使用者:Dkzzl/君士坦丁堡之圍 (626年)

關於關於其他擁有相同榮譽稱號的人物，請見賽弗·道萊 (消歧義)。

賽弗·道萊 سيف الدولة‎
Gold dinar minted at Baghdad in the names of Nasir al-Dawla and Sayf al-Dawla, 943/4 CE
Emir of Aleppo
統治	945–967
前任	Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Kilabi
繼任	Sa'd al-Dawla
出生	22 June 916
逝世	967年2月9日(967歲—02—09)（50歲） Aleppo, Syria
安葬	Mayyafariqin (modern Silvan, Turkey)
子嗣	Sa'd al-Dawla
全名 ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī
Tribe	Banu Taghlib
朝代	Hamdanid
父親	Abdallah ibn Hamdan
宗教信仰	Twelver Shia Islam

阿里·本·阿布·海賈·阿卜杜拉·本·赫姆丹·本·哈里斯·塔格里比（阿拉伯語：علي بن أبو الهيجاء عبد الله بن حمدان بن الحارث التغلبي‎，轉寫：ʿAlī ibn ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ ʿAbdallāh ibn Ḥamdān ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taghlibī），916年1月22日– 967年2月9日），通稱「賽弗·道萊（سيف الدولة‎）」，這是他的榮譽稱號，意為「王朝的寶劍」。他是赫姆丹王朝的第一位阿勒頗埃米爾，也被認為是這個王朝中最傑出的人物，統治北敘利亞大部、西賈茲拉一部；他的長兄哈桑·本·阿卜杜拉·本·赫姆丹（通稱納西爾·道萊）則是摩蘇爾的埃米爾。

賽弗·道萊一開始追隨兄長納西爾·道萊，於10世紀40年代嘗試掌控虛弱的阿拔斯哈里發政權。失敗後，頗具野心的賽弗·道萊轉向敘利亞，與同樣對敘利亞有野心的埃及的伊赫什德王朝展開競爭。經過兩次惡戰，他建立了對北敘利亞的統治，以阿勒頗為都，並以麥亞法里根（今錫爾萬）為中心統治西賈茲拉，其權力得到伊赫什德王朝和哈里發的承認。直到955年，一系列部落叛亂困擾著他的統治，但都被他擊敗，成功維持了多數重要阿拉伯部落的忠誠。他熱心獎勵文化，使阿勒頗的宮廷成為一大文化生活中心，他供養了一批文人，其中包括偉大詩人穆太奈比，使他在阿拉伯歷史上享有盛名。

賽弗·道萊也因在阿拉伯-拜占庭戰爭中發揮的作用而享有盛名。10世紀初拜占庭帝國開始復興，征服部分穆斯林領地，賽弗·道萊不畏強敵，數次遠征深入拜占庭領地，取得數次勝利，在955年前一直占上風。但此後傑出的拜占庭將領尼基弗魯斯·福卡斯（後來的皇帝）與其副手取得優勢，奪取奇里乞亞，甚至於962年短暫占領阿勒頗。賽弗·道萊在生命的最後幾年連遭軍事失敗，自己也因疾病而偏癱，威望下降，手下數位將領接連叛亂。他於967年初去世，留下一個衰弱的國家，到969年，拜占庭軍又奪取安條克與敘利亞沿海，他的後人只能向其稱臣納貢。

生平

出身、家族

赫姆丹王朝譜系

賽弗·道萊生於916年6月22日（部分史料認定是914年），本名阿里·本·阿卜杜拉，是阿布· 赫伊賈·阿卜杜拉·本·赫姆丹（死於929年）的次子，赫姆丹王朝的名祖赫姆丹·本·赫姆敦·本·哈里斯之孫。赫姆丹一族是台格里卜部落的一支，這一部落自前伊斯蘭時代開始就已在賈茲拉（上美索不達米亞）居住。歷史上，台格里卜部落一直控制著摩蘇爾及其周邊地區，但9世紀末，阿拔斯哈里發政府開始加強對這一省份的控制。這引起了部落成員的反抗，赫姆丹·本·赫姆敦就是最堅定的反抗領袖之一。為了抵禦阿拔斯王朝，他與摩蘇爾以北山中的庫德人建立了聯盟，他的後人常與庫德人通婚，這一山區民族成為他們軍隊的重要組成部分，這一點在王朝後來的發展中起了重要作用。

895年，赫姆丹與他的親屬們戰敗被俘，但他的兒子海珊·本·赫姆丹設法保住了家族的勢力。他組織了一支台格里卜族人組成的軍隊為哈里發服務，以此換取稅收的減免，並在阿拔斯政府與當地阿拉伯、庫爾德民眾間居中調停，在賈茲拉地區建立了威望。赫姆丹家族在10世紀初與巴格達中央政府的關係時常緊張，正是強大的地方根基使得他們倖存下來。海珊是個常勝將軍，在與哈瓦利吉派及突倫王朝的戰爭中表現出色。但908年他參與了失敗的擁立阿卜杜拉·本·穆阿台茲的政變，之後相對失勢。919年，他的弟弟易卜拉欣被任命為迪亞爾賴比厄（意為「賴比厄部落之地」，以努賽賓為中心的省份總督，次年他去世後由另一個兄弟達伍德接任。賽弗·道萊的父親阿卜杜拉則在905/06年-913/14年間擔任摩蘇爾的總督（埃米爾），此後在政壇數起數落，925/26年又重新控制摩蘇爾。他與權臣穆阿尼斯·穆澤法爾關係密切，並在後者組織的廢黜哈里發穆克台迪爾一世擁立嘎希爾的政變中發揮重要作用，但不久後對方反撲，阿卜杜拉被殺。

儘管在政變中身亡，但阿卜杜拉已鞏固了自己對摩蘇爾的控制，成為赫姆丹王朝政權事實上的創建者。他在生命中的最後幾年呆在巴格達，於是將摩蘇爾交給長子哈桑，未來的納西爾·道萊統治。阿卜杜拉死後，哈桑的幾位叔父試圖爭奪摩蘇爾的統治權，直到935年，他才確保巴格達政府承認他對摩蘇爾乃至整個賈茲拉，直到拜占庭帝國邊界的廣大地區的統治。

追隨納西爾·道萊

Map of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), the homeland and main power base of the Hamdanids

