Tutush I

Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I (Turkish: I. Tutuş, Arabic: أبو سعيد تاج الدولة تتش السلجوقي) (died 25 February 1095) was the Seljuq emir of Damascus from 1078 to 1092, and Seljuq sultan of Damascus from 1092 to 1094.

History

In 1077, Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I appointed his brother Tutush to take over Syria as governor. Later that year, Tutush reached Aleppo during the reign of Sabiq ibn Mahmud of the Mirdasid dynasty, and began a three-month-long siege of the city.

In 1078/9, Sultan Malik-Shah I sent him to Damascus to help Atsiz ibn Uvaq al-Khwarazmi, who was besieged by the Fatimid forces. After the siege had ended, Tutush had Atsiz executed and installed himself in Damascus. He later expanded his territorial realm by annexing Sidon, Gibelacar, Tiberias, Ramla, Jaffa and Jerusalem, which he granted to Artuk Bey, another Seljuk commander. He later returned to besieging Aleppo and called for reinforcements from Malik-Shah, yet his reinforcements were ambushed and routed by a coalition of Arab tribesmen led by Kilabi chief Abu Za'ida at Wadi Butnan, which forced him to leave Aleppo and to pursue the tribesmen who fled into the desert. Meanwhile, the Aleppines raided Tutush's camp outside the city walls, killing the guards he left behind and seizing all of its provisions. Tutush consequently withdrew to Diyar Bakr where he spent the winter. In 1080, Tutush determined to capture Aleppo by force, in which he wanted to strip it from its nearby defenses; hence, he seized Manbij, Hisn al-Faya (at modern-day al-Bira), Biza'a and Azaz. He later influenced Sabiq to cede the emirate to the Uqaylid emir Muslim ibn Quraysh "Sharaf al-Dawla".

After the death of Sharaf al-Dawla of the Uqaylid dynasty in June 1085, the headman in Aleppo Sharif Hassan ibn Hibat Allah Al-Hutayti promised to surrender the city to Tutush who had killed another contender Suleiman ibn Qutalmish near Antioch in 1086, but then refused and wrote to Sultan Malik-Shah offering to surrender the city to him, Tutush attacked and occupied the city except for the citadel in May 1086, he stayed until October and left for Damascus due to the advance of Malik-Shah armies, the Sultan himself arrived in December 1086, then he appointed Aq Sunqur al-Hajib as the Seljuk governor of Aleppo.

Tutush finished the construction of the Citadel of Damascus, a project begun under the direction of Atsiz. Tutush took control of Syria in 1092, following the death of his brother, Malik Shah I, naming himself Sultan. He marched towards Azerbaijan, in which he managed to capture Nisbis, Amida, Mayyafariqin and Mosul, but he had to return in December 1093, as two Seljuk rulers, Bozan of Edessa and Harran and Aq Sunqur al-Hajib of Aleppo, had switch allegiance and declared their support for his nephew, Sultan Barkiyaruq. However, Tutush along with Yağısıyan of Antioch launched an attack against the dissidents, whom he managed to defeat at Tell Sultan in June–July 1094. Bozan and Aq Sunqur were killed, meanwhile Kerbogha was taken prisoner to Homs.

Tutush, along with his general the Kakuyid Ali ibn Faramurz, headed east until he reached Hamdan, where Barkiyaruq had withdrawn to Isfahan. However, Tutush was shortly defeated in a battle against Berkyaruq's forces near Ray, where he and Ali were killed on 25 February 1095. Tutush was decapitated and his head was displayed in Baghdad.

Tutush's younger son Duqaq then inherited Damascus, whilst Radwan received Aleppo, splitting their father's realm. His youngest son Irtash was briefly ruler of Damascus in 1104.

Sources

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