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Great Seljuq Empire
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The Great Seljuq Empire (; Shahanshahie Bozorge Saljuqi) was a medieval Sunni Muslim Turkish Persianate 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.
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The Great Seljuq Empire (; Shahanshahie Bozorge Saljuqi) was a medieval Sunni Muslim Turkish Persianate 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, 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 Çagri (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 Çagri 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 Izmir (Smyrna).
Malik Shah I
Under Alp Arslan's successor Malik Shah and his two Persian viziers Nizam al-Mulk and Taj 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 Nizamiyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizam al-Mulk, and the reign of Malikshah 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 Sabah 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 Malikshah I, and both the Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids had to acknowledge the overlordship of the Seljuks.. 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
- See also: Second Crusade, Zengi, Nur ad-Din
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
- See also: Sultanate of Rum, Atabegs
When Malikshah I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves. In Anatolia, Malikshah 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 Danimand 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 astronomers such as Omar Khayyám, and the philosopher al-Ghazali.
List of Emperors of the Great Seljuq Empire
Conquest by Khwarezm and the Ayyubids
- See also:Saladin, Ayyubid, Khwarezmid Empire
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
- Kermani Seljuks
- Sultanate of Rum. Capital: Iznik (Nicaea), later Konya (Iconium)
- Atabeghlik of Salgur in Iran
- Atabeghlik of Ildeniz in Iraq and Azerbaijan. Capital Hamadan
- Atabeghlik of Bori in Syria. Capital: Damascus
- Atabeghlik of Zangi in Al Jazira (Northern Mesopotamia). Capital: Mosul
- Turcoman Beghliks: Danishmendis, Artuqids, Saltuqids and Mengujegs in Asia Minor
- Khwarezmshahs in Transoxiana, Khwarezm. Capital: Urganch
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 Ala ad-Din Tekish.
For a brief period, Togrul III was the Sultan of all Seljuk except for Anatolia. In 1194, however, Togrul was defeated by Ala ad-Din Tekish, 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.
See also
External links
Literature
- G. E. Tetley The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History, Abingdon 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-43119-4
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