The
Great Seljuq Empire () was a
Persianate[M.A. Amir-Moezzi, "Shahrbanu", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, (): "... here one might bear in mind that non-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs and Ilkhanids were rapidly to adopt the Persian language and have their origins traced back to the ancient kings of Persia rather than to Turkish heroes or Muslim saints ..."][Josef W. Meri, "Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia", Routledge, 2005, p. 399][Michael Mandelbaum, "Central Asia and the World", Council on Foreign Relations (May 1994), p. 79][Jonathan Dewald, "Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World", Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004, p. 24: "Turcoman armies coming from the East had driven the Byzantines out of much of Asia Minor and established the Persianized sultanate of the Seljuks."] medieval Sunni Muslim empire, established by the
Qynyq branch of
Oghuz Turks that once controlled a vast area stretching from the
Hindu Kush to eastern
Anatolia and from
Central Asia to the
Persian Gulf. From their homelands near the
Aral sea, the Seljuqs advanced first into
Khorasan and then into
mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia.
The Seljuq empire was founded by
Tugrul Beg in 1037 after the efforts by the founder of the
Seljuq dynasty,
Seljuq Beg, back in the first quarter of the eleventh century. Seljuq Beg's father was in a higher position in the
Oghuz Yabgu State, and gave his name both to the state and the dynasty. The Seljuqs united the fractured political scene of the Eastern
Islamic world and played a key role in the
first and
second crusades.
Highly Persianized in culture and language
[O.Özgündenli, "Persian Manuscripts in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Libraries", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, ()][Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Seljuq", Online Edition, (): "... Because the Turkish Seljuqs had no Islamic tradition or strong literary heritage of their own, they adopted the cultural language of their Persian instructors in Islam. Literary Persian thus spread to the whole of Iran, and the Arabic language disappeared in that country except in works of religious scholarship ..."][M. Ravandi, "The Seljuq court at Konya and the Persianisation of Anatolian Cities", in Mesogeios (Mediterranean Studies), vol. 25-6 (2005), pp. 157-69], the Seljuqs also played an important role in the development of the
Turko-Persian tradition.
Founder of the Dynasty
The
apical ancestor of the Seljuqs was their
Beg,
Seljuq, who was reputed to have served in the
Khazar army, under whom, circa 950 they migrated to
Khwarezm, near the city of Jend also called
Khujand, where they converted to
Islam.
Great Seljuk
The Seljuqs were allied with the
Persian Samanid Shahs against the
Qarakhanids. The
Samanids however fell to the
Qarakhanids and the emergence of the
Ghaznavids and were involved in the power struggle in the region before establishing their own independent base.
Tugrul and Chagri Beg
Togrul Beg was the grandson of Seljuk and Çagrı (Chagri) was his brother, under whom the Seljuks wrested an empire from the
Ghaznavids. Initially the Seljuks were repulsed by
Mahmud and retired to
Khwarezm but Togrül and Çagrı led them to capture
Merv and
Nishapur (1028-1029). Later they repeatedly raided and traded territory with his successors across
Khorasan and
Balkh and even sacked
Ghazni in 1037. In 1039 at the
Battle of Dandanaqan, they decisively defeated
Mas'ud I of the Ghaznavids resulting in him abandoning most of his western territories to the Seljuks. In 1055, Togrül captured
Baghdad from the
Shi'a Buyids under a commission from the
Abbassids.
Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan was the son of Chagri Beg and expanded significantly upon Togrül's holdings by adding
Armenia and
Georgia in 1064 and invading the
Byzantine Empire in 1068, from which he annexed almost all of
Anatolia; Arslan's decisive victory at the
Battle of Manzikert (in 1071) effectively neutralized the Byzantine threat. He authorized his Turcoman generals to carve their own principalities out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia, as
atabegs loyal to him. Within two years the Turcomans had established control as far as the
Aegean Sea under numerous "beghliks" (modern Turkish
beyliks): the
Saltuqis in Northeastern Anatolia,
Mengujeqs in Eastern Anatolia,
Artuqids in Southeastern Anatolia,
Danishmendis in Central Anatolia,
Rum Seljuks (Beghlik of
Suleyman, which later moved to Central Anatolia) in Western Anatolia and the Beghlik of
Çaka Beg in
İzmir (
Smyrna).
Malik Shah I
Under
Alp Arslan's successor Malik Shah and his two Persian
viziers Nizām al-Mulk and
Tāj al-Mulk, the Seljuk state expanded in various directions, to former Iranian border before Arab invasion, so that it bordered
China in the East and the
Byzantines in the West.
He moved the capital from
Rayy to
Isfahan. The Iqta military system and the Nizāmīyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizām al-Mulk, and the reign of Malikshāh was reckoned the golden age of "Great Seljuk". The Abbasid Caliph titled him "The Sultan of the East and West" in 1087. The
Assassins (
Hashshashin) of
Hassan-e Sabāh however started to become a force during his era and assassinated many leading figures in his administration.
Governance
The Seljuk power was at its zenith under Malikshāh I, and both the
Qarakhanids and
Ghaznavids had to acknowledge the overlordship of the Seljuks.
[ Wink, Andre, Al Hind the Making of the Indo Islamic World, Brill Academic Publishers, Jan 1, 1996, ISBN 90-04-09249-8 pg 9-10]. The Seljuk dominion was established over the ancient
Sassanid domains, in
Iran and
Iraq, and included
Anatolia as well as parts of
Central Asia and modern
Afghanistan.
