Download in .pdf format

40 A HISTORY OF SHARVAN AND DARBAND
citadel and the Sharvanians went home. Yaghma destroyed the middle
(transverse) wall by the market of the people of al-Bab.1
In this year Guzhdaham b. Sallar, brother of the sharvanshah, died
in Shakki and (A1056t>) his body was carried to Yazidiya and buried there.
In Rajab 464/April 1072 the chief Mufarrij with a group of people
of al-Bab set out with the intention to cross the Sammur and to enter
Masqat, in order to recover the latter from the sharvanshah (B 730), to
ruin Mihyariya and to fight those who were in its castle, namely the
garrison and the relay forces (naiibatiya). But (suddenly) Mufarrij,
on a very slight pretext, turned back on the way, in view of his inclination
towards the sharvanshah.
§26. In this year the sharvanshah made an agreement with the lord
of Arran Fadl b. Shavur and both of them, with their armies, went to
besiege the castle *Malugh and delivered it from the hands of the lieutenant
of the lord of Shakki *Akhsartan2 who had captured it from the
Muslims in the early part of the year. They recovered it in Ramadan
4&4/June 1072 and destroyed it, and left no trace of it and slaughtered
all the infidels who were in it. And thus the sharvanshah carried on,
while the people of al-Bab now obeyed him and now revolted against
him and he fought battles with them, destroying their estates and
villages.
§27. Finally in 467/1074 there arrived a Turkish force with its
leader Arghar b. Buqa. His claim was that the Sultan had given him
Sharvan as a fief (aqta(ahu) but the sharvanshah duped him with presents
and money so that the Turk felt reassured regarding him. (Suddenly)
the sharvanshah arrested and imprisoned him, but then regretted his
action for fear of the Sultan. So with his own hand he undid his fetters,
gave him valuables (amwal), made excuses to him and implored his
pardon. The Turk pretended to forgive him but then fled from him,
collected an army of Turks and with them re-entered Sharvan. They
plundered the country and drove away all the herds, but when the report
of this reached the Sultan, he sent an order to Arghar to restore the cattle
and the loot to the owners, which he did accordingly in 468/1075.
§28. (By that time) the sharvanshah had occupied (the territory of)
the eastern and the western Lakz and collected the kharaj from the
1 The Arabic scholars consulted by me insist -on this interpretation. However,
from the local point of view, I am not sure that the wall, so many times mentioned
in our text, stood near the market place. I am tempted to read *bi-sauq ahl al-Bab
"(destroyed it) by drawing (i.e., by conscripting) the people of al-Bab". The work
was certainly done by them. Cf. Nasir al-dm Tusl's account of how the Baghdad
wall was dismantled in 656/1258 (Juvayni, III, 289).
2 Spelt: Akhsavtanan, probably for AkhsartUn (with t).