年輕的阿里（賽弗·道萊）一開始為他的兄長效力。936年，哈桑邀請弟弟投入帳下，許諾讓他擔任迪亞爾貝克爾（阿米達及周邊地區）的總督，以換取阿里幫他鎮壓反叛的麥亞法里根（Mayyafariqin，今錫爾萬）總督阿里·本·賈法爾（Ali ibn Ja'far）。阿里成功阻止了亞美尼亞人對賈法爾的援助，並迫使敘呂奇附近居住的蓋斯部落成員臣服，確保了對迪亞爾穆達爾北部的控制。以此為基地，他還發動遠征援助與拜占庭接壤地區（所謂"關隘地帶"）的埃米爾們抵禦拜占庭軍的進攻，並進入亞美尼亞，試圖逆轉拜占庭對這一地區越來越強的影響。

與此同時，哈桑捲入了與阿拔斯王朝宮廷的衝突。932年哈里發穆克台迪爾被殺之後，阿拔斯中央政府幾乎完全崩潰，936年，強大的瓦西特總督穆罕默德·本·拉伊格獲得了「埃米爾之埃米爾」的頭銜，事實上控制了阿拔斯政府，哈里發拉迪淪為傀儡，龐大的舊文官官僚體系的規模與權力都大大縮減。但拉伊格的地位並不穩固，不久後各方就開始爭奪「埃米爾之埃米爾」的權位，以及隨之而來的哈里發國的控制權；一場錯綜複雜的鬥爭在許多地方勢力與突厥軍閥間爆發，一直持續到白益王朝於946年取得勝利才告終。

哈桑一開始支持拉伊格，但942年他派人將其刺殺，並為自己取得了「埃米爾之埃米爾」之位，並獲贈尊稱納西爾·道萊（阿拉伯語：ناصر الدولة，意為「王朝的捍衛者」）。巴斯拉的貝里迪家族（Baridis）也希望控制哈里發政權，繼續與哈桑作戰，哈桑則派阿里前去鎮壓。阿里在麥達因面對阿布·海珊·貝里迪（Abu'l-Husayn al-Baridi）的軍隊並取得勝利，因此被任命為瓦西特總督，並獲尊稱賽弗·道萊（سيف الدولة‎，意為「王朝的寶劍」），這個尊稱比他的本名更有名。授予赫姆丹家族兩兄弟的尊稱也是阿拔斯王朝第一次將著名的含有「王朝（الدولة，al-Dawla）元素的系列尊稱賜給維齊爾（首相）以外的人。

然而赫姆丹王朝的成功十分短暫，他們在政治上十分孤立，哈里發國內最強大的兩個自治政權——河中地區的薩曼王朝和埃及的伊赫什德王朝並不支持他們。943年，赫姆丹王朝的軍隊（主要由突厥人、德萊木人、蓋爾麥泰派及少量阿拉伯人組成）因報酬問題在突厥人突尊的領導下發動叛亂，迫使兩兄弟退出巴格達。哈里發穆台基任命突尊為「埃米爾之埃米爾」，但不久後與他發生爭吵，又向北逃亡，尋求赫姆丹王朝的庇護。突尊又在戰場上擊敗了兩兄弟並於944年與他們達成協議，允許他們保有賈茲拉，甚至名義上授予他們對北敘利亞的統治權（這些地區當時尚未被赫姆丹王朝控制），以此換取大量貢品。此後，哈桑（納西爾·道萊）成為巴格達的附庸，但他繼續與白益王朝爭奪巴格達的控制權，958/59年，他甚至被迫逃到弟弟的宮廷中尋求庇護，之後阿里（賽弗·道萊）與白益王朝埃米爾穆儀茲·道萊談判，後者允許哈桑返回摩蘇爾。

建立阿勒頗埃米爾國

Syria (Bilad al-Sham) and its provinces in the 9th/10th centuries

935/36年後，北敘利亞由埃及的伊赫什德王朝統治，939/40年，拉伊格又出兵占領之。942年，納西爾·道萊刺殺拉伊格並取代了他的位置，試圖接管這一地區，特別是拉伊格自己曾任總督的迪亞爾穆達爾省。赫姆丹王朝的軍隊占領了拜利赫河河谷，但當地的豪強仍然傾向於伊赫什德王朝，赫姆丹王朝的統治十分脆弱。伊赫什德王朝沒有直接出兵，選擇了支援拉赫拜總督阿德勒·貝克傑米（'Adl al-Bakjami），後者攻占了努賽賓，奪取了賽弗·道萊留在那裡的財寶，但之後被賽弗·道萊的堂弟海珊·本·賽義德擊敗俘虜，943年5月在巴格達被處決。海珊隨後進軍試圖占領自迪亞爾穆達爾至關隘地帶（Thughur）的整個拉伊格領地，他以一次突襲拿下了拉卡，944年2月，阿勒頗不戰而降。此時哈里發穆台基遣使伊赫什德，請求對方幫助他對付那些想要控制他的軍閥們。隨後哈里發又隨赫姆丹王朝到拉卡，但伊赫什德收信後於944年夏天親自率軍到達敘利亞，海珊放棄阿勒頗逃跑。流亡的哈里發與伊赫什德在拉卡會面，哈里發確認了伊赫什德對敘利亞的統治，但拒絕隨他遷居埃及，埃及君主也拒絕進一步幫助哈里發對付敵人。之後伊赫什德返回埃及，穆台基則深感無力與沮喪而返回巴格達，很快突尊下令把他弄瞎並廢黜。

正是在這種背景下，賽弗·道萊的目光瞄準了敘利亞。之前幾年他已多次蒙羞，他在戰場上被突尊打敗，即使成功刺殺了敵手穆罕默德·本·伊奈勒·突爾朱曼（Muhammad ibn Inal al-Turjuman），他也沒能說服穆台基任命他為「埃米爾之埃米爾」。正如現代學者蒂埃里·比昂基所寫，兄長在伊拉克的事業失敗後，賽弗·道萊「滿腹怨氣地返回努賽賓，發現自己無事可做、收入不多」，因此把目光轉向了敘利亞。納西爾·道萊似乎也在海珊失敗後鼓勵他的弟弟進軍敘利亞，寫信給賽弗·道萊，說「敘利亞就在你面前，這片土地上沒有人能阻止你獲得它」。伊赫什德離開後，賽弗·道萊趁虛帶著兄長提供的金錢與軍隊入侵北敘利亞。他得到了當地基拉卜部落的支持，甚至伊赫什德任命的阿勒頗長官阿布·費斯·奧斯曼·本·賽義德·基拉比（Abu'l-Fath Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Kilabi，屬基拉卜部落）也向他投降，陪同他於944年10月29日和平地進入阿勒頗城。

