Tilhalit

Tilhalit, also spelled Tell Khalid (Latin: Trialeth) and officially recognized as Asmacık, is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Oğuzeli, Gaziantep Province, Turkey.^[1] Its population is 195 (2022).^[2] It was a fortress during the 12th century, contested at times by the Crusaders, Zengids and Ayyubids.

The village is inhabited by Abdals of the Kurular tribe.^[3]

On 29 November 1114, an earthquake devastated Tell Khalid, along with numerous other places across the region of Aleppo.^[4] It was also damaged in the 1138 Aleppo earthquake.^[5] In the autumn or winter of 1150, it was captured by the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din from the County of Edessa, a Crusader state, which was entirely conquered by the Zengids and other Muslim powers by July 1151.^[6] On 17 May 1183, Saladin, a former emir of Nur ad-Din, turned Ayyubid sultan, captured Tell Bashir as part of his general movement to capture Aleppo, which he besieged four days later, from the Zengids.^[7] Saladin's brother, Buri, had already been besieging Tell Khalid, but its town and fortress surrendered without fighting upon Saladin's arrival there.^[7] It was thereafter bestowed to Badr ad-Din Dildirim al-Yaruqi, the Turkmen lord of nearby Tell Bashir and ally of Saladin.^[7] He continued to hold Tell Bashir well after the death of Saladin, and into the 12th century during the latter's son az-Zahir Ghazi's rule over the Emirate of Aleppo, which included Tell Bashir.^[8] By 1218, it was firmly in the possession of az-Zahir Ghazi's son and successor, al-Aziz Muhammad.^[9] There is scant information about Tell Khalid in the historical record after the Ayyubid era.

• Ambraseys, Nicholas N. (April–June 2004). "The 12th Century Seismic Paroxysm in the Middle East: A Historical Perspective". Annals of Geophysics. 47 (2–3). Istituto nazionale di geofisica: 733–758.
• Chesney, Francis Rawdon (1850). The Expedition for the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. p. 419.
• Humphreys, Stephen (1977). From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-263-7.
• Khoury, Nuha Samir (1996). Aleppo and its Historian Kamāl al-Dīn ibn al-ʻAdīm: A Historiographical Examination of bughyat al-Ṭalab fī Taʾrīkh Ḥalab. University of Michigan.
• Lyons, M. C.; Jackson, D. E. P. (1982). Saladin: the Politics of the Holy War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-31739-9.
• Setton, Kenneth S. (1969) [1955]. Baldwin, Marshall W. (ed.). A History of the Crusades: The First Hundred Years (Second ed.). The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299048341.