Town · Erzincan and Divriği: the Mengujekids · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Divrigi

Divrigi, the Byzantine Tephrike that was once the capital of the Paulician heretics, is a castle town in a side valley above the Calti river.

Its Mengujekid lords built the Castle Mosque (576 AH / 1180-81) and, in 592 AH (1196), the tombs of Shahanshah (later named after his wife, Sitti Melik) and of his chamberlain and treasurer Kamar al-Din. The famous Great Mosque and hospital are later (1228-29).

Who holds it

Name
Suleyman II son of Sayf al-Din Shahanshah
Title
Emir of Divrigi
Since
about 1198
Family
Mengujekid
Confidence
medium

See Lord of Divrigi.

Lord in 1200

Suleyman II, Mengujekid lord of Divrigi (since about 1198 by the modern list).

Allies and rivals

See Mengujekids.

How things stand that morning

Seat of the Divrigi line.

Wealth

The valley.

Charter

None: a lord's town, not a commune.

Council

No council recorded; the lord's governor (shihna or subashi) and the judge (qadi).

Communities

Muslims and Armenians; numbers not recorded.

Fairs and markets

None recorded for 1200.

Militia

The lord's garrison in the citadel.

Walls and castle

The castle on the hill above the town; its surviving form is mostly 13th century.

Trade and crafts

Farming of the valley; the road from Sivas to the Euphrates and Kemah. Iron mining here is attested only much later.

Places of note

  • Castle Mosque: 576 AH (1180-81), architect Hasan son of Firuz of Maragha.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Inscriptions only.

On the map: Near land only.

Primary sources for Mengujekids

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 Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (Michael the Great), Michael the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch 1166 to 1199 (about 1180 to 1195). The Jacobite patriarch's world chronicle, in parallel columns of church, secular and miscellaneous events, ending four years before 1200 and shortly before his own death on 7 November 1199, which left the Syrian Orthodox church with a disputed succession in 1200. Read online
  • The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi, 'Divrigi' (A. Balgalmis), vol. 9, 1994
  2. TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi, 'Mengucukluler' (F. Sumer, history; N. C. Akcil, architecture), vol. 29, 2004
  3. Wikipedia, 'Mengujekids' (ruler lists; citing O. Pancaroglu, 'The House of Mengujek in Divrigi', in Peacock and Yildiz (eds.), The Seljuks of Anatolia, 2013)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.