Conflict with al-Ikhshid

Al-Ikhshid reacted, and sent an army north under Abu al-Misk Kafur to confront Sayf al-Dawla, who was then besieging Homs. In the ensuing battle, the Hamdanid scored a crushing victory. Homs then opened its gates, and Sayf al-Dawla set his sights on Damascus. Sayf al-Dawla briefly occupied the city in early 945, but was forced to abandon it in the face of the citizens' hostility. In April 945 al-Ikhshid himself led an army into Syria, although at the same time he also offered terms to Sayf al-Dawla, proposing to accept Hamdanid control over northern Syria and the Thughur. Sayf al-Dawla rejected al-Ikhshid's proposals, but was defeated in battle in May/June and forced to retreat to Raqqa. The Egyptian army proceeded to raid the environs of Aleppo. Nevertheless, in October the two sides came to an agreement, broadly on the lines of al-Ikhshid's earlier proposal: the Egyptian ruler acknowledged Hamdanid control over northern Syria, and even consented to sending an annual tribute in exchange for Sayf al-Dawla's renunciation of all claims on Damascus. The pact was sealed by Sayf al-Dawla's marriage to a niece of al-Ikhshid, and Sayf al-Dawla's new domain received the—purely formal—sanction by the caliph, who also re-affirmed his laqab soon thereafter.

The truce with al-Ikhshid lasted until the latter's death in July 946 at Damascus. Sayf al-Dawla immediately marched south, took Damascus, and then proceeded to Palestine. There he was confronted once again by Kafur, who defeated the Hamdanid prince in a battle fought in December near Ramla. Sayf al-Dawla then retreated to Damascus, and from there to Homs. There he gathered his forces, including large Arab tribal contingents of the Uqayl, Kalb, Uqayl, Numayr, and Kilab, and in spring of 947, he attempted to recover Damascus. He was again defeated in battle, however, and in its aftermath the Ikhshidids even occupied Aleppo in July. Kafur, the de facto Ikhshidid leader after al-Ikhshid's death, did not press his advantage, but instead began negotiations.

For the Ikhshidids, the maintenance of Aleppo was less important than southern Syria with Damascus, which was Egypt's eastern bulwark. As long as their control over this region was not threatened, the Egyptians were more than willing to allow the existence of a Hamdanid state in the north. Furthermore, the Ikhshidids realized that they would have difficulty in asserting and maintaining control over northern Syria and Cilicia, which were traditionally oriented more towards the Jazira and Iraq. Not only would Egypt, threatened by this time by the Fatimid Caliphate in the west, be spared the cost of maintaining a large army in these distant lands, but the Hamdanid emirate would also fulfill the useful role of a buffer state against incursions both from Iraq and from Byzantium. The agreement of 945 was reiterated, with the difference that the Ikhshidids ceased paying tribute for Damascus. The frontier thus established, between Jaziran-influenced northern Syria and the Egyptian-controlled southern part of the country, was to last until the Mamluks seized the entire country in 1260.

Map of the Hamdanid domains at their greatest extent, ca. 955

Sayf al-Dawla, who returned to Aleppo in autumn, was now master of an extensive realm: the north Syrian provinces (Jund Hims, Jund Qinnasrin and the Jund al-'Awasim) in a line running south of Homs to the coast near Tartus, and most of Diyar Bakr and Diyar Mudar in the western Jazira. He also exercised a—mostly nominal—suzerainty over the towns of the Byzantine frontier in Cilicia. Sayf al-Dawla's domain was a "Syro-Mesopotamian state", in the expression of the Orientalist Marius Canard, and extensive enough to require two capitals: alongside Aleppo, which became Sayf al-Dawla's main residence, Mayyafariqin was selected as the capital for the Jaziran provinces. The latter were held ostensibly in charge of his elder brother Nasir al-Dawla, but in reality, the size and political importance of Sayf al-Dawla's emirate allowed him to effectively throw off the tutelage of Nasir al-Dawla. Although Sayf al-Dawla continued to show his elder brother due deference, henceforth, the balance of power between the two would be reversed.

Arab tribal revolts

Aside from his confrontation with the Ikhshidids, Sayf al-Dawla's consolidation over his realm was challenged by the need to maintain good relations with the restive native Arab tribes. Northern Syria at this time was controlled by a number of Arab tribes, who had been resident in the area since the Umayyad period, and in many cases even before that. The region around Homs was settled by the Kalb and the Tayy tribes, while the north, a broad strip of land from the Orontes until beyond the Euphrates was controlled by the still largely nomadic Qaysi tribes of Uqayl, Numayr, Ka'b and Qushayr, as well as the aforementioned Banu Kilab around Aleppo. Further south, the originally Yemeni Tanukh were settled around Maarrat al-Nu'man, while the coasts were settled by the Bahra' and Kurds.

In his relations with them, Sayf al-Dawla benefitted from the fact that he was an ethnic Arab, unlike most of the contemporary rulers in the Islamic Middle East, who were Turkish or Iranian warlords who had risen from the ranks of the military slaves (ghilman). This helped him win support among the Arab tribes, and the bedouins played a prominent role in his administration. However, in accordance with the usual late Abbasid practice familiar to Sayf al-Dawla and common across the Muslim states of the Middle East, the Hamdanid state was heavily reliant on and increasingly dominated by its non-Arab, mostly Turkish, ghilman. This is most evident in the composition of his army: alongside Arab tribal cavalry, which was often unreliable and driven more by plunder than loyalty or discipline, the Hamdanid armies made heavy use of Daylamites as heavy infantry, Turks as horse archers, and Kurds as light cavalry. These forces were complemented, especially against the Byzantines, by the garrisons of the Thughur, among whom were many volunteers (ghazi) from across the Muslim world.

