Name: The Defeat of the Byzantines at Tarsus
Start: 0883

Overview

In Rabi al-Awwal 270 AH the news reached Baghdad that the Byzantines had camped at the district of the Bab al-Tamma, six miles from Tarsus, some hundred thousand strong, led by the patrician Andreas. ²

The battle

The servant Zaman went out to them by night and attacked them by surprise, and killed their chief and a great many of his companions, said to have reached seventy thousand. The call to arms against Andreas was on Tuesday, the seventh of Rabi al-Awwal. ²

The booty

Ibn al-Jawzi lists what was taken: seven crosses of gold and silver, fifteen thousand beasts and mules, saddles, ornamented swords and belts, four golden chairs, two hundred golden torques, and about ten thousand banners. The numbers are as Ibn al-Jawzi gives them. ²

The Building of Tarsus

In al-Baladhuri from al-Waqidi: al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba al-Ta'i raided Byzantine lands in year 162 with the men of Khurasan, Mosul and Syria, Yemenite reinforcements and the volunteers of Iraq and the Hijaz, setting out by way of Tarsus, and reported to al-Mahdi the great benefit for Islam in building, fortifying and manning it and the check and vexation it would give the enemy — al-Hasan having fought so well on that raid and harried the Byzantine land that they named him the Shaytan; coming out of Byzantine territory he camped at Tarsus's meadow and rode to the ruined city, circling it on every side and reckoning its capacity at a hundred thousand; he described it to al-Mahdi and likewise told him of al-Hadath, rousing him to build it, so al-Mahdi ordered him to build Tarsus beginning with al-Hadath city, which was built, and charged him with Tarsus; in year 171 al-Rashid heard the Byzantines had conspired to go to Tarsus to fortify and man it, so he sent the summer raid of year 171 under Harthama ibn A'yan ordering him to settle, build and fortify it, putting the work in the hands of Faraj ibn Sulaym the eunuch at his command, and Abu Sulaym marched him to Madinat al-Salam whence he mustered the first levy of Khurasanis — three thousand men — who entered Tarsus, then a second levy of two thousand — a thousand of Masisa's people and a thousand of Antioch's, each man on a ten-dinar increase over his pay — who camped with the first levy at al-Mada'in at the Jihad gate at the opening of Muharram year 172 until Tarsus's building, fortification and mosque were complete; Faraj surveyed from river to river four thousand lots, each twenty cubits square, granted the Tarsusis their lots, and the two levies settled it in Rabi' II year 172; Abd al-Malik ibn Salih had appointed Yazid ibn Makhlad al-Fazari over it, whom the Khurasanis expelled in resentment for the Hubayriyya, and Abu al-Fawaris replaced him, confirmed in 170-and-odd.

The Defeat of the Byzantines at Tarsus

At a glance

In time

Overview

The battle

The booty

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Time

The Building of Tarsus