Silvan (Farqîn): Mayyafariqin, Capital of the Marwanid Kurds
- Mero Ranyayi
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Introduction
Silvan, known to Kurds as Farqîn and to the medieval world as Mayyafariqin, is today a modest district town in Diyarbakir Province. But a thousand years ago it was a royal capital — the seat of the Marwanids, the Kurdish dynasty that ruled the Diyar Bakr region during the brilliant period sometimes called the Kurdish Intermezzo.
This is the fourth entry in our geographic series on Greater Kurdistan. It follows directly from our profile of Diyarbakir (Amed): the Marwanids ruled both cities, and Mayyafariqin was their crown. To stand in Silvan is to stand at the centre of one of the first great Kurdish states.
Quick Facts
Common Name: Silvan
Kurdish Name: Farqîn
Historic Names: Mayyafariqin (Arabic); Martyropolis (Greek); Np’rkert (Armenian); Mayperqiṭ (Syriac)
Region: Bakur (Northern Kurdistan)
Province: Diyarbakir Province, Turkey
District Population: About 86,000 (2022); the district is populated by Kurds
Famous As: Capital of the Kurdish Marwanid dynasty (10th–11th centuries)
Nearby Landmark: The Malabadi Bridge, whose name means “house of Badh” in Kurdish
Known For: Its Marwanid and Artuqid heritage and its deep late-antique Christian past as Martyropolis
Contents
Origins: Martyropolis, the City of Martyrs
Long before it was a Kurdish capital, the town was a fortified late-antique city on the Roman–Persian frontier. The Greeks knew it as Martyropolis, the “city of martyrs,” a name tied to Bishop Marutha of Mayyafariqin, a famous scholar, physician and diplomat who served as a Byzantine envoy to the Sasanian court and gathered there the relics of Christians killed in the persecutions of the Persian king Shapur II. The town was an important early centre of the Syriac Christian world.
Some scholars have also identified Silvan as a possible site of Tigranakert, the city founded by the Armenian king Tigranes the Great in the first century BC — though the rival candidate of Arzan and the lack of decisive evidence mean this identification remains debated.
The Marwanid Capital
The town’s golden age began in 983, when Badh ibn Dustak — a Kurdish chief from the Humaydi tribal confederation, remembered in the sources as a former shepherd turned warlord — seized Mayyafariqin in the chaos following the death of the Buyid ruler Adud al-Dawla. From this base his successors built the Marwanid emirate, which at its height controlled Mayyafariqin, Amid (Diyarbakir), Cizre, Akhlat and a broad stretch of the Jazira.
Under the long reign of Nasr al-Dawla Ahmad (1011–1061), Mayyafariqin became a flourishing court city, famous for its building works, its libraries and its patronage of scholars and poets. For roughly a century, this was a capital of Kurdish power. We tell the full dynastic story in our dedicated article on the Marwanid dynasty.
A Centre of Learning
Mayyafariqin’s prestige outlived the dynasty in the written word. The local historian Ibn al-Azraq al-Fariqi, born in the town in the early 12th century, wrote the Tarikh Mayyafariqin wa-Amid — the “History of Mayyafariqin and Amid” — a detailed chronicle that remains one of the single most important sources for the history of the Marwanids and of the medieval Kurdish world. Without his work, much of this period would be lost to us.
Decline: Seljuks, Artuqids and Ayyubids
Marwanid independence ended in the 1080s, when the Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah I took Mayyafariqin; the dynasty was finished by about 1085, its last prince left holding only Cizre. The Artuqids followed, and it was their ruler who built the Great Mosque of Silvan around 1157, a monumental building with an elaborate portal whose form may echo an earlier church on the site. The Ayyubids and then the Mongol Ilkhanate held the town in turn, after which Mayyafariqin gradually slipped from a capital into a provincial centre.
Modern Silvan / Farqîn
Under the Ottomans and the Turkish Republic the town continued as a district centre; many locals still favour the older name Farqîn. Like much of the Kurdish southeast, Silvan was drawn into the renewed Kurdish–Turkish conflict, seeing serious clashes and curfews in 2015. Today it is a Kurdish-populated district of some 86,000 people, its medieval grandeur reduced to a handful of monuments and the great bridge that still carries the name of the dynasty’s founder.
Timeline of Key Events
Late antiquity — Fortified frontier city; known as Martyropolis.
c. 410 — Bishop Marutha active; the town a Syriac Christian centre.
983 — Badh ibn Dustak seizes Mayyafariqin, founding Marwanid rule.
1011–1061 — Golden age under Nasr al-Dawla Ahmad.
c. 1085 — The Seljuks take the capital; the Marwanid dynasty ends.
c. 1157 — The Artuqids build the Great Mosque of Silvan.
1260 — The town passes to the Mongol Ilkhanate and declines.
2015 — Clashes and curfews during the renewed Kurdish–Turkish conflict.
Debates and Controversies
Two threads call for honesty. First, the ancient identity: the popular claim that Silvan is the Armenian Tigranakert is only one of several scholarly proposals, and the evidence is not decisive. Second, the layered population: as Martyropolis the town was a major Christian centre, and the wider district was home to Armenians and Assyrians whose communities were destroyed or driven out in the genocide of 1915, long before today’s Kurdish-majority district took shape. The Marwanids themselves are firmly identified as a Kurdish dynasty in the medieval sources and in modern scholarship, but their realm was multi-ethnic, and they wrote and minted in Arabic. Holding these facts together is more honest than reducing the town to any single story.
Legacy and Significance
It is easy to pass through Silvan today without realising what it was. Yet for the history of the Kurds it is hard to overstate: Mayyafariqin was a Kurdish royal capital at a time when few peoples of the region had states of their own, and it produced, in Ibn al-Azraq, one of the earliest great historians of the Kurdish world. The Malabadi Bridge nearby — “the house of Badh” — still quietly carries the name of the shepherd who became a king.
Related Places and Topics
The Marwanid dynasty — the full story of the Kurdish kingdom whose capital this was. Diyarbakir (Amed), the Marwanids’ other great city. Cizre and the Emirate of Botan, the dynasty’s final refuge. Hasankeyf, downstream on the Tigris. Bitlis and the wider world of the Kurdish emirates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Silvan?
Silvan (Kurdish Farqîn, historic Mayyafariqin) is a district town northeast of Diyarbakir, in Diyarbakir Province, in the Kurdish southeast of Turkey — the region Kurds call Bakur.
Why is Silvan important to Kurdish history?
It was the capital of the Marwanids, a Kurdish dynasty that ruled the Diyar Bakr region from the late 10th to late 11th century. Mayyafariqin was their royal seat and the high point of one of the first great Kurdish states.
What does “Malabadi” mean?
The Malabadi Bridge near Silvan takes its name from Badh ibn Dustak, the Marwanid founder; Malabadi means roughly “house of Badh” in Kurdish.
Is Silvan the ancient Tigranakert?
Some scholars identify Silvan with the Armenian city of Tigranakert, but Arzan is a rival candidate and the evidence is inconclusive, so the identification remains debated.
References and Further Reading
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