After winning recognition by the Ikhshidids, Sayf al-Dawla began a series of campaigns of consolidation. His main target was to establish firm control over the Syrian littoral, as well as the routes connecting it to the interior. The operations there included a difficult siege of the fortress of Barzuya in 947–948, which was held by a Kurdish brigand leader, who from there controlled the lower Orontes valley. In central Syria, a Qarmatian-inspired revolt of the Kalb and Tayyi erupted in late 949, led by a certain Ibn Hirrat al-Ramad. The rebels enjoyed initial success, even capturing the Hamdanid governor of Homs, but they were quickly crushed. In the north, the attempts of the Hamdanid administrators to keep the bedouin from interfering with the more settled Arab communities resulted in regular outbreaks of rebellion between 950 and 954, which had to be suppressed by Sayf al-Dawla's army.

Finally, in spring 955 a major rebellion broke out in the region of Qinnasrin and Sabkhat al-Jabbul, which involved all tribes, both bedouin and sedentary, including the Hamdanids' close allies, the Kilab. Sayf al-Dawla was able to resolve the situation quickly, initiating a ruthless campaign of swift repression that included driving the tribes into the desert to die or capitulate, coupled with diplomacy that played on the divisions among the tribesmen. Thus the Kilab were offered peace and a return to their favoured status, and were given additional lands at the expense of the Kalb, who were evicted from their homes along with the Tayyi, and fled south to settle in the plains north of Damascus and the Golan Heights, respectively. At the same time, the Numayr were also expelled and encouraged to resettle in the Jazira around Harran. The revolt was suppressed within the single month of June 955, in what Bianquis calls "a desert policing operation perfectly planned and rigorously executed". It was only Sayf al-Dawla's "feelings of solidarity and his sense of Arab honour", according to Bianquis, that prevented the revolt from ending with the "total extermination, through warfare and thirst, of all the tribes".

The suppression of the great tribal revolt marked, in the words of historian Hugh Kennedy, "the high point of Sayf al-Dawla’s success and power", and secured the submission of the bedouin tribes for the remainder of Sayf al-Dawla's reign. For a short time, during that year, his suzerainty was also acknowledged in parts of Adharbayjan around Salmas, where the Kurd Daysam established brief control until evicted and finally captured by Marzuban ibn Muhammad.

Wars with the Byzantines

更多資訊：Nikephoros II Phokas § Eastern Wars

The Caucasian principalities, the eastern Byzantine frontier and northern Syria and Jazira in the early 10th century

Through his assumption of control over the Syrian and Jaziran borderlands (Thughur) with Byzantium in 945/6, Sayf al-Dawla emerged as the chief Arab prince facing the Byzantine Empire, and warfare with the Byzantines became his main preoccupation. Indeed, much of Sayf al-Dawla's reputation stems from his unceasing, though ultimately unsuccessful war with the Empire.

By the early 10th century, the Byzantines had gained the upper hand over their eastern Muslim neighbours. The onset of decline in the Abbasid Caliphate after 861 (the "Anarchy at Samarra") was followed by the Battle of Lalakaon in 863, which had broken the power of the border emirate of Malatya and marked the beginning the gradual Byzantine encroachment on the Arab borderlands. Although the emirate of Tarsus in Cilicia remained strong and Malatya continued to resist Byzantine attacks, over the next half-century the Byzantines managed to overwhelm the Paulician allies of Malatya and advance to the Upper Euphrates, occupying the mountains north of the city. Finally, after 927, peace on their Balkan frontier enabled the Byzantines, under John Kourkouas, to turn their forces east and begin a series of campaigns that culminated in the fall and annexation of Malatya in 934, an event which sent shock-waves among the other Muslim emirates. Arsamosata followed in 940, and Qaliqala (Byzantine Theodosiopolis, modern Erzurum) in 949.

The Byzantine advance evoked a great emotional response in the Muslim world, with volunteers, both soldiers and civilians, flocking to participate in the jihad against the Empire. Sayf al-Dawla was also affected by this atmosphere, and became deeply impregnated with the spirit of jihad. The rise of the Hamdanid brothers to power in the frontier provinces and the Jazira is therefore to be regarded against the backdrop of the Byzantine threat, as well as the manifest inability of the Abbasid government to stem the Byzantine offensive. In Hugh Kennedy's words, "compared with the inaction or indifference of other Muslim rulers, it is not surprising that Sayf al-Dawla's popular reputation remained high; he was the one man who attempted to defend the Faith, the essential hero of the time".

Early campaigns

Sayf al-Dawla entered the fray against the Byzantines in 936, when he led an expedition to the aid of Samosata, at the time besieged by the Byzantines. A revolt in his rear forced him to abandon the campaign, and he only managed to send a few supplies to the town, which fell soon after. In 938, he raided the region around Malatya and captured the Byzantine fort of Charpete. Some Arab sources report a major victory over Kourkouas himself, but the Byzantine advance does not seem to have been affected. His most important campaign in these early years was in 939–940, when he invaded southwestern Armenia and secured a pledge of allegiance and the surrender of a few fortresses from the local princes—the Muslim Kaysites of Manzikert and the Christian Bagratids of Taron and Gagik Artsruni of Vaspurakan—who had begun defecting to Byzantium, before turning west and raiding Byzantine territory up to Koloneia. This expedition temporarily broke the Byzantine blockade around Qaliqala, but Sayf al-Dawla's preoccupation with his brother's wars in Iraq over the next years meant that the success was not followed up. This was a major missed chance; as the historian Mark Whittow comments, a more sustained policy could have made use of the Armenian princes' distrust of Byzantine expansionism, to form a network of clients and contain the Byzantines. Instead, the latter were given a free hand, which allowed them to press on and capture Qaliqala, cementing their dominance over the region.

Failures and victories, 945–955

Map of the Arab–Byzantine frontier zone

After establishing himself at Aleppo in 944, Sayf al-Dawla resumed warfare against Byzantium in 945/6. From then until the time of his death, he was the Byzantines' chief antagonist in the East—by the end of his life Sayf al-Dawla was said to have fought against them in over forty battles. Nevertheless, despite his frequent and destructive raids against the Byzantine frontier provinces and into Asia Minor, and his victories in the field, his strategy was essentially defensive, and he never seriously attempted to challenge Byzantine control of the crucial mountain passes or conclude alliances with other local rulers in an effort to roll back the Byzantine conquests. Compared to Byzantium, Sayf al-Dawla was the ruler of a minor principality, and could not match the means and numbers available to the resurgent Empire: the contemporary Arab sources report—with obvious, but nonetheless indicative, exaggeration—that Byzantine armies numbered up to 200,000, while Sayf al-Dawla's largest force numbered some 30,000.

