Tarsus is a city in

Cilicia Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...

, a region in southeastern

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

(modern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

). The city came under

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

rule since 67 BC, until the mid-7th century, when following the

Muslim conquest of the Levant The Muslim conquest of the Levant ( ar, فَتْحُ الشَّام, translit=Feth eş-Şâm), also known as the Rashidun conquest of Syria, occurred in the first half of the 7th century, shortly after the rise of Islam."Syria." Encyclopædia Br ...

control was disputed with the nascent

caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

. During the conflicts between the Byzantines and the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...

, the city lay in the disputed

no-man's-land No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dump ...

between the two empires and changed hands frequently, becoming deserted and ruined in the process. In 778/9 the

Abbasids The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

undertook the first attempt to restore the city as a base of operations against Byzantium, but the work was apparently not completed. It was not until 787/8 that the city was rebuilt and resettled by

Faraj ibn Sulaym al-Khadim Abu Sulaym Faraj al-Khadim al-Turki, sometimes erroneously called Faraj ibn Sulaym, was an Abbasid court eunuch and official. In 787, Caliph Harun al-Rashid () established a new province encompassing the borderlands () with the Byzantine Empire in ...

, on the orders of Caliph

Harun al-Rashid Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...

(). 3,000 Khurasanis and 2,000 Syrians (a thousand each from

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...

and al-Massisa) were given houses and land in the new fortress city. Tarsus was apparently recovered by the Byzantines soon after, at some point around the turn of the century. The city probably remained in Byzantine hands during the Abbasid civil war of the

Fourth Fitna The Fourth Fitna or Great Abbasid Civil War resulted from the conflict between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun over the succession to the throne of the Abbasid Caliphate. Their father, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, had named al-Amin as the first suc ...

, but had returned to Muslim control by 830, when Caliph

al-Ma'mun Abu al-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid ( ar, أبو العباس عبد الله بن هارون الرشيد, Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hārūn ar-Rashīd; 14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name Al-Ma'mu ...

() recommenced offensive campaigns against Byzantium. The governors of Tarsus often also exercised the governorship of the entire Syrian

marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diff ...

(), and their main duty was organizing the annual raids against the Byzantines. The city remained under direct Abbasid control until 878/9, when it and the marches with Byzantium passed to the autonomous ruler of Egypt,

Ahmad ibn Tulun Ahmad ibn Tulun ( ar, أحمد بن طولون, translit=Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn; c. 20 September 835 – 10 May 884) was the founder of the Tulunid dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria between 868 and 905. Originally a Turkic slave-soldier, in 868 ...

. The governor

Yazaman al-Khadim Yazaman or Yazman, surnamed al-Khadim ("the eunuch") (died 23 October 891) was governor of Tarsus for the Abbasids and chief military leader in the Muslim borderlands with the Byzantine Empire in Cilicia (the ) from 882 to his death in 891. He is c ...

returned the city to Abbasid allegiance from 882 on, but was forced to recognize Tulunid overlordship again in 890. Tulunid possession of the lasted until the death of Ibn Tulun's heir,

Khumarawayh Abu 'l-Jaysh Khumārawayh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn ( ar, أبو الجيش خمارويه بن أحمد بن طولون; 864 – 18 January 896) was a son of the founder of the Tulunid dynasty, Ahmad ibn Tulun. His father, the autonomous ruler ...

, in 896, after which Caliph

al-Mu'tadid Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa al-Muwaffaq ( ar, أبو العباس أحمد بن طلحة الموفق), 853/4 or 860/1 – 5 April 902, better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaḍid bi-llāh ( ar, المعتضد بالله, link=no, ...

() re-asserted direct control over the border regions. In 946/7, Tarsus recognized the overlordship of the

Hamdanid The Hamdanid dynasty ( ar, الحمدانيون, al-Ḥamdāniyyūn) was a Twelver Shia Arab dynasty of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria (890–1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib Christian tribe of Mesopotamia and Eastern Ara ...

emir

Sayf al-Dawla ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī ( ar, علي بن أبو الهيجاء عبد الله بن حمدان بن الحارث التغلبي, 22 June 916 – 9 February 967), more commonly known ...

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

, who had become the new master of northern Syria and of the Byzantine borderlands. Facing a resurgent Byzantium, he was able to stem the Byzantine advance for a while, but in 965, the Byzantine emperor

Nikephoros II Phokas Nikephoros II Phokas (; – 11 December 969), Latinized Nicephorus II Phocas, was Byzantine emperor from 963 to 969. His career, not uniformly successful in matters of statecraft or of war, nonetheless included brilliant military exploits whi ...

() captured the city and the rest of Cilicia, ending Muslim rule there.

List of governors

References

Sources

* * * * {{cite journal , last = Stern , first = S. M. , authorlink = Samuel Miklos Stern , title = The Coins of Thamal and of Other Governors of Tarsus , journal = Journal of the American Oriental Society , volume = 80 , issue = 3 , year = 1960 , pages = 217–225 , jstor = 596170 , doi = 10.2307/596170 Tarsus Medieval Islamic world-related lists