Artukids

Artuk, son of Eksab, belonged to the Turkoman tribe of the Doger. In 1073 he was in Asia Minor, fighting for and against the Byzantine emperor Michael VII, but he later appears mainly as an officer of the Great Saljuq Malikshah. In 1077 he brought the Qarmatians of Bahrayn under Malikshah's rule; in 1079 Malikshah placed him under his brother Tutush in the Syrian campaign, and in 1084 under Ibn Dahir in the Diyar Bakr campaign; in 1085 he was sent to Khurasan against the sultan's brother Tukush. He received the iqta of Halwan, a strategic point in southern Kurdistan. From 1085 he intrigued in Diyar Bakr with the Arab prince Muslim, lord of Mosul and Aleppo, who had quarrelled with Malikshah. Muslim's death forced him back into Tutush's service, and Tutush gave him Palestine in 1086. The date of his death is unknown; he left several sons. ¹

After Malikshah's death the Artukids, with Tutush, helped him dispute the throne with his nephews in Diyar Bakr (1092-1095). When Tutush died they supported his son Ridwan of Aleppo against another son, Dukak of Damascus. They lost Palestine, which Egypt reconquered in 1098 and the Crusaders then occupied, so that they never returned there. One of the two Artukid leaders, Ilghazi, entered for a time the service of Muhammad, a son of Malikshah, whom he had supported against his brother Barkyaruk, and who made him governor of Iraq, but the family's real strength remained among the Turkomans of Diyar Bakr. ¹

In 1097 a nephew of Sukman seized Mardin. Sukman himself, who had taken Sarudj, was expelled from there by the Crusaders in 1097, but after quarrels among the chiefs of the Jazira he won Hisn Kayfa in 1102, controlled many districts further north, and then inherited Mardin. He fought the Franks, and in 1104 before Harran he captured Count Baldwin of Edessa; he died soon afterwards. After the death of Barkyaruk, the sultan sent Ilghazi back to Diyar Bakr. In 1107 he helped defeat Kilij Arslan of Rum, who had been summoned by Muhammad's enemies, and in 1108 he took Mardin from one of Sukman's sons; another son, Dawud, kept Hisn Kayfa. Other chiefs at Amid, Akhlat and Arzan carved out lordships for themselves, and Muhammad tried to unite them for a holy war against the Franks, without success. From 1110 relations between Ilghazi and Muhammad grew strained, and Ilghazi increasingly avoided the expeditions against the Franks, since only the Saljuq authority would profit from them. In 1114 he formed a Turkoman coalition against the governor of Mosul, Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi, and won, but feared Muhammad's reprisal and fled; he came to terms with Tughtakin of Damascus, and escaped (1115). In 1118, when Muhammad died, Ilghazi seized Mayyafarikin, the last Saljuq post in Diyar Bakr. He was now a power to be reckoned with. Aleppo, threatened by the Franks and torn by anarchy, appealed to him, though its leading men disliked surrendering power to him, and in agreement with Tughtakin he answered the appeal in 1118. In 1119 his Turkomans crushed the Franks of Antioch. Their base remained in Diyar Bakr, and Ilghazi was inclined to make peace; he then fought the Georgians and was defeated. His prestige remained unharmed at his death. ¹

From 1113 onward Ilghazi's nephew Balak had been building a stable principality north-east of Diyar Bakr, astride the eastern Euphrates, whose chief town from about 1115 was Khartpert. As tutor of the minor Saljuq of Malatya he gained fame by an alliance with the Danishmendid Gumushtegin, Ibn Mangudjak of Erzincan and the Byzantine governor of Trebizond, Gavras (1120). While in Ilghazi's service he captured Joscelin of Edessa in 1122, and after Ilghazi's death he defeated Baldwin of Jerusalem, who had come to protect the Franco-Armenians of the Euphrates border (1123). He then took Aleppo from another nephew of Ilghazi, but was killed besieging Manbij in 1124, and Aleppo passed out of Artukid hands. In Diyar Bakr, where they stayed firmly entrenched, Shams al-Dawla Sulayman, son of Ilghazi and ruler at Mayyafarikin, died at the end of 524 AH (1129-1130). His brother Timurtash, already lord of Mardin, succeeded him. Balak's principality had passed to Dawud, lord of Hisn Kayfa since 1104. From then on the two branches existed separately for two centuries. ¹

