violently disturbed before.^[8] On this reading, a link to the debates of the faiths before the khagan, which the Hebrew sources report, is possible.^[8]

References

^ a b c Golden 1992, p. 238
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 325
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 81
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 82–83
^ al-Balādhurī; al-Balādhurī 1916, p. 326
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 84
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 177
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 86

Sources

al-Balādhurī

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
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)