borderlands. With the onset of the Abbasid Caliphate's terminal period of crisis after 928, control of the Muslim frontier cities shifted to the Ikhshidid and Hamdanid dynasties. In the 930s, under the leadership of John Kourkouas, the Byzantines broke through and conquered Malatya and most of the Mesopotamian sector of the Thughūr. Although the Hamdanid emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla (), managed to stem the Byzantine advance, his success was only temporary: in 964–965, Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas () captured Cilicia, followed soon after by Antioch, while the Hamdanids of Aleppo became a tributary state. Mamluk–Turkmen frontier zone After their conquest of Syria in the late 13th century, the Egyptian Mamluks re-established the al-thughūr wa-l-ʿawāṣim as a defensive zone to shield Syria from the Turkoman states of Asia Minor and the Caucasus, including at a later stage the Ottoman Empire. Like the earlier model, the thughūr were divided into a Syrian and a Mesopotamian march, as well as a rear zone along northern Syria. The Mamluks entrusted the defence of the Syrian/Cilician march to the client Turkmen principality of the Ramadanids, while the Dulkadirid principality fulfilled the same role in the Mesopotamian thughūr. To safeguard their control of the frontier zone, and to keep the two client beyliks separated and under control, the Mamluks also retained garrisons in seven strategically important sites: Tarsus, Ayas, Serfendikar, Sis, Darende, Malatya and Divriği. Ahmad al-Qalqashandi gives the subdivisions (niyābāt) of the Mamluk thughūr as follows: eight for the Syrian sector (Malatya, Divriği, Darende, Elbistan, Ayas, Tarsus and Adana, Serfendikar and Sis) and three on the Euphrates sector (al-Bira, Qal'at Ja'bar and al-Ruha). See also Ghazi warriors ribāṭ and maḥras, typical Muslim fortifications Digenes Akritas Karbeas References Sources Further reading Arabic words and phrases Abbasid–Byzantine wars Syria under the Abbasid Caliphate History of Turkey Subdivisions of the Abbasid Caliphate Military history of the Abbasid Caliphate States and territories established in the 8th century Marches (country subdivision)