Hamdanid dynasty

The Middle East ca. 970 AD

Family tree of the Hamdanid dynasty

The Hamdanid dynasty (Arabic: حمدانيون‎ Ḥamdānyūn) was a Shi'a^[1] Muslim Arab dynasty of northern Iraq (Al-Jazirah) and Syria (890-1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib Christian tribe of Mesopotamia and east Arabia. The Hamdanid dynasty was founded by Hamdan ibn Hamdun (after whom it is named), when he was appointed governor of Mardin in SE Anatolia by the Abbasid Caliphs in 890.

His son Abdallah (904-929) was in turn appointed governor of Mosul in northern Iraq (906) and even governed Baghdad (914). His sons were installed as governors in Mosul and Aleppo.

The rule of Hassan Nasir ad-Daula (929-968), governor of Mosul and Diyarbakır, was sufficiently tyrannical to cause him to be deposed by his own family.

His lineage still ruled in Mossul, a heavy defeat by the Buyids in 979 notwithstanding, until 990. After this, their area of control in northern Iraq was divided between the Uqailids and the Marwanids.

Ali Saif al-Daula 'Sword of the State' ruled (945-967) Northern Syria from Aleppo, and became the most important opponent of the Byzantine Empire's (Christian) expansion. His court was a centre of culture, thanks to its nurturing of Arabic literature, but it lost this status after the Byzantine conquest of Aleppo.

To stop the Byzantine advance, Aleppo was put under the suzerainty of the Fatimids in Egypt, but in 1003 the Fatimids deposed the Hamdanids anyway.

Hamdanid rulers

Hamdanids in Al-Jazira

1. Hamdan ibn Hamdun
2. al-Husayn ibn Hamdan (895-916)
3. Abdallah ibn Hamdan (906-929)
4. Nasir al-Dawla (929-967)
5. Abu Taghlib (967-978)
6. Abu Tahir Ibrahim ibn al-Hasan (989-997)
7. Abu Abdallah al-Husayn ibn al-Hasan (989-997)

Hamdanids in Aleppo

1. Sayf al-Dawla (945-967)
2. Sa'd al-Dawla (967-991)
3. Sa'id al-Dawla (991-1002)

See also

• Rulers of Aleppo
• List of Shi'a Muslim dynasties
• Mirdasids

References

• Bikhazi, Ramzi J. (1981). The Hamdanid Dynasty of Mesopotamia and North Syria 254–404/868–1014. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. 
• Canard, Marius (1951). Histoire de la dynastie des Hamdanides de Jazîra et de Syrie (in French). Algiers: Faculté des Lettres d'Alger. OCLC 715397763. 
• Freytag, G. W. (1856). "Geschichte der Dynastien der Hamdaniden in Mosul und Aleppo". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (in German) X: 432–498. 
• Freytag, G. W. (1857). "Geschichte der Dynastien der Hamdaniden in Mosul und Aleppo". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (in German) XI: 177–252. 
• Kennedy, Hugh N. (2004). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Second Edition). Harlow, England: Longman. ISBN 978-0-58-240525-7. 
• Hukam (Arabic)

Notes