The Seljuk Empire ( SEL-jook in BrE, sel-JOOK in AmE), or the Great Seljuk Empire, was a high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian empire established and ruled by the Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. The empire spanned a total area of 3.9 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) from Anatolia and the Levant in the west to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, and covered the time period 1037–1308, though Seljuk rule beyond the Anatolian peninsula ended in 1194.
The Seljuk Empire was founded in 1037 by Tughril (990–1063) and his brother Chaghri (989–1060), both of whom co-ruled over its territories; there are indications that the Seljuk leadership otherwise functioned as a triumvirate and thus included Musa Yabghu, the uncle of the aforementioned two.
During the formative phase of the empire, the Seljuks first advanced from their original homelands near the Aral Sea into Khorasan and then into the Iranian mainland, where they would become largely based in a Persianate society. They then moved west to conquer Baghdad, filling the power vacuum created by struggles between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Iranian Buyid Empire.
The subsequent Seljuk expansion into eastern Anatolia triggered the Byzantine–Seljuk wars, with the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 marking a decisive turning point in the conflict in favour of the Seljuks, undermining the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the remaining parts of Anatolia and gradually enabling the Turkification of the region.
The Seljuk Empire united the fractured political landscape in the non-Arab eastern parts of the Muslim world and played a key role in both the First and Second crusades; it also bore witness to the creation and expansion of multiple artistic movements during this period. In 1141, the Seljuk Empire suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Qatwan against the Western Liao dynasty, resulting in the loss of vast eastern territories. This defeat greatly weakened the empire, causing internal division and hastening its decline. The Seljuks were eventually supplanted in the east by the Khwarazmian Empire in 1194 and in the west by the Zengids and Ayyubids. The last surviving Seljuk sultanate to fall was the Sultanate of Rum, in 1308.
History
Founder of the dynasty
The founder of the dynasty was Seljuk, a warlord, who belonged to the Qïnïq tribe of Oghuz Turks. He led his clan to the banks of the Syr Darya river, near city of Jend, where they converted to Islam in 985. Khwarezm, administered by the Ma'munids, was under the nominal control of the Samanid Empire. By 999, the Samanids had fallen to the Kara-Khanid Khanate in Transoxiana, while the Ghaznavids occupied the lands south of the Amu Darya. The Seljuks supported the last Samanid emir against the Kara-Khanids before establishing an independent base.
Expansion of the empire
Tughril and Chaghri
The Oghuz Turks (also known as Turkmens at the time) were one of several groups of the Oghuz who made their way to Iran between about 1020 and 1040. They were led by Seljuk's son, Musa, and Musa's two nephews, Tughril and Chaghri. They first moved south to Transoxiana, and then to Khorasan, initially at the invitation of local rulers, then enmeshed in alliances and conflicts. Contemporary sources place them in Dehistan/Mishrian, Gyzylarbat, and Nisa, as well as Sarakhs, all in present-day Turkmenistan.
Around 1034, Tughril and Chaghri were soundly defeated by the Oghuz Yabghu Ali Tegin and his allies, forcing them to escape from Transoxiana. Initially, the Seljuks took refuge in Khwarazm, which served as one of their traditional pastures, but they were also encouraged by the local Ghaznavid governor, Harun, who hoped to utilise the Seljuks for his efforts to seize Khorasan from his sovereign. When Harun was assassinated by Ghaznavid agents in 1035, they again had to flee, this time heading south across the Karakum Desert. First, they made their way to the important city of Merv, but perhaps due to its strong fortifications, they turned westwards to take refuge in Nisa. Finally, the Seljuks arrived on the edges of Khorasan, the province considered a jewel in the Ghaznavid crown.
After moving into Khorasan, the Seljuks under Tughril wrested an empire from the Ghaznavids. Initially, the Seljuks were repulsed by Mahmud of Ghazni and retired to Khwarazm, but Tughril and Chaghri led them to capture Merv and Nishapur (1037–1038). Later, they repeatedly raided and traded territory with Mahmud's successor, Mas'ud, across Khorasan and Balkh.
