Bab al-Lan (Darial)

Bab al-Lan: a frontier post in the high Caucasus, bordered by the land of Shirwan, and near it is the dam of mud brick that Qubadh built. ¹

Marwan ibn Muhammad entered the land of the Khazars through it, guided by Usayd ibn Zafir al-Sulami, and with him were the kings of the mountains from the side of the Gate and the Gates. It was conquered by Yazid ibn Usayd al-Sulami during his governorship of Armenia, and he arranged in it a garrison of men from the register. ^{1 2}

It is a site in the two accounts of the expedition of Marwan in the Caucasus and Yazid ibn Usayd in Armenia.

The EI2 article (vol. 1, pp. 893-894) treats Bab al-Lan (Bab Allan), 'Gate of the Alans', Persian Dar-i Alan, modern Darial (Dariel): a pass in the middle Caucasus east of Mount Kazbek and south of Vladikavkaz, a magnificent gorge where the Terek rushes between granite cliffs of 4,000-5,000 ft, apparently known to the ancients as the Caucasian Gates. It lay in the territory of the Alans, hardy mountaineers usually independent of their neighbours north and south of the range, whose present-day representatives, the Ossetes, live athwart it. ³

The pass was scarcely reached by the first wave of conquest. It is mentioned in 105/724, when al-Jarrah raided Khazaria by this route; the next year he is said to have received jizya and kharaj from the Alans, but Maslama b. 'Abd al-Malik had to occupy Darial in 100/727 — perhaps when he placed the Arab garrison that al-Mas'udi mentions in the famous fortress overlooking a bridge across the ravine. In 112/730 the Khazars marched through, defeated al-Jarrah in pitched battle and took Ardabil. In Marwan b. Muhammad's operation of 119/737 he himself advanced through the Darial pass to a rendezvous — the start of a successful campaign north of the Caucasus, though he attempted no permanent occupation. Sporadic attempts to hold Darial followed, as under Yazid b. Usayd al-Sulami about 141/758, but no fortress-city grew here as at Bab al-Abwab. Al-Mas'udi says that in his time (4th/10th century) an Arab garrison still held the pass, provisioned from Tiflis at five days' distance through infidel country. The pass is mentioned repeatedly in the Mongol period and retained its importance later. ⁴