The Successors of Genghis Khan - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
of Saiyidi Ahmad.140 At that time, having plotted with a party of
Mongols, he went to Khulanjan,141 in the neighborhood of Najaf,
attacked some of Sulaiman-Shah's followers, killing and plundering,
and then departed from thence to the castle of Vahar,142 which belonged
to Sulaiman-Shah, and laid siege to it. Sulaiman-Shah received
news of this and, having obtained the Caliph's permission, set out for
that region in order to drive him off. When he reached Hulwan,143
an immense army rallied around him, and a number of Muslims and
Mongols gathered around Khalil also. They met at a place called
Sahr.144 Sulaiman-Shah had set an ambush, and when the fighting
became fierce he turned in flight and Husam al-Din Khalil went in
pursuit of him. When he had passed the ambush he turned back,
and the soldiers broke ambush and caught [Khalil and his army]
between them, killing a great number. Khalil was captured and put
to death, and his brother, who had sought refuge in a mountain,
asked for quarter and came down. Sulaiman-Shah captured two
castles in their country: Shigan,145 which is a strong fortress, and the
castle of Dizbaz in the middle of the town of Shapur-Khwast.146
During these years a party of Mongols, nearly fifteen thousand
horsemen, attacked the neighborhood of Baghdad from Ramadan,
and one detachment of them attacked Khanaqin, fell upon a detachment
of Sulaiman-Shah's men, and came .I47 Others again
went toward Shahrazur.148 The Caliph ordered Sharaf al-Din Iqbal
Sharabi, Mujahid al-Din Ai-Beg, the Lesser Davat-Dar, and 'Ala
al-Din Altun-Bars, the Greater Davat-Dar149 to go out [of the city]
140 Apparently the dervish-saint Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 1276) who spent some time in
Iraqm. 1236. SeeEIzs.v. I41 Unidentified.
142 The present-day Bahar, 8 miles northwest of Hamadan. On Shihab al-Din
Sulaiman-Shah, the ruler of the Ive Turcomans and afterward the unsuccessful
defender of Baghdad against the Mongols, see Qazvini's note referred to above, note 139.
143 Near the present-day Sar-Pul-i Zuhab.
144 Unidentified. According to Qazvini, (Juvaini, III, p. 458) the battle was fought
in an equally unidentified place called Dihliz.
"s Unidentified. I46 The later Khurramabad.
147 Blank in two of Blochet's MSS.
148 The present-day Halabja Plain in the Liwa of Sulaimaniya.
149 On the Lesser Davat-Dar, see above, p. 192, note 51. The Greater Davat-Dar
'Ala al-Din Abu Shuja' Altun-Bars ibn 'Abdallah al-Zahiri had held the office of
davat-dar under the Caliph Zahir (1225): he died in 650—1252—1253: See Qazvini
in Juvaini, III, pp. 450-51, note i.
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