User:Al Ameer son/Marwan II

Marwān ibn Muḥammad ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam, better known as Marwān II, was the last Umayyad caliph, ruling from December 745 to January 750.

Origins and early life
Marwan II was the son of Muhammad ibn Marwan, who was a son of the Umayyad caliph Marwan I ((r. 684 – 685)) by an umm walad (slave concubine). Marwan II's mother also was an umm walad. According to the scholar Daniel Clement Dennett, "The date and circumstances of Marwan's birth are obscure and the testimony of the sources conflicting". The 9th-century historian al-Baladhuri identifies his mother as a Kurd. Both al-Baladhuri and his contemporary, al-Tabari, note that she passed into Muhammad's possession around 691, during the conquest of Iraq by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ((r. 685 – 705)) in which Muhammad served as a commander. These accounts hold she had belonged either to Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr, Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar, both of whom were slain in the fighting. Al-Tabari implied she was already pregnant with Marwan at the time of her capture. By these accounts, Marwan would have been born in c. 692, but al-Tabari also places his birth year in 695 or 696. Marwan received one of his nicknames, 'al-Ja'di', because he was tutored by Ja'd ibn Dirham.

Marwan's father was a prominent general, first in charge of suppressing the rebellion of the Qaysi tribes in the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) under Marwan I, and later as governor of that province under Abd al-Malik. In this capacity, Muhammad commanded the war with the Byzantines and conquered Armenia. Abd al-Malik's successor, his son Caliph al-Walid I ((r. 705 – 715)), retired Muhammad, replacing him as the governor of the northern frontier provinces with his own brother, Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik.

Early military career
Marwan was appointed governor of Mosul in 720 by Caliph Yazid II, his cousin, and served until the caliph's death in 724. In 722, he led one of the annual summer campaigns (sa'ifa) against the Byzantines, capturing the fortress of Dalisandos in Cilicia. He led the 723 sa'ifa, during which he captured the fortresses of Ikonion and Kamakhon, while in the 724 sa'ifa, during the reign of Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ((r. 724 – 743)), he captured a fortress called 'al-Mawasa' by the Arabs, near Malatya.

Early campaigns against the Khazars


The Arabs reasserted control over Armenia in 705, after the region slipped from their rule during the Second Muslim Civil War (680–692). The Transcaucasian highlands of Armenia and neighboring Adharbayjan became part of the northern frontier of the Caliphate. Starting during the governorship of Marwan's father Muhammad, the two provinces became dependencies of the Jazira, giving its governor control over large numbers of troops and revenue. The Caucasian frontier was the setting of the Arab–Khazar wars, a conflict which dated to the 650s, but, except for occasional raids, only recommenced in earnest in the early 720s. During a Khazar invasion in 730, the veteran Arab general al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami was routed and his army annihilated. The Khazars proceeded to sack Ardabil, the principal Arab garrison town on the frontier, and penetrated as far south as Mosul, close to the Caliphate's heartland.

In response to the shock Khazar invasion, Hisham appointed Maslama to reestablish the Arab position and neutralize the Khazars. In the 730 campaign to retake the southern Caucasus and Armenia, Marwan fought with distinction under Maslama, his older cousin and mentor. While Maslama achieved a measure of success, his performance against the Khazars fell short of the caliph's expectations. The Khazars retook the positions in the Caucasus they lost to the Arabs after Maslama withdrew from the area in 731. Hisham retired Maslama in 732 and installed Marwan in his place.

Marwan resumed the expeditions against the Khazars upon taking office, but his gains were limited, with one version holding he only captured animal herds and booty before withdrawing to Ardabil and another that he only made it to a river close to Ardabil before withdrawing and spending the winter of 732–733 there in anticipation of a Khazar raid. Nevertheless, the 732 campaign marked the beginning of a respite from Khazar raids and the major threat posed to the Caliphate's heartland emanating from them. From that point, the Arabs successfully held the line at Ardabil, but campaigns deeper north into Khazar territory were paused.