The period of expansion was over. From 1127 Zengi ruled at Mosul, and from 1128 at Aleppo too, where he built a strong kingdom. Timurtash acted as Zengi's vassal, but took hostile action against Dawud and then against Dawud's son Arslan; he absorbed the small lordships bordering his own, especially east of Hisn Kayfa, and on an anti-Georgian expedition he took Amid. Zengi pressed him hard, conquering Buhtan east of Diyar Bakr and, on the accession of Kara Arslan, the districts between Hisn Kayfa and Khartpert. Kara Arslan had to draw closer to the Franco-Armenians of Edessa, against whom he had sometimes fought; Zengi's capture of Edessa in 1144 was a disaster for him too, but he was saved by his enemy's death in 1146. Timurtash and Kara Arslan divided Diyar Bakr between them not without difficulty. Zengi's dominions were divided between Nur al-Din at Aleppo and a line of princes at Mosul, his brothers and nephews, whom Nur al-Din increasingly brought under his tutelage. Nur al-Din did not contest Diyar Bakr with the Artukids and let them take their share of the spoils of the count of Edessa north of the Euphrates, but he drew them into his holy wars against the Franks and Byzantines. Relations with them were excellent, especially with Kara Arslan. Alpi, son and successor of Timurtash, sought to secure his position by the protection of the Shah-i Arman of Akhlat, whom in return he had to help against the Georgians. In 1163 Kara Arslan tried to take Amid from the Inalids and Nisanids but was prevented by a Danishmendid attack; his son Muhammad, with Nur al-Din, went to the aid of the Danishmendids, who were threatened by the expansionist policy of the Saljuqs of Konya. The growing power of Nur al-Din had without notice made the Artukids his vassals; when he died (the year is garbled in the scan) the Artukids had become in effect his vassals. ¹

Salah al-Din, master of Egypt, gradually took the Syro-Mesopotamian inheritance of Nur al-Din. The Artukids at first gave their united support to the Zengids of Mosul. Then Muhammad judged it more prudent to come to terms with Salah al-Din, who captured Amid, long an object of Artukid desire, and gave it to Muhammad as a fief (1183); from then on Amid became the family seat. The division of Muhammad's princes between Amid, Mardin, Akhlat and Mosul, and the split of the family into the branches of Hisn Kayfa with Amid and of Khartpert, increased their subjection to Salah al-Din; he established direct authority in Diyar Bakr in 1185. From then on the Artukids were remnants, gradually whittled away by the Ayyubids, Salah al-Din's successors, his brother al-Adil and al-Adil's descendants. They held Akhlat in 1207 but were sometimes divided among themselves. Against the most powerful of them, al-Kamil of Egypt, they became for a time vassals of the Saljuqs of Rum, then of the Khwarazmshah Jalal al-Din Mangubarti, master of Adharbayjan and Akhlat; Saljuq vengeance cost them the towns north of the Euphrates (1226), and al-Kamil's vengeance deprived them of Amid and Hisn Kayfa (1232-1233). The Artukid of Khartpert was defeated by Kayqubad and in 1234 the line ended there. From then on only the Mardin branch remained, and it lasted nearly two more centuries. ²

In 1260 the Mardin ruler al-Malik al-Sa'id endured a long Mongol siege, but his death saved the dynasty: his son al-Muzaffar submitted to Hulagu, as a humble vassal, and preserved the heritage of his ancestors. The Artukids then played the role of loyal servants of the Ilkhans. Besides the title of sultan they gained for a time the standing of auxiliaries or delegates of Mongol authority, and recovered for longer or shorter periods a considerable part of Diyar Bakr (Amid, which was in decay, Mayyafarikin, and perhaps Ishird) and Khabur; only Hisn Kayfa (Ayyubid) and Arzan (Saljuq) stayed autonomous. ²

