Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (94 page)

Karak’s last Ayyubid ruler was the prince al-Mughīth Fakhr al-Dīn
, son of
, who had great political ambitions to extend his rule far beyond the territories of Karak. With the arrival of the Mongols in the region he decided to submit to Hülegü. The defeat of the Mongols at
Jālūt brought an end to this proposed alliance.
¹⁶⁵
In 661/1263 al-Mughīth accepted the Mamluk sultan’s invitation to Baysān, where he was immediately executed,
¹⁶⁶
although initially he was promised safe conduct. Baybars set out to besiege Karak, but it turned out to be a short affair. Karak was soon handed over to Baybars by a delegation that included al-Mughīth’s sons, the
, the
and a group of men representing the town’s population.
¹⁶⁷

In the course of 74 years of Ayyubid rule in Trans-Jordan Karak had become an important administrative center, although it may have already began to assume this role during the short period of Crusader rule.

Karak was to play an important role in early Mamluk politics, but it was not directly involved in the defense of the Sultanate. The town and its fortifications had not been attacked by the Mongols and the fortress did not suffer any destruction.
Once the Mongols had retreated beyond the Euphrates there was no political entity that cast an eye on the site or wished to control it. The ranks no longer posed a threat to the merchants or pilgrims who used this route. The local Bedouin tribes submitted to the governor, though later, during the reign of al-Ashraf Khalīl, they gained strength and took hold of the nearby fortress of Shawbak. It would seem that in order to secure this main highway the existing fortress would suffice. If a Mamluk army could be sent from Cairo to the Euphrates, it could no doubt reach Karak within a couple of days.

And yet Karak received the sultan’s full attention and was among the first fortresses to undergo reconstruction. The wok began and ended during Baybars’ reign and was not left to his successor. The major reason for this large investment seems to have been the sultan’s decision to turn Karak together with the nearby fortress of Shawbak into a large regional granary. In his treaty on famines, Maqrīzī reports that, during the severe famine of 695/1295–6,

More than twenty thousand
ghirarahs
[sacks of grain] that were stored in Karak, Shawbak, and [along] the Palestinian littoral were sent to the cities, [although] they had been kept originally as provisions and destined to supply military expeditions.
¹⁶⁸

This information ties in ell with Ibn Shaddād’s description of Baybars’ personal inspection of the granary at Karak immediately after rebuilding the fortress and strengthening the garrison.
¹⁶⁹
Karak’s location between Cairo and Damascus and the agricultural prosperity of the region no doubt turned it into an important storage site for military expeditions on their way to Syria. It was only during times of acute crisis that wheat stored in southern Jordan was sent to Egyptian cities.

Thee were several other reasons as to why the fortress was enlarged and strengthened, one of them being the fear that the main line of communications between Cairo and Damascus might be severed. Although the Mongols never set foot in Trans-Jordan after 1260, they remained a threat. Other than external enemies, internal threats always existed. The possibility that a Mamluk amir might seize power was a scenario that most Mamluk sultans were aware of. Since Karak had been an independent principality during most of the Ayyubid period, this was a more tangible threat than a renewed Mongol invasion.

A partial explanation may be found in the administrative upgrading that Karak underwent during this period. Turning Karak into a
Mamlaka
, and institutionalizing what was already a regional administrative center in the Ayyubid period may have brought about extensive building.
¹⁷⁰
The fact that Karak was an established fortress with a large garrison and a well organized regional town no doubt gave it preference over other fortresses along the Darb al-Malik.
¹⁷¹

There is also a strong economic argument that should be added to this discussion. Later fourteenth-century sources and new archaeological evidence show that Trans-Jordan had considerable economic potential, not to be relinquished or ignored by the new Mamluk regime. Horses were apparently one of the goods exported from this region. Some of the sultan’s mounts were bought from local tribesman round Karak.
¹⁷²
During most of the Ayyubid period and Baybars’ reign a treasury was kept in the fortress; it is often mentioned by the chroniclers and possibly indicates the importance and wealth of the region.
¹⁷³
According to Ibn
, Baybars had large sums of money transferred from Cairo and deposited at Karak;
¹⁷⁴
Ibn Shaddād only says that the sultan brought his treasury to the fortress.
¹⁷⁵
While it seems likely that during the Ayyubid period, when Karak was an independent principality, revenues and taxes collected from the region were safely deposited at the treasury,
¹⁷⁶
it is not quite clear why Baybars should have transferred his treasury or kept an additional treasury at Karak. If indeed Karak served as a regional commercial center with storage space for agricultural goods and large amounts of cash, such functions explain the fortress plan and the Mamluk decision to continue to invest in its defenses.

The fortress at Karak clearly illustrates that the concept of large and powerful fortifications does not always correspond to the defense imperatives, but may manifest the need of a new regime to establish its presence and display its power. The provision of law, order, and security helped to maintain and strengthen a regional economy in times of transition from one regime to another.

Some differences of opinion

The plan of the fortress and the architectural changes Karak underwent while the Ayyubids held it (1189–1263), and later during the first Mamluk decades, is a more difficult problem to resolve than I had at first supposed. The truth of the matter is that unlike
, where Mamluk and Ayyubid construction can be differentiated without too much difficulty, at Karak this is not the case and, identifying each phase according to architectural characteristics is not an easy task. Although some inscriptions were found, most are no longer
in situ
and it is not always clear where exactly they were found and to what buildings they belonged.

Several scholars have written about the fortress, though none has explicitly defined the different Muslim phases. The Muslim construction at Karak is generally referred to as belonging to the “Arab period,” as “post-1188”
¹⁷⁷
or as “later Muslim work.”
¹⁷⁸
According to Boase and Pringle the southern keep was built by
,
¹⁷⁹
though according to Sourdel it was built by Baybars.
¹⁸⁰
Milwright claims that some architectural changes were made by the Ayyubids, though this was mainly repair and maintenance work rather than large-scale building.
¹⁸¹
Deschamps, who in the early 1930s carried out the most comprehensive survey of the site, concluded on the basis of both the architecture and the contemporary Muslim sources that much of the fortress was repaired by the Ayyubids. The main construction work, however, was done after Baybars had taken Karak, when both the fortress and parts of the town walls were rebuilt. And yet the legend on the citadel plan drawn by Deschamps does not define who built what and he too writes “travaux Francs (1142–1188)” and “travaux Arabes (après 1188).”
¹⁸²
Johns, who studied the town and the region of Karak, says that both the western salient and the southern front were built by Baybars.
¹⁸³