The Seljuk rule was modelled after the tribal organization brought in by the nomadic conquerors and resembled a 'family federation' or 'appanage state'.
Under this organization the leading member of the paramount family assigned family members portions of his domains as
autonomous appanages.
The First Crusade
The fractured states of the Seljuks were on the whole more concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control of their neighbours than with cooperating against the crusaders during the
First Crusade. The Seljuks easily defeated the untrained
People's Crusade arriving in 1096, but could not stop the progress of the army of the subsequent
Princes' Crusade, which took important cities such as
Nicaea,
Iconium,
Kayseri, and
Antioch on its march to
Jerusalem, and in 1099 finally successfully captured the
Holy Land, setting up the first
Crusader States. The Seljuks had already lost
Palestine to the
Fatimids, who had recaptured it just before its capture by the crusaders.
The Second Crusade
Ahmed Sanjar had to contend with the revolts of
Qarakhanids in
Transoxiana,
Ghorids in
Afghanistan and
Qarluks in modern
Kyrghyzstan, even as the nomadic
Kara-Khitais invaded the East, destroying the Seljuk vassal state of the Eastern Qarakhanids. At the Battle of Qatwan in 1141, Sanjar lost all his eastern provinces up to the
Syr Darya.
During this time conflict with the Crusader States was also intermittent, and after the First Crusade increasingly independent atabegs would frequently ally with the crusader states against other atabegs as they vied with each other for territory. At Mosul,
Zengi succeeded
Kerbogha as atabeg and successfully began the process of consolidating the atabegs of Syria. In 1144 Zengi captured
Edessa, as the
County of Edessa had allied itself with the
Ortoqids against him. This event triggered the launch of the Second Crusade.
Nur ad-Din, one of Zengi's sons who succeeded him as atabeg of
Aleppo, created an alliance in the region to oppose the Second Crusade, which landed in 1147.
Division of empire
When Malikshāh I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves. In Anatolia, Malikshāh I was succeeded by
Kilij Arslan I who founded the
Sultanate of Rum and in
Syria by his brother
Tutush I. In
Persia he was succeeded by his son
Mahmud I whose reign was contested by his other three brothers
Barkiyaruq in
Iraq,
Muhammad I in
Baghdad and
Ahmad Sanjar in
Khorasan.
When
Tutush I died his sons
Radwan and
Duqaq inherited
Aleppo and
Damascus respectively and contested with each other as well further dividing Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other.
In 1118, the third son
Ahmad Sanjar took over the empire. His nephew, the son of Muhammad I did not recognize his claim to the throne and
Mahmud II proclaimed himself Sultan and established a capital in Baghdad, until 1131 when he was finally officially deposed by Ahmad Sanjar.
Elsewhere in nominal Seljuk territory were the
Artuqids in northeastern Syria and northern
Mesopotamia. They controlled
Jerusalem until 1098. In eastern Anatolia and northern Syria a state was founded by the
Dānišmand dynasty, and contested land with the
Sultanate of Rum and
Kerbogha exercised greeted independence as the
atabeg of
Mosul.
Legacy
The Seljuks were educated in the service of Muslim courts as slaves or mercenaries. The dynasty brought revival, energy, and reunion to the Islamic civilization hitherto dominated by Arabs and Persians. According to the Seljuks, they brought to the Muslims "fighting spirit and fanatical aggression".
The Seljuks were also patrons of art and literature. Under the Seljuks universities were founded. Their reign is characterized by
Persian astronomers such as
Omar Khayyám, and the
Persian philosopher
al-Ghazali.
List of Emperors of the Great Seljuq Empire
Conquest by Khwarezm and the Ayyubids
In 1153, the Oghuz Turks rebelled and captured Sanjar. He managed to escape three years later but died a year later. Despite several attempts to reunite the Seljuks by his successors, the
Crusades prevented them from regaining their former empire. The atabegs, such as
Zengids and
Artuqids, were only nominally under the Seljuk Sultan, and generally controlled Syria independently. When Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156, it fractured the empire even further and rendered the atabegs effectively independent.
- Khorasani Seljuks in Khorasan and Transoxiana. Capital: Merv
- Atabeghlik of Salgur in Iran
- Atabeghlik of Bori in Syria. Capital: Damascus
After the Second Crusade, Nur ad-Din's general
Shirkuh, who had established himself in
Egypt on
Fatimid land, was succeeded by
Saladin. In time, Saladin rebelled against
Nur ad-Din, and, upon his death, Saladin married his widow and captured most of Syria and created the
Ayyubid dynasty.
On other fronts, the
Kingdom of Georgia began to become a regional power and extended its borders at the expense of Great Seljuk. The same was true during the revival of the
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia under
Leo II of Armenia in Anatolia. The
Abbassid caliph
An-Nasir also began to reassert the authority of the caliph and allied himself with the Khwarezmshah
Takash.
For a brief period,
Togrul III was the Sultan of all Seljuk except for Anatolia. In 1194, however, Togrul was defeated by
Takash, the Shah of
Khwarezmid Empire, and the Seljuk finally collapsed. Of the former Seljuk Empire, only the
Sultanate of Rûm in
Anatolia remained. As the dynasty declined in the middle of the thirteenth century, the
Mongols invaded
Anatolia in the 1260s and divided it into small
emirates called the
Anatolian beyliks. Eventually one of these, the
Ottoman, would rise to power and conquer the rest.
