Baniyas, Syria
Coordinates: 35.150886, 35.949479
Qalaat al-Marqab is a castle near Baniyas Syria, on the Mediterranean coast. Though the site was home to an Arab fortification from 1062 CE, Qalaat al-Marqab is known today as a Crusader Castle, which was captured by the Byzantine Empire in 1104 CE.
The castle continued to exchange hands throughout the Crusades, eventually ending as a district centre of the Mamluk province of Tripoli.
The castle is known from multiple textual sources, including writings of the traveller Ibn Battuta.
History
According to Arab sources, the site of Margat Castle was first fortified in 1062 by Muslims who continued to hold it within the Christian Principality of Antioch in the aftermath of the First Crusade.
When the Principality was defeated at the Battle of Harran in 1104, the Byzantine Empire took advantage of their weakness and captured Margat from the Muslims.
A few years later it was captured by Tancred, Prince of Galilee, regent of Antioch, and became part of the Principality.
In the 1170s, it was controlled by Reynald II Mazoir of Antioch as a vassal of the count of Tripoli.
The fortress was so large that it had its own household officials and a number of rear-vassals.
Reynaud’s son Bertrand sold it to the Hospitallers in 1186 as it was too expensive for the Mazoir family to maintain.
After some rebuilding and expansion by the Hospitallers it became their headquarters in Syria. Under Hospitaller control, its fourteen towers were thought to be impregnable.
Seige Led my Mamluk Sultan
In September 1281 the Hospitallers of Margat dispatched a contingent of troops to support the Mongol invasion of Syria, which the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Qalawun successfully prevented after defeating the coalition at Homs.
To punish the Hospitallers, Qalawun clandestinely raised an army in Damascus and besieged Margat on 17 April 1285.
After a 38-day siege during which sappers and miners managed to dig several tunnels underneath the fortress’s walls, a mine destroyed a salient of the southernmost wall.
The defenders panicked and on discovering the numerous tunnels around the fortress, surrendered to the Mamluk commander Fakhr al-Din Mukri on 23 May, with Qalwun entering Margat two days later.
The siege was witnessed by eleven-year-old Abu’l Fida and his father, the Ayyubid governor of Hama.
Qalawun allowed the Hospitallers to leave with everything they could carry.
Rather than destroy Margat as he did with other fortresses, he repaired its defences and placed a strong garrison there due to its strategic value.