Hamdanid efforts against Byzantium were further crippled by the dependence on the Thughur system. The fortified militarized zone of the Thughur was very expensive to maintain, requiring constant provisions of cash and supplies from other parts of the Muslim world. Once the area came under Hamdanid control, the rump Caliphate lost any interest in providing these resources, while the scorched earth tactics of the Byzantines further reduced the area's ability to feed itself. Furthermore, the cities of the Thughur were fractious by nature, and their allegiance to Sayf al-Dawla was the result of his charismatic leadership and his military successes; once the Byzantines gained the upper hand and the Hamdanid's prestige declined, the various cities tended to look out only for themselves. Finally, Sayf al-Dawla's origin in the Jazira also affected his strategic outlook, and was probably responsible for his failure to construct a fleet, or to pay any attention at all to the Mediterranean, in stark contrast to most Syria-based polities in history.

Sayf al-Dawla's raid of winter 945/6 was of limited scale, and was followed by a prisoner exchange. Warfare on the frontiers then died down for a couple of years, and recommenced only in 948. Despite scoring a victory over a Byzantine invasion in 948, he was unable to prevent the sack of Hadath, one of the main Muslim strongholds in the Euphrates Thughur, by Leo Phokas, one of the sons of the Byzantine Domestic of the Schools (commander-in-chief) Bardas Phokas. Sayf al-Dawla's expeditions in the next two years were also failures. In 949 he raided into the theme of Lykandos but was driven back, and the Byzantines proceeded to sack Marash, defeat a Tarsian army and raid as far as Antioch. In the next year, Sayf al-Dawla led a large force into Byzantine territory, ravaging the themes of Lykandos and Charsianon, but on his return he was ambushed by Leo Phokas in a mountain pass. In what became known as the ghazwat al-musiba, the 'dreadful expedition', Sayf al-Dawla lost 8,000 men and barely escaped himself.

Sayf al-Dawla nevertheless rejected offers of peace from the Byzantines, and launched another raid against Lykandos and Malatya, persisting until the onset of winter forced him to retire. In the next year, he concentrated his attention on rebuilding the fortresses of Cilicia and northern Syria, including Marash and Hadath. Bardas Phokas launched an expedition to obstruct these works, but was defeated. Bardas launched another campaign in 953, but despite having a considerably larger force at his disposal, he was heavily defeated near Marash in a battle celebrated by Sayf al-Dawla's panegyrists. The Byzantine commander even lost his youngest son, Constantine, to Hamdanid captivity. Another expedition led by Bardas in the next year was also defeated, allowing Sayf al-Dawla to complete the re-fortification of Samosata and Hadath. The latter successfully withstood yet another Byzantine attack in 955.

Byzantine ascendancy, 956–962

Sayf al-Dawla's victories brought about the replacement of Bardas by his eldest son, Nikephoros Phokas. Blessed with capable subordinates like his brother Leo and his nephew John Tzimiskes, Nikephoros would bring about a reversal of fortunes in Sayf al-Dawla's struggle with the Byzantines. The new domestic of the schools also benefited from the culmination of military reforms that created a more professional army.

Leo Phokas sends the captive Abu'l-'Asha'ir to Constantinople, where he is ritually humiliated. Miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes

In spring 956, Sayf al-Dawla pre-empted Tzimiskes from a planned assault on Amida, and invaded Byzantine territory first. Tzimiskes then seized a pass in Sayf al-Dawla's rear, and attacked him during his return. The hard-fought battle, fought amidst torrential rainfall, resulted in a Muslim victory as Tzimiskes lost 4,000 men. At the same time, however, Leo Phokas invaded Syria and defeated and captured Sayf al-Dawla's cousin Abu'l-'Asha'ir, whom he had left behind in his stead. Later in the year, Sayf al-Dawla was obliged to go to Tarsus to help repel a raid by the Byzantine Cibyrrhaeot fleet. In 957, Nikephoros took and razed Hadath, but Sayf al-Dawla was unable to react as he discovered a conspiracy by some of his officers to surrender him to the Byzantines in exchange for money. Sayf al-Dawla executed 180 of his ghilman and mutilated over 200 others in retaliation. In the next spring, Tzimiskes invaded the Jazira, captured Dara, and scored a victory at Amida over an army of 10,000 led by one of Sayf al-Dawla's favourite lieutenants, the Circassian Nadja. Together with the parakoimomenos Basil Lekapenos, he then stormed Samosata, and even inflicted a heavy defeat on a relief army under Sayf al-Dawla himself. The Byzantines exploited Hamdanid weakness, and in 959 Leo Phokas led a raid as far as Cyrrhus, sacking several forts on his way.

Capture of Aleppo by the Byzantines, miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes

In 960, Sayf al-Dawla tried to use the absence of Nikephoros Phokas with much of his army on his Cretan expedition, to re-establish his position. At the head of a large army, he invaded Byzantine territory and sacked the fortress of Charsianon. On his return, however, his army was attacked and almost annihilated in an ambush by Leo Phokas and his troops. Once again, Sayf al-Dawla managed to escape, but his military power was broken. The local governors now began to make terms with the Byzantines on their own, and the Hamdanid's authority was increasingly questioned even in his own capital. Sayf al-Dawla now needed time, but as soon as Nikephoros Phokas returned victorious from Crete in summer 961, he began preparations for his next campaign in the east. The Byzantines launched their attack in the winter months, catching the Arabs off guard. They captured Anazarbus in Cilicia, and followed a deliberate policy of devastation and massacre to drive the Muslim population away. After Nikephoros repaired to Byzantine territory to celebrate Easter, Sayf al-Dawla entered Cilicia and claimed direct control over the province. He began to rebuild Anazarbus, but the work was left incomplete when Nikephoros recommenced his offensive in autumn, forcing Sayf al-Dawla to depart the region. The Byzantines, with an army reportedly 70,000 strong, proceeded to take Marash, Sisium, Duluk and Manbij, thereby securing the western passes over the Anti-Taurus Mountains. Sayf al-Dawla sent his army north under Nadja to meet the Byzantines, but Nikephoros ignored them. Instead, the Byzantine general led his troops south and in mid-December, they suddenly appeared before Aleppo. After defeating an improvised army before the city walls, the Byzantines stormed the city and plundered it, except for the citadel, which continued to hold out. The Byzantines departed, taking some 10,000 inhabitants, mostly young men, with them as captives. Returning to his ruined and half-deserted capital, Sayf al-Dawla repopulated it with refugees from Qinnasrin. The latter city was abandoned, resulting in a major blow to commerce in the region.

