Barjik

Barjik (died 731) was a Khazar prince who flourished in the late 720s. He is described by al-Tabari as "the son of the Khagan"; his exact status and position is unknown though he may have been the Bek.

Barjik led the Khazar armies in the Khazar-Arab wars of the early 8th century. In 730, he won a victory at the Battle of Marj Ardabil, sacking and occupying the city. He killed the Arab general al-Djarrah al-Hakami and mounted the latter's head on his throne as a trophy. This enraged the Umayyad troops who faced him the following year outside of Mosul, and Barjik was defeated and slain in the ensuing battle.

Sources

• Dunlop, Douglas M. (1954). The History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. OCLC 459245222.
• Semyonov, Igor G. (2008). "Эпизоды биографии хазарского принца Барсбека" [Biographical episodes of the Khazar prince Barsbek]. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual International Conference on Jewish Studies, Part 2 (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow. pp. 282–297.