Battle of Balanjar (650s)

Infobox Military Conflict

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caption="Khazar warrior with captive", based on reconstruction by Norman Finkelshteyn
conflict=Battle of Marj Ardebil
partof=the First Khazar-Arab War
date=730 CE
place=Outside Balanjar
result=Khazar victory
combatant1=Khazar Khaganate
combatant2=The Islamic Caliphate
commander1=Unknown (possibly Irbis)
commander2=Abd ar-Rahman ibn Rabiah
strength1=?
strength2=?
casualties1=?
casualties2=?

The Battle of Balanjar was a battle that took place during the First Khazar-Arab War between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and the Caliphate, whose commanding general was Abd ar-Rahman ibn Rabiah.

Ibn Rabiah, probably the brother of Salman ibn Rabiah, governor of Armenia, was charged with the task of conquering the Khazars and, to this purpose, invaded the northern Caucasus for in the late 640s CE. In 652 (or according to some sources, 642) Abd ar-Rahman and his army met a Khazar force outside Balanjar and were annihilated. According to Arab historians such as al-Tabari, both sides in the battle used catapaults against the other.

ee also

*Battle of Balanjar

References

*Kevin Alan Brook. "The Jews of Khazaria." 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006.
*Douglas M. Dunlop. "The History of the Jewish Khazars," Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954.
*Peter B. Golden. "Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars." Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1980.
*Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, "Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century." Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982.