The internal organisation and civilisation of the Artukid principalities are little known. Except Khartpert, the territories had been part of the Muslim world since the Arab conquests, and were governed by the same people, such as the Banu Nubata family at Mayyafarikin, and by the same principles, summarised in the Iqd al-farid of Muhammad ibn Talha al-Karshi al-Adwi, wazir of Mardin in the seventh/thirteenth century. Taxes recorded in inscriptions were those found everywhere. The Turcoman element did not change the traditional economy, based on agriculture and stock-breeding, iron and copper mines, and trade with Iraq and Georgia. No notable writer is known from the Artukid court, but Arabic literary life was alive enough for Usama ibn Munqidh, an exile from Syria, to live for several years at the court of Kara Arslan at Hisn Kayfa. ²

The Turcomans remained an important element in the life of Diyar Bakr, perhaps more in the south than in the north, where the Kurds were always dominant. The Artukid dynasty did not remain purely Turcoman: its princes kept specifically Turkish titles alongside Arab and Persian names, and the symbolic arrow was used for some time. Their partition of lands among "princes of the blood" weakened the state. Towards their Kurdish subjects they pursued the same policy of reabsorbing autonomous Kurdish states as Zengi further south. In religion they were fairly tolerant: they took part in the orthodox trend of the Saljuq period and built madrasas, mosques, bridges, khans and defences; one of them at Khartpert favoured the Persian mystic Suhrawardi. Towards Christian subjects they acted correctly. The Armenian catholicus resided for a time in the twelfth century at Dzovk in the province of Khartpert, and the Monophysite patriarch alternated between the convent of Mar Barsawma and Amid or Mardin, where elections often took place with Artukid permission. The Christian population of Diyar Bakr remained numerous, and Tur-Abdin remained a great monastic centre until the eighth/fourteenth century. ²

The Artukids played the role of loyal servants of the Ilkhans. Apart from the title of sultan they were for a time treated as auxiliaries or delegates of Mongol authority, and they recovered for longer or shorter periods a considerable part of Diyar Bakr: Amid, then in decay, Mayyafarikin and perhaps Ishird, and in addition Khabur. Only Hisn Kayfa (Ayyubid) and Arzan (Saljuq) remained autonomous. Like all the vassals of the Ilkhans, the Artukids in the second quarter of the eighth/fourteenth century found themselves free again when the Mongol state broke up, and bowed for a while to one or other of the new powers. Their foreign policy tried to keep their pre-eminence against the Ayyubids of Hisn Kayfa, against whom they fought an unsuccessful war in 735 AH (1334) that cost them their possessions on the left bank of the Tigris, and against the Mongols, Turkomans and Mamluks who disputed Upper Mesopotamia with them. They allied with the Turkomans against the Kurds of the north, but there is no further mention of a link with their parent tribe, the Doger. When the two rival Turkoman federations, the Ak Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu, took shape in Armenia and Upper Mesopotamia in the middle of the eighth/fourteenth century, the Artukids first seem to have backed the enemies of the latter; before Timur's invasion a general rapprochement took place between the Mongols of Baghdad, the Kara Koyunlu, the Artukids and the Mamluks. ³

In economic and social life, the nomad element grew compared with the settled element, and agriculture declined. Some towns, among them Hisn Kayfa and Mardin, may have profited from the surrounding nomads, who made them valuable places of refuge. Building was still going on at Mardin in the eighth/fourteenth century, and Arab culture was still honoured there, represented by the poet Sayf al-Din. Christianity, favoured by the Mongols but sometimes ill-treated by their descendants, kept a certain vitality in Artukid territory; the Monophysite patriarch Daniel bar al-Khattab is still held in honour as a theologian. ³

The invasion of Timur caused fresh upheavals. Sultan al-Zahir Isa, suspected of keeping a connection with Egypt, could not save his principality from the conqueror's ravages. He contended with the Ayyubids, who were zealous vassals of Timur, and especially with the Ak Koyunlu, who first acted for Timur and after his death on their own account sought to conquer the Artukid principality. In 809 AH al-Zahir was killed in a vain attempt to save Amid, and in 811 AH (1409) his successor al-Salih decided to abandon Mardin to Kara Yusuf, leader of the Kara Koyunlu. This was the end of the dynasty and of the period of comparative autonomy of southern Diyar Bakr. ³