Kerbogha
11/12th-century ruler of Mosul
Qiwam al-Dawla Kerbogha (Turkish: Kürboğa), known as Kerbogha or Karbughā, was the Turkoman atabeg of Mosul during the First Crusade and was renowned as a soldier.
Early life
Kerbogha was a Seljuk Turk who owed his success to his military talent. He supported Malik-Shah I's wife Terken Khatun and her four-year-old son Mahmud I who was installed on the throne at Baghdad. Kerbogha was sent with an army to secure Isfahan and to arrest Berkyaruq. However, Mahmud's supporters were defeated by Berkyaruq' forces at Isfahan in January 1093. A month later, he joined the Seljuk prince Ismail ibn Yaquti against Berkyaruq army which was victorious once more. Later on, Kerbogha joined Berkyaruq, then he was sent in 1094 to fight against Tutush I who declared himself Sultan in Syria, but he was imprisoned along with his brother Altuntaş in Aleppo then Homs. Upon the death of Tutush, he was released by Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan.
In 1095, he served under the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustazhir in his attempted reconquest of Aleppo. In 1096, he managed to capture Harran, Nisbis and Mosul, in which he ended the Uqaylid Dynasty rule.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kerbogha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.