The Taking of Qaliqala and the Opening of Armenia

فتح قاليقلا وبدء فتوح أرمينية

c. 645 CE · c. 25 AH

Qaliqala (Theodosiopolis/Erzurum)

In al-Baladhuri: when Uthman ibn Affan acceded he wrote to Mu'awiya — his governor over Syria, the Jazira and their frontier — ordering him to send Habib ibn Maslama al-Fihri to Armenia, Habib having a fine record in Syria's conquests and the Roman wars known to Umar then Uthman and after — or, it is said, and it is the sounder, Uthman wrote to Habib directly ordering the raid — so he marched with six thousand, or eight, of the Syrians and Jazirans to Qaliqala, camped on it, fought its sallying people and drove them into the city, whereupon they sought aman on evacuation and jizya, many departing for Roman lands; Habib stayed months with those with him until word came that the patrikios of the Armeniakoi had gathered a great host joined by auxiliaries of the Alan, the Abkhaz and Samandar of the Khazars, so he wrote Uthman asking him to send men of Syria and the Jazira desiring jihad and spoils, and Mu'awiya sent two thousand men whom he settled in Qaliqala with land-grants as its garrison; the Romans and their allies had come and camped on al-Fudhat — the reinforcements slow to Habib — so the Muslims struck them by night, overran them and killed their great man; Umm Abdallah bint Yazid al-Kalbiyya, Habib's wife, that night asked him 'where is your tryst?' — he answered 'the tyrant's pavilion or Paradise', and when he reached the pavilion he found her there; in al-Waqidi's chain — from Abd al-Hamid ibn Ja'far from his father — Habib besieged Dabil's people, sat on it, and the Roman Maurian met him, night-attacked and killed him and spoiled his camp, whereupon Salman came up — the sounder version with them being that he met him at Qaliqala; and after Qaliqala Habib marched to Mariyala where the patrikios of Khilat came to him bearing Iyad ibn Ghanm's writ — Iyad having given him aman on himself, his wealth and his lands for a tribute — and Habib conveyed it to him.