Karbugha (also Karbuqa, Kerbogha, or Kerbogah) was a leading Turkish military commander under the Great Saljuq sultan Barkyaruq, and also lord of Mosul in northern Iraq (1095-1102).
In 1094 Karbugha and his brother Tuntash were sent by the sultan with a large army to aid Aq Sunqur of Aleppo against Tutush I, king of Syria, during the civil war for the sultanate. In May 1094 Tutush defeated the Aleppan army, and Karbugha and his brother were held captive at Homs until Tutush was killed in February 1095, when Barkyaruq obtained their release from his cousin Ridwan, the new king of Aleppo. With a force of Turcoman mercenaries, Karbugha captured the city of Mosul after a siege of nine months. He became the first Turkish lord of the city, ending a century of Arab domination by the Banu ‘Uqayl family, and was recognized by the sultan.
In late 1097 the armies of the First Crusade (1096-1099) entered Syria and blockaded the city of Antioch (mod. Antakya, Turkey). Karbugha marched against the crusaders with a large army from Mosul and Mesopotamia. He was joined by numerous Saljuq and Turcoman allies, including Duqaq of Damascus, Balduk of Samosata, and many others; only Ridwan of Aleppo, whose troops had been defeated by the crusaders on 9 February 1098, did not join in. It seems that Karbugha acted upon his own initiative in order to expand his influence in Syria. Karbugha and his allies unsuccesfully tried to besiege Edessa (mod. fianliurfa, Turkey), which was held by the crusader Baldwin of Boulogne and his Armenian allies. They then moved on to Antioch, arriving on 5 June 1098 to find that the crusaders had captured the city two days earlier. The Muslims besieged the city for twelve days, but when the crusaders marched out to fight them, Karbugha’s army was defeated. Many of the Turcoman leaders resented Karbugha’s treatment of them and conspired to retreat when the fighting started, while Ridwan of Aleppo sent messages to the Turcoman commanders, resulting in friction between them and the Arab commanders and the desertion of considerable forces from the army.
Karbugha did not interfere in Syrian affairs again, and was occupied in the civil war between Barkyaruq and his brother Muhammad Tapar in Persia until he died in Azerbaijan in September 1102. He was the origin of the Saracen character called Corbarans who features prominently in the epics of the Old French Crusade Cycle.
-Taef El-Azhari
Bibliography
El-Azhari, Taef, The Saljuqs of Syria during the Crusades, 463-459A. H./1070-1154 A. D. (Berlin: Schwarz, 1997).
France, John, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999).
World History