In 1040, at the Battle of Dandanaqan, the Seljuks decisively defeated Masʽud I, forcing him to abandon most of his western territories. Afterwards, the Seljuks employed Khorasanians and set up a Persian bureaucracy to administer their new polity with Tughril as its nominal overlord. By 1046, al-Qa'im had sent Tughril a diploma recognising Seljuk rule over Khorasan. In 1048–1049, the Seljuks, commanded by Ibrahim Yinal, uterine brother of Tughril, made their first incursion into the Byzantine frontier region of Iberia and clashed with a combined Byzantine-Georgian army of 50,000 at the Battle of Kapetron on 10 September 1048. The Byzantine magnate Eustathios Boilas described the devastation of the area in 1051–1052 as "foul and unmanageable... inhabited by snakes, scorpions, and wild beasts". The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir wrote that Ibrahim brought back 100,000 captives and 10,000 camel loads of loot.
In 1055, Tughril entered Baghdad and removed the influence of the Buyid dynasty, under a commission from the Abbasid caliph. During the occupation of Baghdad, the library built by Sabur ibn Ardashir was burned. Iraq remained under Seljuk control until 1135.
Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan, the son of Chaghri Beg, expanded significantly upon Tughril'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 resistance to the Turkish invasion of Anatolia, although the Georgians were able to recover from Alp Arslan's invasion by securing the theme of Iberia. The Byzantine withdrawal from Anatolia brought Georgia into more direct contact with the Seljuks. In 1073 the Seljuk amirs of Ganja, Dvin and Dmanisi invaded Georgia and were defeated by George II of Georgia, who successfully took the fortress of Kars. A retaliatory strike by the Seljuk Amir Ahmad defeated the Georgians at Kvelistsikhe.
Alp Arslan authorized his Turkoman generals to carve their own principalities out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia, as atabegs loyal to him. Within two years the Turkmens had established control as far as the Aegean Sea under numerous beyliks: the Saltukids in Northeastern Anatolia, the Shah-Armens and the Mengujekids in Eastern Anatolia, Artuqids in Southeastern Anatolia, Danishmendis in Central Anatolia, Rum Seljuks (Beylik of Suleyman, which later moved to Central Anatolia) in Western Anatolia, and the Beylik of Tzachas of Smyrna in İzmir (Smyrna).
Malik Shah I
Under Alp Arslan's successor, Malik-Shah I, and his powerful Persian vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, the Seljuk state expanded in various directions, to the former Iranian border of the days before the Arab invasion, so that it soon bordered China in the east and the Byzantines in the west. Malik Shah's brother Tutush defended Seljuk's interests in Syria in the battle of Ain Salm against Suleiman ibn Qutalmish who had started to carve out an independent state in Anatolia. Nevertheless, despite various attempts to bring the various Turkish warlords in Anatolia under control, they largely maintained their independence. Malik-Shah I was the one who moved the capital from Ray to Isfahan. The iqta military system and the Nizamiyya of Baghdad were established by Nizam al-Mulk, and the reign of Malik-Shah I was reckoned the golden age of "Great Seljuk". The Abbasid caliph titled him "The Sultan of the East and West" in 1087.
Internally, the most prominent development of Malik Shah's rule was the continuous increase in the power of the Nizam al-Mulk. Some contemporary chroniclers refer to the period as al-dawla al-Nizamiyya, the Nizam's state, while modern scholars have mentioned him as "the real ruler of the Seljuq empire". The 14th century biographer Taj al-Din al-Subki claimed that Nizam al-Mulk's vizierate was "not just a vizierate, it was above the sultanate". The Order of Assassins (Hashshashin) of Hasan-i Sabbah started to become a force during his era, however, and they assassinated many leading figures in his administration; according to many sources, these victims included Nizam al-Mulk.
