Hansi and Sirsa

Who he is

Name

Nusrat al-Din (Nusrat-ud-din); the Persian name is as Wikipedia gives it

Title

Commander of Hansi (named in 1192)

Since

1192 or earlier

Born

not pinned

Family

not known

Confidence

low

Wikipedia's Aibak article names him as holding Hansi when Jatwan besieged it in 1192 (Nizami 1992, p. 167), and says Firishta dates the siege to 1203. Whether he is still there on 1 January 1200 is not recorded. The Wikipedia Muhammad of Ghor article does not mention him.

Overlord

Qutb al-Din Aibak

What it holds

• Hansi, Hisar and Tosham
• Sarsuti (Sirsa) and Fatehabad
• Agroha, a ruin-field and the old home of the Agarwal traders

How it was acquired

Post-Tarain conquest of 1192.

Allies and rivals

Subordinate to Aibak. The Bhati chiefs of Bhatner and the Jat and Rajput herders of the Bagar are the neighbours; the Chahamana claim to the Jangaladesa is a title.

How things stand that morning

A walled garrison on the desert edge; nothing recorded for 1199 to 1200.

Wealth

Grain from the Ghaggar flats; cattle; no revenue worth sending away from the Bagar.

Military

A garrison fort; no counts.

Threats

• Raiding from the Bagar
• Bhati and Jat raiders from Bhatner
• A repeat of Jatwan's rising

Places of note

• Tosham hill: The only high ground for fifty miles; a watch post
• Agroha: Ruin-field of the old Agarwal merchant town

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry hansi dates the garrison 'by September 1192' and tells of Aibak riding forty miles in a night; neither detail is in Wikipedia's article, which has 1192 (Nizami) and 1203 (Firishta).
• The campaign board entry sarsuti-sirsa treats Sirsa as a fort 'swept up after Tarain'; no source we reached dates it.

Evidence: Two sentences in Wikipedia's Aibak article, and the campaign board.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Garrison posts and their grain flats, drawn as districts. West of the line is sand.

Primary sources for Ghurids

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
• The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
• The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
• The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
• The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
• The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.

3 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.