ملك الروم عين زربة
ملك الروم عين زربة
c. 958 CE · 347 AH
In 347 the Domesticos stormed Ayn Zarba — seventy thousand picked men ordering every householder found at dawn to the sword, the mosque-crowd expelled through the crush into the wilderness, the walls razed; in twenty-one days he reduced fifty-four Muslim forts and massacred four hundred prisoners when one side-clash broke his safe-conduct 1.
At a glance
- Era
- The Early Abbasid Caliphate
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
In time
Overview
In 347 AH the Byzantines, with the Domestic (al-Dimastuq), camped at 'Ayn Zarba, according to Ibn al-Athir. 1
The account
His troops climbed the mountain overlooking the town and took it. Its people asked for safe-conduct and opened the gates. He then ordered that whoever was found in the houses be killed, took those in the mosque out of the town, and demolished the wall. The Domestic stayed twenty-one days in Muslim territory and took fifty-four forts around 'Ayn Zarba. The account says that he ordered four hundred men from one of the forts killed after an incident involving an Armenian. 1
Sources
- al-Kamil fi'l-Tarikh of Ibn al-Athir, p. 398-399
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “ملك الروم عين زربة”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/ayn-zarba-massacre-347/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-17.