Ahmad Sanjar
Ahmad Sanjar was the son of Malik Shah I and initially took part in wars of succession against his three brothers and a nephew: Mahmud I, Berkyaruq, Malik Shah II and Muhammad I Tapar. In 1096, he was tasked to govern the province of Khorasan by his brother Muhammad I. Over the next several years, Ahmad Sanjar became the ruler of most of Iran (Persia), and eventually in 1118, the sole ruler of the Great Seljuk Empire, but with a subordinate Sultan in Iraq in the person of Mahmud II.
In 1141, Ahmad marched to eliminate the threat posed by Kara-Khitans and faced them in the vicinity of Samarkand at the Battle of Qatwan. He suffered his first defeat in his long career, and as a result lost all Seljuk territory east of the Syr Darya.
Sanjar's as well as the Seljuks' rule collapsed as a consequence of yet another unexpected defeat, this time at the hands of the Seljuks' own tribe, in 1153. Sanjar was captured during the battle and held in captivity until 1156. It brought chaos to the Empire – a situation later exploited by the victorious Turkmens, whose hordes would overrun Khorasan unopposed, wreaking colossal damage on the province and prestige of Sanjar. Sanjar eventually escaped from captivity in the fall of 1156, but soon died in Merv in 1157. After his death, Turkic rulers, Turkmen tribal forces, and other secondary powers competed for Khorasan. In 1181, Sultan Shah, a pretendent to the Khwarezmian throne, managed to take control of Khorasan, until 1192 when he was defeated near Merv by the Ghurids, who captured his territories. The Ghurids then took control of all Khorasan following the death of his successor Tekish in 1200, as far as Bastam in the ancient region of Qūmes. The province was finally conquered by Khwarazmians after the Ghurid defeat at the Battle of Andkhud (1204).
The Tomb of Ahmad Sanjar was destroyed by the Mongols led by Tolui, who sacked the city of Merv in 1221, killing 700,000 people according to contemporary sources during their catastrophic invasion of Khwarazm; however, modern scholarship holds such figures to be exaggerated.
Division of empire
When Malik-Shah I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves. At the same time, the son of Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, Kilij Arslan I, escaped Malik-Shah I's imprisonment and claimed authority in the former lands of his father. In Persia, Malik-Shah I's four-year-old son Mahmud I was proclaimed sultan but his reign was contested by his three brothers Berkyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad, and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan. Additionally, Malik-Shah I's brother Tutush I made a claim to the throne but was killed in battle against Berkyaruq in February 1096. Upon his death, 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. The Dānišmand dynasty founded a state in eastern Anatolia and northern Syria and contested land with the Sultanate of Rum, and Kerbogha exercised independence as the atabeg of Mosul.
First Crusade (1095–1099)
During the First Crusade, the fractured states of the Seljuks were generally more concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control of their neighbours than with cooperating against the crusaders. The Seljuks easily defeated the People's Crusade arriving in 1096, but they could not stop the progress of the army of the subsequent Princes' Crusade (First Crusade), which took important cities such as Nicaea (İznik), Iconium (Konya), Caesarea Mazaca (Kayseri), and Antioch (Antakya) on its march to Jerusalem (al-Quds). In 1099, the crusaders finally captured the Holy Land and set up the first Crusader states. The Seljuks had already lost Jerusalem to the Fatimids, who had recaptured it in 1098 just before its capture by the crusaders.
After pillaging the County of Edessa, Seljuk commander Ilghazi made peace with the Crusaders. In 1121 he went north towards Georgia and with supposedly up to 250,000–350,000 troops, including men led by his son-in-law Sadaqah and Sultan Malik of Ganja, he invaded the Kingdom of Georgia. David IV of Georgia gathered 40,000 Georgian warriors, including 5,000 monaspa guards, 15,000 Kipchaks, 300 Alans and 100 French Crusaders to fight against Ilghazi's vast army. At the Battle of Didgori on 12 August 1121, the Seljuks were routed, being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days afterward. The battle helped the Crusader states, which had been under pressure from Ilghazi's armies. The weakening of the main enemy of the Latin principalities also benefitted the Kingdom of Jerusalem under King Baldwin II.