# Marwan ibn al-Faraj
**Marwan ibn al-Faraj** (مروان بن الفرج) was a member of the [Marwanid dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/marwanid-dynasty), a Kurdish house that ruled northern [Mesopotamia](https://www.edgepedia.org/mesopotamia) from about 990 to 1085 with its capital at Mayyafariqin.[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) His son [Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Marwan](https://www.edgepedia.org/abu-ali-al-hasan-ibn-marwan) took power in 990 and gave the family's state its name, the "sons of Marwan" (Banu Marwan).[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026)
| Key fact | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Identity | Father of al-Hasan ibn Marwan; eponym of the Marwanid dynasty[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) |
| Name forms | Marwan ibn al-Faraj; also Marwan ibn Kak[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) |
| Dynasty | Kurdish house ruling Diyar Bakr, AH 380–478 (990–1085), capital Mayyafariqin[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [4](https://kurdishpeople.org/marwanids/) |
| Dynasty's predecessor | Abu Shuja Badh, killed in AH 380 (990–991)[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) |
| Reign of Nasr al-Dawla | AH 402–453 (1011–1061), over fifty years[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) |
## Name and family
The sources give the eponym's patronymic in two forms. One line of modern writing calls him Marwan ibn al-Faraj; others call him Marwan ibn Kak.[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) What the sources establish about him personally is his fatherhood: al-Hasan ibn Marwan, who took the kunya Abu Ali, and his brothers Mumahhid al-Dawla and Abu Nasr Nasr al-Dawla, were his sons, and the dynasty took its name from him rather than from its effective founder.[1](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) • [3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026)
The family's rise ran through Badh ([Badh ibn Dustak](https://www.edgepedia.org/badh-ibn-dustak)), who was killed in AH 380 (990–991) after a failed attempt to seize Mosul.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/)
## The house of Marwan, 990–1085
On Badh's death in 990, Marwan's eldest son al-Hasan (Abu Ali) came to power. One account has him marching with a body of troops to Hisn Kayfa, promising marriage to Badh's widow, and recovering Mayyafariqin, Amid, and his uncle's other possessions; another has him returning from Hisn Kayfa, marrying the widow, and retaking Mayyafariqin and Amid from the Hamdanids.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [6](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/marwanid-dynasty-kurdish-diyarbakir) He reigned from 990 to 997 and was assassinated at Amid in 997.[2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) • [6](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/marwanid-dynasty-kurdish-diyarbakir)
His brother Mumahhid al-Dawla Sa'id, formerly governor of Jazirat Ibn Umar (Cizre), succeeded him and ruled until AH 402 (1011–1012).[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) The third brother, Abu Nasr Nasr al-Dawla, then ruled for over fifty years, AH 402–453 (1011–1061), the period one history calls the dynasty's golden age.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) The last amir was Nasir al-Dawla Mansur.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [5](https://tojqi.net/index.php/journal/article/download/1607/version/1623/875/1758)
## Political influence
The dynasty's lasting institutions were concentrated at Mayyafariqin. [Nasr al-Dawla](https://www.edgepedia.org/nasr-al-dawla) built a new citadel, a bimaristan (hospital), bridges, and baths, and his court drew scholars and poets.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) Mayyafariqin, previously not a minting town, became a significant coin-minting center under the emirate, though the house minted only silver dirhams, never gold dinars or copper fils.[7](https://journals.uhd.edu.iq/index.php/juhd/article/view/1459)
## Military style
The Marwanids relied on Kurdish tribal cavalry drawn from the Humaydi and allied confederations rather than on Turkic ghilman, the slave soldiers used by the Buyids and Seljuks.[6](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/marwanid-dynasty-kurdish-diyarbakir)
