Battle of Bajarwan

Battle of Bajarwan
Part of the Second Arab–Khazar War
Date December 730 or January 731 Location near Bajarwan, Shirvan Result Arab victory Khazar armies fled north, abandoning their conquests in Azerbaijan and Arran
Belligerents
Khazar Khaganate	Umayyad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Barjik †(?)	Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi
Strength
10,000	?
Casualties and losses
very heavy	5,000

The Battle of Bajarwan took place during the Second Arab–Khazar War, between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate, led by the khagan's son Barjik, and the Umayyad Caliphate, whose commanding general was Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi.

After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Marj Ardebil, the Khazars roamed freely across the lands of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Armenia. With little forces immediately available, Caliph Hisham appointed Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi to take command against the Khazars, and assemble whatever forces he could at Raqqa. Gathering a small army (including refugees from Ardabil who had to be paid ten gold dinars to be persuaded to fight), Sa'id managed to recover Akhlat on Lake Van. From there he moved north to Bardha'a, and south again to relieve the Khazar siege of Warthan. The besiegers withdrew to Bajarwan, and a battle was fought some 24 km from the town. Sa'id scored a crushing victory, killing most of the 10,000 Khazars, and rescuing the prisoners they had with them, reportedly 5,000 families. The Arabs also captured the Khazar general's flag, which became the battle standard of his tribe, the Harish. Some sources report that Barjik too was slain and that Sa'id sent his head to the Caliph, but al-Tabari and others report his death only later, during Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik's 731 invasion north of the Caucasus. After this, the Khazar armies fled north, abandoning their conquests in Azerbaijan and Arran, with Sa'id in pursuit.

References

• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7.
• Brook, Kevin Alan (2006). The Jews of Khazaria, Second Edition. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-7425-4982-1.
• Dunlop, Douglas M. (1954). The History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. pp. 72–75.