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The Kurdish dynasty of the Marwanids was founded in the last quarter of the tenth century by a Humaydi Kurdish chieftain from the Bahasma hills near Khizan (the modern Hizan), a small town south of Lake Van.1 His name was Abu-Abdallah Husayn b. Dushanj (or Dostak) Harbukhti, but to the world at large he was known simply as Badh. One contemporary, the Buwayhid Daylamite king Adud al-Dawla Pana-Khusraw of Persia, described him as an "enterprising, energetic and treacherous knave who ought not to be spared."2
As with most adventurers with high political ambition during the ancient and medieval period, Badh began in obscurity, then suddenly appeared in the garb of power. His first military exploit in A.D. 978-79 was to conquer the Armenian canton of Apahunik' (Kurdish Shahapivand), then on the verge of being ceded by the Byzantine emperor Basil Il to David the Great, the Armeno-Georgian prince of Taik' (Kurdish Pazikan/Basean) and a fellow Orthodox Christian. Apahunik' was an inducement for David to support Basil and his general Bardas Phocas against the rebel warlord Bardas Sclents, then in control of much of Anatolia. David, who sent numerous reinforcements to Basil, seems to have been slow in occupying his new possession. This gave Badh the opportunity to occupy the famous stronghold of Manzikert (Malazgird), the capital of Apahunik' and one of the oldest cities on the Armenian Plateau. There he restored the city ramparts demolished by Bardas Phocas a decade before. About the same time, Badh seized the strategic fortresses of Akhlat and Arjish, the first located at the northwest corner of Lake Van, the other at the northeast comer.3 He may also have annexed Bitlis, west of Lake Van, and perhaps Perkri, also known as Barkiri, to the northeast of the lake. He dius occupied most, if not all, of the strategic crescent of land lying along the northern and western shores of the lake. Home to both Christian and Muslim, these territories were politically and demographically Armenian, but they also had a large and increasing population of Kurds and a smaller and decreasing number of Arabs. From this vantage point, Badh descended upon the Byzantine province and former Armenian principality of Taron, west of the lake. There he sacked the capital city...