Al-Mansur's Rebuilding of Malatya

بناء المنصور لملطية

c. 757 CE · c. 140 AH

In al-Baladhuri: in year 139 al-Mansur wrote to Salih ibn Ali ordering Malatya rebuilt and fortified, then resolved to send Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ibrahim al-Imam as governor of the Jazira and its frontier — he set out in year 140 with al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba among the Khurasani armies, proclaiming a levy on the people of Syria and the Jazira until seventy thousand converged, and camped on Malatya having gathered labourers from every land; al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba would carry stone to hand the builder, and a camel of his went round feeding the people from his own purse with field-kitchens deployed — Abd al-Wahhab envied this and wrote to Abu Ja'far accusing him of out-feeding the state in a bid to prolong and corrupt the work by extravagance and vainglory, and of having callers summon people to his food; Abu Ja'far wrote back: 'O boy! Al-Hasan feeds from his own money, and you feed from mine — nothing comes of you but smallness of worth, littleness of ambition and foolishness of opinion,' and wrote to al-Hasan: feed, but keep no caller — so al-Hasan would say 'whoever reaches my awning first gets such-and-such'; the men worked hard and finished Malatya and its mosque in six months; for the garrison each 'arafa — ten to fifteen men — received two lower houses, two upper chambers and a stable; he built a muslaha thirty miles out and another on the river called Qubaqib that feeds the Euphrates; al-Mansur settled four thousand Jaziran fighters in Malatya, it being of their frontier, with ten dinars added to every man's pay and a hundred-dinar allowance besides the camel the tribes engaged between them; he deposited its armoury, granted the soldiers farms and built the fortress of Qaludhiya — and Constantine the tyrant came on with over a hundred thousand as far as Jayhan, heard of the Arabs' numbers and held back.

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The Building of Madinat al-Hadath

In al-Baladhuri: al-Hadath was among the conquests of Umar's days, taken by Habib ibn Maslama at Iyad ibn Ghanm's direction, and Mu'awiya kept it up thereafter; Banu Umayya called the Darb al-Hadath 'al-Salama' out of omen, for the Muslims had been smitten there — that calamity being 'the event' as some say — while others say a Byzantine youth (ghulam hadath) fought them on the pass so it was named Darb al-Hadath; in Marwan ibn Muhammad's civil war the Romans demolished Madinat al-Hadath and evacuated its people as they had Malatya; then in year 161 Michael came out to Amq Mar'ash, and al-Mahdi sent al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba ranging Byzantine lands — in this expedition were Mandal al-Anzi the Kufan and Mu'tayyir ibn Sulayman al-Basri — who chose his city-site there, and on return spoke to al-Mahdi of building it and Tarsus; al-Mahdi ordered al-Hadath built first, and Ali ibn Sulayman ibn Ali founded it while over the Jazira and Qinnasrin — it was named al-Muhammadiyya — and al-Mahdi died just as they finished, so it is called al-Mahdiyya and al-Hamadiyya; it was built of mud brick, his death falling in year 169, when his son Musa al-Hadi succeeded, removed Ali ibn Sulayman and gave the Jazira and Qinnasrin to Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ali; Ali had finished the city, and Muhammad levied for it a contingent of Syrians, Jazirans and Khurasanis at forty dinars' pay, granted them house-lots and gave each man three hundred dirhams — completed in year 169; Abu al-Khattab says Ali ibn Sulayman levied four thousand for the city, settled them in it and transferred two thousand men from Malatya, Shimshat, Sumaysat, Kaysum, Duluk and Ra'ban; when built, winter struck with snows and heavy rain — its building not sound — and the city collapsed in ruin, the Romans occupied it and its garrison scattered; word reached Musa, who dispatched columns with al-Musayyab ibn Zuhayr, Rawh ibn Hatim and Hamza ibn Malik, but died before they could march; al-Rashid then ordered it rebuilt, fortified, garrisoned and its fighters granted houses and estates — another than al-Waqidi says a patrikios grandee camped on the city with a dense host just as it was built, the stacked mud brick ruined by snow, its governor and people fleeing while the enemy burned its mosque, wrecked it and carried off the people's goods — al-Rashid rebuilt it at his accession.

Al-Mansur's Rebuilding of Malatya

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The Building of Madinat al-Hadath