Sayf al-Dawla

Ali ibn Abi al-Hayja 'Abd Allah ibn Hamdan ibn al-Harith Sayf al-Dawla al-Taghlibi (Arabic: سيف الدولة أبو الحسن ابن حمدان‎), more commonly known simply by his laqab (sobriquet) of Sayf al-Dawla ("Sword of the State"), was the ruler of northern Syria and the brother of al-Hasan ibn Hamdan (known as Nasir al-Dawla or 'Defender of the State'), the founder and the most prominent prince of the Arab Hamdanid dynasty from Anizzah tribe of Mosul. He was famous for his patronage of scholars and for his military struggles against the Byzantines, and is considered the "epitome of the Arab chivalrous ideal".^[1]

Life

Sayf al-Dawla was the second son of 'Abd Allah Abu al-Hayja (d.929), emir of Mosul, who had played a leading role in the short-lived usurpation of Al-Qahir against Al-Muqtadir in 927, and had been killed during its suppression.^[2] Sayf al-Dawla began his career as lord of the city of Wasit in modern Iraq and became involved in the struggles of the Abbasid caliph, who ruled from nearby Baghdad. Sayf al-Dawla realized that greater potential lay to the west, in Syria, then under the dominion of the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled Egypt. In 946, with the support of the local Banu Kilab tribe, he captured Aleppo, and in the following year, after two unsuccessful attempts, he took Damascus. He then marched his army toward Egypt and captured Ramla, but he was unable to make further progress. A peace treaty was negotiated between him and the Ikshidids, and thereafter his most important concern was with the Byzantine Empire. Every year from 950 to the time of his death saw some kind of armed conflict with the Byzantines, with Sayf usually leading his army to raids into Byzantine Asia Minor. He won a great victory in 953 near Germanikeia, killing the patrikios Leo Maleinos, severely wounding the Domestic of the Schools Bardas Phokas and capturing his son Constantine. This was followed by more victories during the next three years, during which several Byzantine commanders fell. In September 958 however, as he was returning from another successful raid, his troops laden with booty, he was ambushed and heavily defeated at Raban by the Byzantines under Leo Phokas, the brother of Nikephoros Phokas, and Constantine Maleinos, a relative of Leo who had been killed in 953.^[3] Sayf managed to escape, but the Byzantines had gained the ascendancy. In 962, a Byzantine army under Nikephoros Phokas advanced into Cilicia and Syria. In mid-December, the Byzantines suddenly appeared before Aleppo. Sayf al-Daula fled his palace, which lay outside the city. The magnificent building was plundered, along with the city itself and its countryside, but the Byzantine forces retired after one week. Two years later they returned but were defeated.

Sayf al-Dawla surrounded himself with prominent intellectual figures, notably the great poets al-Mutanabbi and Abu Firas and the noted philosopher al-Farabi. Sayf al-Dawla himself was a poet; his delicate little poem on the rainbow shows high artistic ability.

References

Sources

• Bianquis, Th. (1997). "Sayf al-Dawla". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume IX: San–Sze. Leiden and New York: BRILL. pp. 103–110. ISBN 90-04-09419-9. 
• Canard, M. (1986). "Hamdanids". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden and New York: BRILL. pp. 126–131. ISBN 90-04-09419-9. 
• Treadgold, Warren T. (1997), A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0804726302, http://books.google.com/books?id=nYbnr5XVbzUC