A Cosmopolitan Frontier State: The Marwānids of Diyār Bakr, 990–1085, and the Performance of Power

The dissolution and fragmentation of ‘Abbasid power in the tenth and eleventh centuries led to the appearance of a number of small dynasties across many areas of the Muslim world. In northern Syria, Diyar Bakr and Armenia, territories which lay near or on the eastern borders of the Byzantine empire or the fringes of the Fatimid empire, small states, ethnically diverse, whose peoples spoke Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish, Persian or Turkish. Among the small dynasties that arose in this area was that of the subject of this chapter: The Marwanid Dynasty of Diyar Bakr, which relied on Kurdish nomadic groups for its power, and is uniquely well-chronicled in the neglected history Tarikh Mayyafariqin wa Amid of Ibn al-Azraq al-Fariqi(d. after 1176-1177), focusing especially upon the statecraft of the ruler Nāṣir al-Dawla (r. 1079-1085), and how he was able to cultivate a small oasis of prosperity amidst the larger imperial geopolitics of the time.