Hosamia

Hosamia was a Qundi state centred in Pesrard, modern Settecia, established by the amir Walid Il-halim in 471. Qundi rule in Pesrard was ended in 702 by Secote invasion, but the founding Hosamid dynasty had conquered Petty-Lestria founding the Empire of Qund and continued to rule over that realm until the 11th century.

Qundi presence in Pesrard had began with the conquest of the region by the kingdom of Chadimia (68–261). Il-halim, a man originally from eastern Utnaqar who began his career as a mercenary commander under the post-Chadimian state of Argopela (Raqubil), usurped the Argopelan throne in 467, conquering the other nearby principalities and finally razing the hegemonic trading city of Tisiset to the ground in 471. Il-halim then turned his eye to the declining Neokos Empire to the west, launching an invasion in 473, but an abortive revolt by one of his lieutenants who had hoped to repeat his success story convinced him to focus on consolidating his new expansive realms instead. Before his death in 478 Il-halim established the character of his state as one that continued to build on local Paltho-Messenian culture, and his dynasty as one which claimed descent from Hosam, the founder of Chadimia; this claim was probably made more convincing in bizarre circumstances by his dubious paternity of his successor Numan, rumoured to have been born out of adultery involving a local Argopelan aristocratic family.

From its foundation the rulers of Hosamia aggressively laid claim to Neokos pretenses with the latter's visible decline, while continuing the Qundi elite's interests in adopting local Messenian culture. As typical of the Qundi principalities, the Hosamian kings owed their legitimacy to their alliance with local lamnearies and their ideological allegiance to Siriash, devolved most administration to the lamnearies and other feudatories, and only occasionally undertook campaigns where they called on support of the entire realm. Nevertheless, accruing wealth from the irrigated and productive Pesrardic plains emboldened Hosamian kings to expand power internally and externally. However, in 570, when the king Muzaffar III attempted to establish himself as High Lamneant, he was overthrown by a coalition of nobles and clergymen, and the considerably more respublican arrangement of power that prevailed thereafter, combined with resurgence of the Neokos, controlled royal ambitions for a while.

In the 7th century the rise of the pious Kingdom of Inabo to the east, followed by another period of fragmentation in Palthia, sparked renewed interest in imperial titulature and grand Sirian mandates on part of the king, who was soon able to shrug off opposition to the throne's power through winning the support of the lamnearies by sponsoring Sirian learning. After conquering principalities in Utnaqar, Hosamia clashed intermittently with Inabo for influence over the Qundi states. In 692 king Albaqir formally assumed the Neokos imperial title of autokrator, and intervening in disputes in southern Qund against Inabo he embarked on the campaigns that would become known as the Breaking of Inabo (694–7), which conquered much of Qund for the Hosamian crown, and established the Empire of Qund. Albaqir had left his own kingdom unguarded however, allowing the Bregovid Kingdom to quickly overrun Pesrard in 702, burning down the great monuments, palaces, and libraries that Messeno-Qundi rulers had built up. The royalty and Albaqir's court had been encamped in Qammam for years by this point, so the loss of Pesrard did not strike a fatal blow at the Hosamian state, but in the process of organising an attempt to recapture Pesrard dissent against Albaqir from his new southern subjects broke out and he was assassinated, resulting in a brief civil war; the new emperor took no interest in recovering Pesrard, finally putting an end to Messeno-Qundi rule there, and shifting the Hosamid dynasty's seat to Qammam.