Malatya (Melitene)

Malatya is one of the frontier posts of al-Jazira and a stop on the route of the summer campaigns (al-sawa'if). This is what al-Baladhuri relates in Futuh al-Buldan. ¹

It is reported that Habib ibn Maslama conquered it by force in the days of Mu'awiya, and established a garrison there. Mu'awiya sent to it a group of people from al-Sham and al-Jazira. Later, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz resettled the people of Tarandha in it, and appointed Jammuna ibn al-Harith as its governor. ¹

It withstood a siege by twenty thousand men in the year 123 AH, when its women fought on the walls. It fell to Constantine in the year 133 AH under a truce of evacuation, and was destroyed. See The fall of Malatya. ¹

Al-Mansur rebuilt it in the year 140 AH, in six months, through Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ibrahim and al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba. He settled in it four thousand fighters from al-Jazira, with an increase in their stipends. He built for it two watchposts and the fortress of Qaluwdhiyya, and in the year 141 AH the rest of its people returned to it under the garrison of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim. See The rebuilding of Malatya. ¹