Unsatisfied with the lack of military progress on the Khazar front, Hisham replaced Marwan with the undefeated veteran general Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi. Despite the caliph's enthusiasm for furthering the northern conquests, Sa'id's tenure was also quiet on this front, due to the exhaustion of the Arab troops, now entrenched in defensive positions. Sa'id resigned in 735 and Marwan was restored as governor. Due to a lack of sufficient troops, he did not launch any campaigns against the Khazars in 735 or 736, but undertook operations against minor Caucasian princes during the same period. The absence of any fighting between the Arabs and the Khazars in 733–736 corroborates reports by the Syriac historians Agapius of Hierapolis and Michael the Syrian that a peace was established in this period and the Arabic historian Ibn al-Athir that Marwan was negotiating a truce to buy time for a large-scale invasion.

Invasion of Khazaria
In 737 Hisham resolved to finally neutralize the Khazar threat and Marwan was tasked with leading the offensive. He mobilized the largest ever army assembled against the Khazars, though the figure of 120,000 troops cited by the Muslim sources is an exaggeration. Marwan launched the campaign, crossing the Darial Pass and setting up camp at Samandar. From there, he reached deep into Khazaria, attacking the Khazar capital, in effect a nomadic camp, at Atil on the lower Volga River. While Marwan inflicted heavy losses on the Khazars, he was unable to eliminate the khaqan and his nomadic warriors.

According to Kennedy, Marwan's "campaign was difficult but in the end triumphant", as it put an end to Khazar raids against the Umayyad Caliphate. The Khazars became "quiescent", but remained a potent force and strengthened their alliance with the Byzantines. The historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship considers crediting Marwan's campaign for stabilizing the frontier "mere speculation". The only tangible gains from the campaign were the thousands of Khazar and Slav captives taken and settled in Muslim territory in the Caucasus, though the Slavs soon after revolted and were massacred by Marwan.

Later campaigns in the Caucasus
The historian Douglas Dunlop considers Marwan's later campaigns as governor "an anticlimax". Marwan and his lieutenants launched numerous raids in 738, 739, 740 and 741, all against local princes in the Caucasus who did not forward the annual tribute. Most of the fortresses they assaulted or besieged were close to Ardabil or, in the case of the 741 campaign, far behind Muslim lines in Gilan and Muqan. Blankinship thus considers the efforts no more than "local raiding … very tedious and probably unrewarding" for Marwan's men. The nature of the raids suggests that by this period, Marwan was mainly concerned with finding sources of pay for his troops through plunder and tribute. Frequently, little or no fighting occurred and the rebel princes were left in control of their territories once they paid Marwan after the latter's forces made a show of strength or plundered the countryside of a besieged fort. The campaigns failed to secure permanent tribute, as illustrated by the case of the Caucasian prince Tuman Shah, who Marwan had to attack in 735, 738 and 740 to obtain payment.

No further raids by Marwan as governor are recorded in the sources after 741. By then, the Caucasian frontier of the Caliphate had become stable, with a strong garrison established at Ardabil, and the province was largely pacified. Nevertheless, Muslim authority, while solid along the Caspian coast and in the valleys, remained tenuous in the mountains. While the province was comparably poor, the Muslim had incurred considerable losses to control it and it remained a significant drain on the Caliphate's key force, the Syro–Jaziran army, with 24,000 to 30,000 troops stationed at Ardabil at any given time.

Independent power base
Marwan built a loyal following among the mainly Qaysi troops of the Jaziran frontier army and the Armenians under the Bagratids. He thus became one of the few Umayyad princes to have an independent power base at his disposal.

From early on his governorship, he allied with the Armenian prince Ashot of the Bagratids and expelled his rivals from the Mamikonian family. The Armenian nobles, or nakharars, collected tribute on behalf of the Arabs. Marwan was careful to ensure the native troops of the Armenian princes were paid. The Armenians also allied with the Umayyads, and Marwan in particular, due to the shared threat they faced from the Khazars. On occasion, Marwan recruited Armenians for his campaigns, including the expedition of 737 and in his march on Syria in 745.