Malik 1 | Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire |
| Sex | M |
| Floruit | M VIII |
| Dates | 740 (taq) / 740 (ob.) |
| PmbZ No. | 4683 |
| Variant Names | Melich |
| Religion | Muslim |
| Ethnicity | Arab |
| Locations | Synnada (Phrygia Salutaris); Akroinon (Phrygia) |
| Textual Sources | Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahré, ed. and tr. J.-B. Chabot (Paris, 1895); tr. A. Palmer, The Seventh Century in West-Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool, 1993), pp. 54-65 (chronicle); Theophanes Confessor, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1883-85, repr. Hildesheim/NewYork, 1980); tr. and comm. C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Oxford 1997 (chronicle) |
Malik 1 was Malik ibn Shabib (or Shu`ayb); cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam I, p. 1103. He was one of four Arab generals (στρατηγοῖς τε δ') who invaded Roman territory in May 740 (the others were Sulayman 2, al-Battal 1 and Gamer 1); Melich (sic; i.e. Malik 1) and Batal (al-Battal 1), with twenty thousand men, went to Akroinon, where they were heavily defeated by the Romans under the emperors Leo III (Leo 3) and Constantine V (Konstantinos 7); Melich (Malik 1) and Batal (al-Battal 1) both perished, with the majority of their men, of whom only six thousand eight hundred (it is said by Theophanes) managed to escape and rejoin Sulayman 2 before returning home: Theoph. AM 6231. According to a Syriac source, in the year 1046 Sel. (734/735) an Arab force under Malik ibn Shabib (Malik 1) and `Abdullah al-Battal (al-Battal 1) invaded the lands of the Romans and laid siege to Synnada; their forces allegedly consisted of 50,000 men; while encamped near Synnada the Arabs were surprised by the Romans and most were killed, including their commanders: Pseudo-Dion., Chron., pp. 172, 10-24 = p. 130.
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