Illness, rebellions and death

In 963, the Byzantines remained quiet as Nikephoros was scheming to ascend the imperial throne, but Sayf al-Dawla suffered the loss of his sister, Khawla Sitt al-Nas, and was troubled by the onset of hemiplegia as well as worsening intestinal and urinary disorders, which henceforth confined him to a litter. The disease limited Sayf al-Dawla's ability to intervene personally in the affairs of his state; he soon abandoned Aleppo to the charge of his chamberlain, Qarquya, and spent most of his final years in Mayyafariqin, leaving his senior ghilman to carry the burden of warfare against the Byzantines and the various rebellions that sprung up in his domains. Sayf al-Dawla's physical decline, coupled with his military failures, especially the capture of Aleppo in 962, meant that his authority became increasingly shaky among his subordinates, for whom military success was the prerequisite for political legitimacy.

Thus, in 961, the emir of Tarsus, Ibn az-Zayyat, unsuccessfully tried to turn over his province to the Abbasids. In 963, his nephew, the governor of Harran, Hibat Allah, rebelled after killing Sayf al-Dawla's trusted Christian secretary in favour of his father, Nasir al-Dawla. Nadja was sent to subdue the rebellion, forcing Hibat Allah to flee to his father's court, but then Nadja himself rebelled and attacked Mayyafariqin, defended by Sayf al-Dawla's wife, with the intention of turning it over to the Buyids. He failed, and retreated to Armenia, where he managed to take over a few fortresses around Lake Van. In autumn 964 he again attempted to take Mayyafariqin, but was obliged to abandon it to subdue a revolt in his new Armenian domains. Sayf al-Dawla himself travelled to Armenia to meet his former lieutenant. Nadja re-submitted to his authority without resistance, but was murdered in winter 965 at Mayyafariqin, probably at the behest of Sayf al-Dawla's wife. At the same time, Sayf al-Dawla pursued an alliance with the Qarmatians of Bahrayn, who were active in the Syrian Desert, and opposed both to the Buyids of Iraq and to the Ikhshidids of Egypt.

Nevertheless, despite his illness and the spreading famine in his domains, in 963 Sayf al-Dawla launched three raids into Asia Minor. One of them even reached as far as Iconium, but Tzimiskes, named Nikephoros' successor as Domestic of the East, responded by launching an invasion of Cilicia in winter. He destroyed an Arab army at the 'Field of Blood' near Adana, and unsuccessfully besieged Mopsuestia before lack of supplies forced him to return home. In autumn 964, Nikephoros, now emperor, again campaigned in the East, and met little resistance. Mopsuestia was besieged but held out, until the famine that plagued the province forced the Byzantines to withdraw. Nikephoros however returned in the next year and stormed the city and deported its inhabitants. On 16 August 965, Tarsus was surrendered by its inhabitants, who secured safe passage to Antioch. Cilicia became a Byzantine province, and Nikephoros proceeded to re-Christianize it.

The year 965 also saw two further large-scale rebellions within Sayf al-Dawla's domains. The first was led by a former governor of the coast, the ex-Qarmatian Marwan al-Uqayli, which grew to threatening dimensions: the rebels captured Homs, defeated an army sent against them and advanced up to Aleppo, but al-Uqayli was wounded in the battle for the city and died shortly after. In autumn, a more serious revolt broke out in Antioch, led by the former governor of Tarsus, Rashiq ibn Abdallah al-Nasimi. The rebellion was obviously motivated by Sayf al-Dawla's inability to stop the Byzantine advance. After raising an army in the town, Rashiq led it to besiege Aleppo, which was defended by Sayf al-Dawla's ghilman, Qarquya and Bishara. Three months into the siege, the rebels had taken possession of part of the lower town, when Rashiq was killed. He was succeeded by a Daylamite named Dizbar. Dizbar defeated Qarquya and took Aleppo, but then departed the town to take control over the rest of northern Syria. The rebellion is described in the Life of Patriarch Christopher of Antioch, an ally of Sayf al-Dawla. In the same year, Sayf al-Dawla was also heavily affected by the death of two of his sons, Abu'l-Maqarim and Abu'l-Baraqat.

In early 966, Sayf al-Dawla asked for and received a short truce and an exchange of prisoners with the Byzantines, which was held at Samosata. He ransomed many Muslim captives at great cost, only to see them go over to Dizbar's forces. Sayf al-Dawla resolved to confront the rebel: carried on his litter, he returned to Aleppo, and on the next day defeated the rebel's army, helped by the defection of the Banu Kilab from Dizbar's army. The surviving rebels were ruthlessly punished. However, Sayf al-Dawla was still unable to confront Nikephoros when he resumed his advance. The Hamdanid ruler fled to the safety of the fortress of Shayzar while the Byzantines raided the Jazira, before turning on northern Syria, where they launched attacks on Manbij, Aleppo and even Antioch, whose newly appointed governor, Taki al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa, went over to them with the city's treasury. In early February 967, Sayf al-Dawla returned to Aleppo, where he died on 8 or 9 February (although a source claims that he died at Mayyafariqin). The sharif Abu Abdallah al-Aqsasi read the funeral prayers in Shi'a fashion. His body was embalmed and buried at a mausoleum in Mayyafariqin beside his mother and sister. A brick made of dust collected from his armour after his campaigns was reportedly placed under his head, according to his last will. He was succeeded by his only surviving son (by his cousin Sakhinah), the fifteen-year-old Abu'l-Ma'ali Sharif, better known as Sa'd al-Dawla, to whom Sayf al-Dawla ordered the oath of allegiance to be sworn before his death. Sa'd al-Dawla's reign was marked by internal turmoil, and it was not until 977 that he was able to secure control of his own capital. By this time, the rump emirate was almost powerless and became a bone of contention between the Byzantines and the new power of the Middle East, the Fatimid Caliphate, that had recently conquered Egypt.

Cultural activity and legacy

"Firm resolutions happen in proportion to the resolute,

and noble deeds come in proportion to the noble.
Small deeds are great in small men's eyes,
great deeds, in great men's eyes, are small.
Sayf al-Dawlah charges the army with the burden of his zeal,
which large hosts are not strong enough to bear,
And he demands of men what only he can do—

even lions do not claim as much."

