Bakjur

Bakjur was a Circassian military slave (mamluk or ghulam) who served the Hamdanids of Aleppo and later the Fatimids of Egypt. He seized control of Aleppo in 975 and governed it until 977, when the rightful Hamdanid ruler, Sa'd al-Dawla, regained it. Given the governorship of Homs, in 983 he went over to the Fatimids and launched an attack on Aleppo, which was defeated through the intervention of Byzantine troops. Bakjur then became governor of Damascus for the Fatimids until 988. He made a last attempt to capture Aleppo in 991, which again was defeated thanks to Byzantine assistance. Bakjur was captured by Sa'd al-Dawla and executed.

Bakjur was a Circassian military slave (mamluk or ghulam), originally recruited by the Hamdanids. By 969, he had risen to be the deputy of Qarquya, the powerful chamberlain (hajib) of the emir Sayf al-Dawla. After the latter's death in 967 Qarquya took over rule of Aleppo, effectively dispossessing Sayf al-Dawla's son Sa'd al-Dawla, who after long wanderings managed to find refuge in Homs.

In 975, Bakjur deposed and imprisoned Qarquya and seized Aleppo for himself. This encouraged Sa'd al-Dawla to attempt to recover his father's capital. Aided by some of his father's ghulams, and, crucially, the powerful Banu Kilab tribe living around Aleppo, Sa'd al-Dawla besieged Aleppo and captured it. Qarquya was set free and again entrusted with the affairs of state until his death a few years later, while Bakjur was given the governorship of Homs in compensation. Sa'd al-Dawla had recovered control of his emirate, but his position was precarious: Aleppo was situated between two great powers, the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate, who vied for control over the Hamdanid emirate, and northern Syria with it. Since 969, Aleppo had been tributary to the Byzantines, a fact Sa'd al-Dawla resented. On the other hand, he was dependent on Byzantine aid to prevent the Fatimid caliph, al-Aziz, from annexing the emirate outright. As a result, his policy vacillated between the two powers.

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