پژوهش های تاریخی (Dec 2022)
The Chronological Process of Substituting Military Governments of the Levant from Tutush I till Saladin
Abstract
AbstractSince the formation of Seljuks in the Levant, this region was subject to unrest, which continued the chaotic trend of the post-Hamdanid. What took place in the Levant in the Seljuk period was a series of replacing the governments by the soldiers of the same dynasty one after the other from 478 till 570 A. H. This research aimed to answer this question: What was the process of substituting governments in this period? To this goal, the reasons for the rise and fall of the Levant's governments and the records of substitute dynasties had to be analyzed. By using the quantitative historical method, the procedure of these substitutions was mapped. According to this study, the chronological process of substituting the governments had increased over time. The former disturbs were managed to be settled and the short-term rulers -inheritances of Arab tribes- to be altered by long dynasties, such as the Zengid and Ayyubid dynasties.IntroductionSome of the Levant governments were overthrown by foreign powers and as usual, the stronger governments prevailed over weaker ones. In the time frame presented in this paper, several local governments fell in this manner, among which we could mention Banu Ammar in Tripoli. There was another form of overthrowing a government that arose from within and took over. Those who served the former government then became the ones possessing power, resulting in dynasties, such as Burid, Zangid Atabegs, and Ayyubid dynasties. Since this form of conquest was defined as an uprising in the political terms of that time and new dynasties needed continuous efforts to maintain power and assemble sufficient legitimacy for themselves, they went through the process of start-points and continuance. Though each new dynasty tried to have a starting point of its own, they had to use covers, such as gaining the Atabeg of a Seljuk prince or receiving a charter from the Abbasid Caliph. Thus, only the passage of time and their behaviors to preserve their land became a factor of legitimacy that they had to earn it after several internal revolts of the generals. In other words, after some time, the land became their ancestral property and the oppressing commanders needed time to construct their property.Materials and MethodsThe author first dealt with the contexts of the fall and succession of the cited governments in this period. Therefore, he used the contextual description method. Accordingly, the political and social contexts of the lands and those, who started the new governance, were examined. Because the substitutions happened from T1 till time T2 in the context of time, a chronologic method was applied to estimate the government changes. Finally, the chronological and historical methods joined a quantitative view. The time passage had to be taken seriously to evaluate the stability of the government during their ruling time. The quantitative method also took the internal courses of the governments into account. The author tried to find the substitution process year to evaluate the alternative trends and identify the quantitative strategy for these events.Discussion and ConclusionsThe substitution of the Levant dynasties at that time was affected by instability, insecurity, and the pressure of foreign governments, building the necessity of raising a new government within the former. Therefore, the people who supported the Turk or semi-Turk troops could start a new dynasty from the heart of the previous one. The survival of the new government and its resistance towards subsequent replacement largely depended on managing the crisis that happened to the Levant in their time. Hence, the Burid took over the Seljuks of Damascus, but they were able to withstand the substitution trend for a long time because of their adequacy to protect Damascus against Crusaders and expansionists. First, it was assumed that all substitutions of the Levant governments followed an integrated pattern, but the data of the quantitative hypotheses proved it wrong. Based on the years that a dynasty maintained power in the Levant, the substitution process had increased from the Seljuks to the Ayyubid dynasty. This indicated stability in the Levant since the time of the Hamdanid. When the Hamdanid dynasty ended, the Arab tribes took control of this region and handed over a turbulent region to the Seljuks. The conflict between the Seljuk rulers brought this earlier chaos to the period of Ridwan's successors. Therefore, since the arrival of the first Turkmen associated with a rough and chaotic period in the Levant, these government changes grew until the Ayyubid dynasty. Saladin and his brother managed to divide the Ayyubid dynasty into the Ayyubid of the Levant and Egypt. Still, the Ayyubid dynasty held power in the 7th century A.H. Due to the timeframe of this paper, the substitution of the Ayyubid was not looked into; however, their long-term stability and continuation could be generalized to the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which certainly requires another research.
Keywords