Start of the victory ode on the recapture of Hadath in 954, composed by al-Mutanabbi (translation Geert Jan van Gelder)

Sayf al-Dawla surrounded himself with prominent intellectual figures, most notably the great poets al-Mutanabbi and Abu Firas, the preacher Ibn Nubata, the grammarian Ibn Jinni, and the noted philosopher al-Farabi. Al-Mutanabbi's time at the court of Sayf al-Dawla was arguably the pinnacle of his career as poet. During his nine years at Aleppo, al-Mutanabbi wrote 22 major panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla, which, according to the Arabist Margaret Larkin, "demonstrated a measure of real affection mixed with the conventional praise of premodern Arabic poetry." The celebrated historian and poet, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, was also part of the Hamdanid court, and dedicated his major encyclopedia of poetry and songs, Kitab al-Aghani, to Sayf al-Dawla. Abu Firas was Sayf al-Dawla's cousin and had been raised at his court, while Sayf al-Dawla had married his sister Sakhinah and appointed him governor of Manbij and Harran. Abi Firas accompanied Sayf al-Dawla on his wars against the Byzantines and was taken prisoner twice. It was during his second captivity in 962–966 that he wrote his famous Rumiyyat ("Roman", i.e., Byzantine) poems. Sayf al-Dawla's patronage of poets had a useful political dividend too: it was part of a court poet's duty to his patron to celebrate him in his work, and poetry helped spread the influence of Sayf al-Dawla and his court far across the Muslim world. If Sayf al-Dawla paid special favour to poets, his court contained scholars versed in religious studies, history, philosophy and astronomy as well, so that, as S. Humphreys comments, "in his time Aleppo could certainly have held its own with any court in Renaissance Italy". The Hamdanid emir himself probably also knew Greek, and was conversant with Ancient Greek culture.

敘利亞至賽弗·道萊時代時仍是堅定的遜尼派地區，但這位君主卻推崇什葉派十二伊瑪目派。During his reign, the founder of the Alawite sect, al-Khasibi, benefited from Sayf al-Dawla's patronage. Al-Khasibi turned Aleppo into the stable centre of his new sect, and sent preachers from there as far as Persia and Egypt with his teachings. 他的主要神學著作《偉大指引之書》（Kitab al-Hidaya al-Kubra）就是題獻給賽弗·道萊的。賽弗·道萊還在阿勒頗城牆外靠近一座基督教修道院處修建了伊瑪目海珊之子穆海辛（Muhassin）的陵墓，稱之為「講壇聖陵（Mashhad al-Dikka）」。 In the aftermath of the 962 sack of Aleppo, he invited Alid sharifs from Qum and Harran to settle in his capital. Sayf al-Dawla's active promotion of Shi'ism began a process whereby Syria came to host a large Shi'a population by the 12th century.

In addition, Sayf al-Dawla played a crucial role in the history of the two cities he chose as his capitals, Aleppo and Mayyafariqin. His choice raised them from obscurity to the status of major urban centres; Sayf al-Dawla lavished attention on them, endowing them with new buildings, as well as taking care of their fortification. Aleppo especially benefited from Sayf al-Dawla's patronage: of special note is the great palace of Halba outside Aleppo, as well as the gardens and aqueduct which he built there. Aleppo's rise to the chief city in northern Syria dates from his reign.

Political legacy

Depiction of Sayf al-Dawla (ὁ Χαβδᾶν, "the Habdan") and his court, from the 13th-century Madrid Skylitzes

Sayf al-Dawla has remained to modern times one of the best-known medieval Arab leaders. His bravery and leadership of the war against the Byzantines, despite the heavy odds against him, his literary activities and patronage of poets which lent his court an unmatched cultural brilliance, the calamities which struck him towards his end—defeat, illness and betrayal—have made him, in the words of Bianquis, "from his time until the present day", the personification of the "Arab chivalrous ideal in its most tragic aspect".

Sayf al-Dawla's military record was, in the end, one of failure: the Byzantine advance continued after his death, culminating in the fall of Antioch in 969. Aleppo was transformed into a vassal state tributary to Byzantium, and for the next fifty years it would become the bone of contention between the Byzantines and a new Muslim power, the Egypt-based Fatimid Caliphate. In retrospect, the Hamdanids' military defeat was inevitable, given the disparity of strength and resources with the Empire. This weakness was compounded by the failure of Nasir al-Dawla to support his brother in his wars against Byzantium, by the Hamdanids' preoccupation with internal revolts, and the feebleness of their authority over much of their domains. As the historian Mark Whittow comments, Sayf al-Dawla's martial reputation often masks the reality that his power was "a paper tiger, short of money, short of soldiers and with little real base in the territories he controlled". The defeat and expulsion of several Arab tribes in the great revolt of 955 also had unforeseen long-term consequences, as it left the Banu Kilab as the dominant Arab tribe in northern Syria. Associating themselves with the Hamdanids as auxiliaries, the Kilab managed to infiltrate the local cities, opening the path to their takeover of the emirate of Aleppo under the Mirdasid dynasty in the 11th century.

A number of distinguished officials served as his viziers, starting with Abu Ishaq Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Karariti, who had previously been in Abbasid employ. He was succeeded by Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Sulayman ibn Fahd, and finally by the celebrated Abu'l-Husayn Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Maghribi. In the position of qadi of Aleppo, the Hamdanid emir dismissed the incumbent, Abu Tahir Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mathil, and appointed Abu Husayn Ali ibn Abdallah al-Raqqi in his stead. When the latter was killed by the Byzantines in 960, Ibn Mathil was restored, and later succeeded by Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Ishaq al-Hanafi. While fiscal and military affairs were centralized in the two capitals of Aleppo and Mayyafariqin, but local government was based on fortified settlements, which were entrusted by Sayf al-Dawla to relatives or close associates.

