The Taking of Hisn Kamkh

فتح حصن كَمْخ

c. 678 CE · 59 AH

Hisn Kamkh (Kamacha)

In al-Baladhuri: Habib ibn Maslama raided the fortress of Kamkh after taking Shimshat without success, as did Safwan; then in year 59 — the year he died — Safwan raided it with Umayr ibn al-Habab al-Sulami, who scaled the wall and fought alone until the Byzantines gave way and the Muslims climbed — it fell to Umayr ibn al-Habab, his lasting glory; the Byzantines retook it, Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik took it again, and it kept changing hands until year 149, when al-Mansur marched from Baghdad to Hadithat al-Mawsil, sent al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba then Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath, and set al-Abbas ibn Muhammad over the expedition against Kamkh — Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath remaining at Amid — al-Abbas and al-Hasan reached Malatya, took provisions, camped on Kamkh, and al-Abbas ordered mangonels set; the defenders hung juniper wood over their fort so the stones would not bite, and stoned the Muslims killing two hundred men, whereupon the Muslims employed armoured shelters and fought bitterly until they took it — Matar al-Warraq was with al-Abbas; the Byzantines re-seized it, and in year 177 Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Amr al-Ansari — Abd al-Malik ibn Salih's governor of Shimshat — took it, entering on the fourteenth of Rabi' II; it stayed Muslim until Muhammad ibn al-Rashid's time when its people fled — or, it is said, Ubaydallah ibn al-Aqta' handed it over — then Abdallah ibn Tahir took it in al-Ma'mun's caliphate, and it remained in Muslim hands until a group of Shimshat's Christians conspired with Yiqala and Baqrat ibn Ashut by way of Khilat to deliver it to the Byzantines over estates in the Shimshat district.