## End of the dynasty
The sources disagree on how and when Marwanid rule ended. According to *The Structure of the Kurdish Emirates in the Abbasid Era (750–1258)*, other accounts place the final abolition in 1096 after the last Mansur died in prison following arrest through Ibn Jahir's influence.[5](https://tojqi.net/index.php/journal/article/download/1607/version/1623/875/1758)
## Historians' assessment
Modern scholarship treats the Marwanid state as a cosmopolitan frontier state that mediated relations among Kurds, Arabs, Byzantines, Armenians, Persians, and Turks, and one that is unusually well chronicled in the Tarikh Mayyafariqin wa-Amid of [Ibn al-Azraq al-Fariqi](https://www.edgepedia.org/ibn-al-azraq-al-fariqi) (1116–1176), a twelfth-century official.[8](https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781399513029.003.0010) • [9](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474485951-027/html) • [10](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/oad/article/1731499) • [11](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jms/article/563498) The same scholarship identifies structural weaknesses: tribal divisions and the absence of a clear succession mechanism prevented the Kurdish emirates, the Marwanids among them, from consolidating.[5](https://tojqi.net/index.php/journal/article/download/1607/version/1623/875/1758) The medieval sources also pose chronological problems; a study in the [Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society](https://www.edgepedia.org/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society) notes that one vizier is credited with two terms of office for which three years scarcely suffice, and that his successor Ibn Jahir was appointed only in AH 430 (1038–1039).[12](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/art-vthe-mariwanid-dynasty-at-mayyafariqin-in-the-tenth-and-eleventh-centuries-ad/093866E40BDBD25C9C39B5EEFBB0827D)
## Legacy
The dynasty's name preserved Marwan's.[4](https://kurdishpeople.org/marwanids/) Its built legacy, the citadel and bimaristan of Mayyafariqin and the Ten-Arched bridge at Amid, and its silver coinage from the Mayyafariqin mint, remained the concrete record of a century of Kurdish rule in Diyar Bakr.[3](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026) • [2](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/) • [7](https://journals.uhd.edu.iq/index.php/juhd/article/view/1459)
## References
1. [Al-Hasan ibn Marwan: Second Ruler of the Marwanid Kurdish Dynasty – Kurdish History](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/al-hasan-ibn-marwan)
2. [The Marwanids – History of Kurdistan](https://historyofkurd.com/english/2020/05/05/the-marwanids/)
3. [المروانيون](http://www.arab-ency.com.sy/details/163026)
4. [Marwanids – KurdishPeople.Org](https://kurdishpeople.org/marwanids/)
5. [The Structure of the Kurdish Emirates in the Abbasid Era (750–1258) – TOJQI](https://tojqi.net/index.php/journal/article/download/1607/version/1623/875/1758)
6. [The Marwanid Dynasty: A Kurdish Golden Age in Diyarbakir and the Jazira (983–1085) – Kurdish History](https://www.kurdish-history.com/post/marwanid-dynasty-kurdish-diyarbakir)
7. [The Mayyafariqin City, a Hub of Coin Minting during the Marwanid Emirate – Journal of University of Human Development](https://journals.uhd.edu.iq/index.php/juhd/article/view/1459)
8. [A Cosmopolitan Frontier State: The Marwānids of Diyār Bakr, 990–1085 – Edinburgh University Press](https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781399513029.003.0010)
9. [A Cosmopolitan Frontier State: Relations among the Kurds, Arabs, Byzantines, Armenians, Persians and Turks – De Gruyter](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474485951-027/html)
10. [Marwānids and Their Architectural Patronage in Upper Mesopotamia (983-1085 CE) – Ortaçağ Araştırmaları Dergisi](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/oad/article/1731499)
11. [Çand û Şaristanîya Kurdên Merwanî – The Journal of Mesopotamian Studies](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jms/article/563498)
12. [Art. V., The Mariwānid Dynasty at Mayyāfāriqīn – Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/art-vthe-mariwanid-dynasty-at-mayyafariqin-in-the-tenth-and-eleventh-centuries-ad/093866E40BDBD25C9C39B5EEFBB0827D)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › Other history › Middle East and North Africa › Later Abbasid period, Buyids and Hamdanids (945 to 1258) › Dynasties and rulers*
*Initially written Sep 24, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license