The picture presented by his contemporaries on the impact of Sayf al-Dawla's policies on his own domains is not favourable. Despite the Hamdanids' origins among the Arab bedouin, the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo was a highly centralized state on the model of other contemporary Islamic polities, relying on a standing, salaried army of Turkish ghilman and Daylamite infantry which required enormous sums. This led to heavy taxation, as well as massive confiscation of private estates to sustain the Hamdanid military. The 10th-century chronicler Ibn Hawqal, who travelled the Hamdanid domains, paints a dismal picture of economic oppression and exploitation of the common people, linked with the Hamdanid practice of expropriating extensive estates in the most fertile areas and practising a monoculture of cereals destined to feed the growing population of Baghdad. This was coupled with heavy taxation—Sayf al-Dawla and Nasir al-Dawla are said to have become the wealthiest princes in the Muslim world—which allowed them to maintain their lavish courts, but at a heavy price to their subjects' long-term prosperity. According to Hugh Kennedy "even the capital of Aleppo seems to have been more prosperous under the following Mirdasid dynasty than under the Hamdanids", while Bianquis claims that Sayf al-Dawla's wars and economic policies both contributed to a permanent alteration in the landscape of the regions they ruled: "by destroying orchards and peri-urban market gardens, by enfeebling the once vibrant polyculture and by depopulating the sedentarised steppe terrain of the frontiers, the Hamdanids contributed to the erosion of the deforested land and to the seizure by semi-nomadic tribes of the agricultural lands of these regions in the 11th century".

Bibliography

• Ahmad, Zaid. [[[:Template:Gbooks]] The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldūn]. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 2003. ISBN 978-0-203-63389-2. 
• Amabe, Fukuzo. [[[:Template:Gbooks]] Urban Autonomy in Medieval Islam: Damascus, Aleppo, Cordoba, Toledo, Valencia and Tunis]. Leiden and Boston: Brill. 2016. ISBN 978-90-04-31026-1. 
• Bianquis, Thierry. Mirdās, Banū or Mirdāsids. Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P.; Pellat, Ch. (編). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume VII: Mif–Naz. Leiden: E. J. Brill: 115–122. 1993. ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2. 
• Bianquis, Thierry. Sayf al-Dawla. Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P.; Lecomte, G. (編). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume IX: San–Sze. Leiden: E. J. Brill: 103–110. 1997. ISBN 978-90-04-10422-8. 
• Bianquis, Thierry. [[[:Template:Gbooks]] Autonomous Egypt from Ibn Ṭūlūn to Kāfūr, 868–969]. Petry, Carl F. (編). The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 1: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998: 86–119. ISBN 0-521-47137-0 （英語）. 
• Canard, Marius. Ḥamdānids. Lewis, B.; Ménage, V. L.; Pellat, Ch.; Schacht, J. (編). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden: E. J. Brill: 126–131. 1971. OCLC 495469525. 
• El Tayib, Abdullah. Abū Firās al-Ḥamdānī. Ashtiany, Julia; Johnstone, T. M.; Latham, J. D.; Serjeant, R. B.; Smith, G. Rex (編). ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990: 315–327. ISBN 978-0-521-24016-1. 
• Hamori, Andras. The Composition of Mutanabbī's Panegyrics to Sayf Al-Dawla. Leiden and New York: BRILL. 1992. ISBN 978-90-04-09366-9. 
• Humphreys, Stephen. Syria. Robinson, Chase F. (編). The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010: 506–540. ISBN 978-0-521-83823-8. 
• Ibn Khallikan. Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Translated from the Arabic. Vol. I. 由Baron Mac Guckin de Slane翻譯. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. 1842 （英語）. 
• Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century Second. Harlow: Longman. 2004. ISBN 978-0-582-40525-7. 
• Kraemer, Joel L. Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the Buyid Age 2nd Revised. Leiden: BRILL. 1992. ISBN 978-90-04-09736-0. 
• Larkin, Margaret. Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Meri, Josef W. (編). Medieval Islamic civilization, an Encyclopedia. Vol. 1, A–K, Index. New York: Routledge: 542–543. 2006. ISBN 978-0-415-96691-7. 
• McCormick, Michael. Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-521-38659-3. 
• McGeer, Eric. Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Studies. 2008. ISBN 978-0-88402-224-4. 
• Moosa, Matti. Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0-8156-2411-0. 
• Özaydin, Abdülkerim. Seyfüddevle el-Hamdânî. TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 37 (Sevr Antlaşmasi – Suveylîh). 伊斯坦堡: 土耳其宗教事務局，伊斯蘭研究中心: 35–36. 2009年. ISBN 9789753895897 （土耳其語）. 
• Ter-Ghewondyan, Aram. The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia. 由Nina G. Garsoïan翻譯. Lisbon: Livraria Bertrand. 1976 [1965]. OCLC 490638192 （英語）. 
• Toynbee, Arnold. Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World. London and New York: Oxford University Press. 1973. ISBN 978-0-19-215253-4. 
• Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1997. ISBN 0-8047-2630-2 （英語）. 
• van Gelder, G. J. H. Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology. NYU Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-8147-3826-9. 
• Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. 1996. ISBN 978-0-520-20496-6 （英語）. 

Further reading

• Ayyıldız, Esat. El-Mutenebbî’nin Seyfüddevle’ye Methiyeleri (Seyfiyyât) [Al-Mutanabbī’s Panegyrics to Sayf al-Dawla (Sayfiyyāt)]. BEÜ İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi. 2020, 7 (2): 497–518. doi:10.33460/beuifd.810283 （Turkish）.  引文格式1維護：未識別語文類型 (link)
• Canard, Marius. Sayf al-Daula. Recueil de textes relatifs à l'émir Sayf al-Daula le Hamdanide, avec annotations, édité par M. Canard. Algiers: J. Carbonel. 1934 （法語）. 
• Canard, Marius. Les H'amdanides et l'Arménie. Annales de l'Institut d'Études Orientales. 1948, VII: 77–94 [19 July 2012] （法語）. 
• Canard, Marius. Histoire de la dynastie des Hamdanides de Jazîra et de Syrie. Algiers: Faculté des Lettres d'Alger. 1951. OCLC 715397763 （法語）. 
• Garrood, William. The Byzantine Conquest of Cilicia and the Hamdanids of Aleppo, 959–965. Anatolian Studies. 2008, 58: 127–140. ISSN 0066-1546. JSTOR 20455416. doi:10.1017/s006615460000870x. 

外部連結

• al-Mutanabbi to Sayf al-Dawla. Princeton Online Arabic Poetry Project. [17 July 2012]. 

新頭銜

Emir of Aleppo 945–967

繼任者： Sa'd al-Dawla

生平

to which al-Ikhshid's governor of Aleppo, , belonged, and entered the city unopposed in October 944.