Harran

Who holds it

Title

castellan (wali) for al-Kamil

Confidence

low

The sources read name no governor for 1199-1200.

Lord in 1200

Held for al-Adil by a castellan of al-Kamil (name not pinned); Harran was the seat of the Ayyubid government of the Jazira, and al-Kamil secured it in autumn 1199 when the Zengids marched on it.

How things stand that morning

Held for al-Adil; the field army away. Across the plain: Edessa (Ayyubid) north, the Bedouin steppe south, Ras al-Ayn east.

Charter

No charter or commune: the town is governed by its lord's castellan (wali), its judge (qadi) and the market inspector (muhtasib); notables (a'yan) speak for it.

Council

No town council; notables and the qadi deal with the lord's governor.

Communities

Muslim town by the 1180s (the old pagan Sabian cult of the moon had died out); a Hanbali scholarly milieu, including the family of preachers of the Banu Taymiyya (Fakhr al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, d. 1225, was preacher of Harran in these years: from general knowledge, not re-checked).

Militia

Garrison of the lord's soldiers; townsmen's own militia (ahdath) not recorded here.

Walls and castle

Ancient walls (Roman and Byzantine in origin) round a large circuit; citadel at the south-east corner (its great Ayyubid rebuilding is later, 13th century).

Trade and crafts

Caravan station and market town; Ibn Jubayr (1184) noted its markets roofed with timber. Cotton and grain of the plain; the wells were failing as the water table fell.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 598 AH or after (1202 onward)Harran passes to al-Ashraf Musa, who makes it his capital. Later.Depends on: al-Kamil's move to Egypt (1200) Stopped by: al-Kamil staying in the Jazira

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Holder and events of 1199 attested (Ibn al-Athir via Wikipedia and TDV); the castellan's name is not.

Primary sources for Ayyubid Jazira

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 Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier. 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 Dispeller of Anxieties, on the History of the Ayyubids, Jamal al-Din Ibn Wasil (about 1272 to 1285, at Hama). The fullest Ayyubid dynastic history, written at Hama with access to the family's own tradition and to Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Abi Tayy and Sibt ibn al-Jawzi. Read online
• The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). Read online
• The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle to 1234, Anonymous (a Syrian Orthodox writer, probably of Edessa) (about 1234 to 1240). An Edessene chronicle independent of Michael the Syrian in its later part, with a secular section reaching 1234 that gives the Jazira, Edessa, Harran, Mardin and Melitene about 1200 under al-Adil's sons and the Artuqids, the Seljuks of Rum, the Armenians of Cilicia and the Franks of Antioch, and a church section to 1207 on the Jacobite succession after Michael's death in 1199. Read online
• 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 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 Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193. Read online

2 more in the sources library for The Latin East and the Ayyubids.