Seljuk Empire and Sultanate of Rum

Legacy

The Seljuks brought Turkish peoples into the heart of the Middle East and Anatolia, preparing the way for the Ottomans, and their victories over Byzantium helped trigger the Crusades.

Timeline of Seljuk Empire and Sultanate of Rum

1. 1037
   Tughril and Chaghri take Merv and Nishapur (1037–38)

   The Seljuks were a family of Oghuz Turks, nomads from the steppes near the Aral Sea, named after their ancestor Seljuk. Driven out of Transoxiana in 1034, they moved with their herds into Khurasan, in north-eastern Iran, then ruled by the Ghaznavid Empire. Led by the brothers Tughril and Chaghri, they captured the great cities of Merv and Nishapur in 1037–1038, and in 1037 Tughril was proclaimed sultan. Historians date the Seljuk Empire from these conquests. For the first time the Turkmen nomads held major cities, and the empire appears on the map in Khurasan.

2. 1040
   Seljuks rout the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan near Merv

   The Ghaznavid sultan Mas'ud, ruling from Ghazna in Afghanistan, marched with a large army to drive the Seljuks out of Khurasan. The Seljuks avoided open battle and harassed his columns with hit-and-run raids, so that his troops grew starving and demoralised. On 23 May 1040, around 16,000 Seljuk horsemen defeated the Ghaznavid army at Dandanaqan, near Merv. Mas'ud fled to India, where he was overthrown and later murdered. All of Khurasan passed to the Seljuks, who then turned west toward Iran.

3. 1055
   Tughril enters Baghdad and ends Buyid influence

   After Dandanaqan, Tughril conquered much of Iran from the Buyids and made Isfahan his capital. The Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, al-Qa'im, was a figurehead under the Shia Buyid emirs, and he looked to the Sunni Seljuks for support. In 1055, invited by the caliph, Tughril entered Baghdad and ended Buyid rule there. The caliph recognised him as sultan, the ruler of the Muslim world's armies and government, while keeping religious authority himself. The Seljuk map now reached Iraq, and the Seljuks became protectors of Sunni Islam.

4. 1064
   Alp Arslan adds Armenia and Georgia

   Alp Arslan, Chaghri's son, became sultan in 1063 after Tughril died. In 1064 he led a campaign into the Caucasus and besieged Ani, the old capital of Armenia, then held by the Byzantines. After a 25-day siege the Seljuk army took the city on 16 August 1064, and the caliph honoured him with the title 'Father of Conquests'. He also invaded Georgia, and King Gagik II of Kars became his vassal. The Seljuk frontier now pressed against Byzantine Anatolia.

5. 1071
   Alp Arslan defeats and captures Romanos IV at Manzikert

   Turkmen raids into Byzantine Anatolia led Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes to march east with a large army. On 26 August 1071 he met Alp Arslan near Manzikert, north of Lake Van. Many of the emperor's mercenaries and levies fled, and Romanos himself was captured, the only Byzantine emperor ever taken prisoner by a Muslim commander. Alp Arslan released him in return for a ransom and a treaty. But Byzantium fell into civil war, and Turkish groups poured into central Anatolia, which they controlled as far as the Aegean within a few years.

6. 1072
   Malik-Shah I succeeds; with Nizam al-Mulk, the golden age

   Alp Arslan was fatally wounded on a campaign in Central Asia in 1072, and his son Malik-Shah I succeeded him. Real power lay with the great Persian vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who had served his father and ran the government for twenty years. He founded the Nizamiyya madrasas, colleges across the empire, and is credited with a famous book on government. Under Malik-Shah the empire reached the height of its power, stretching from Anatolia and Syria to Central Asia. Isfahan, the capital, flourished.

7. 1092
   Malik-Shah dies; the empire splits among his heirs

   In 1092 Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated near Baghdad by a man disguised as a Sufi (most accounts blame the Nizari Isma'ilis, or Assassins), and Malik-Shah died a few weeks later, on 19 November 1092, possibly poisoned. His brother and four sons then quarrelled over the throne, and the empire split. Syria broke into rival emirates such as Aleppo and Damascus, and in Anatolia the Sultanate of Rum and other Turkish states went their own way. On the map the empire still looks large, but in practice it was a loose collection of rival Seljuk princes and governors.

8. 1099
   First Crusade takes Jerusalem; Crusader states carved out

   In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade to help Byzantium against the Turks and to take Jerusalem. The divided Seljuk rulers of Syria and Anatolia were more interested in fighting one another, and they failed to stop the crusader armies, which took Nicaea, Antioch and other cities. Jerusalem had already been retaken from the Seljuks' vassals by the Fatimids of Egypt in 1098. On 15 July 1099 the crusaders stormed the city and massacred many of its people. They set up Crusader states along the coast of Syria and Palestine.

9. 1118
   Ahmad Sanjar becomes sole sultan

   Ahmad Sanjar, a son of Malik-Shah, had governed Khurasan from his base at Merv since 1097. When his brother Sultan Muhammad I died in 1118, Sanjar defeated his young nephew Mahmud II and became supreme sultan, leaving Mahmud to rule western Iran and Iraq as his subordinate. He ruled for 41 years, mostly from Merv, and for much of that time he kept the borders of the empire largely intact. The Seljuk centre of power had moved east again, to Khurasan.

10. 1141
    Qara Khitai crush Sanjar at Qatwan; eastern lands lost

    In Central Asia a new power arose: the Qara Khitai, refugees from the fallen Liao dynasty of northern China led by Yelü Dashi. Invited by the Khwarazmians, Sanjar's own vassals, and by Karluk Turks, they attacked the Seljuks' vassals. On 9 September 1141 they crushed Sanjar's army on the Qatwan steppe north of Samarkand, encircling it in a valley. Sanjar escaped, but his wife and many commanders were captured. The Seljuks lost all their lands beyond the Amu Darya up to the Syr Darya, and Khwarazm became a vassal of the Qara Khitai.

11. 1153
    Oghuz tribes revolt and capture Sanjar

    Oghuz Turkmen tribes grazing near Balkh paid Sanjar a yearly tribute in sheep, but after quarrels with his officials, including the killing of a tax collector, the sultan marched against them. In April 1153 the Oghuz defeated and captured him. They held Sanjar prisoner for about three years, while they plundered the cities of Khurasan. The empire's eastern heartland was left in chaos. The defeat by the Seljuks' own kin is seen as the moment when the Great Seljuk Empire effectively collapsed.

12. 1157
    Sanjar dies at Merv

    Sanjar escaped from his Oghuz captors in the autumn of 1156 and returned to Merv, but he died there on 8 May 1157. He was buried in a great domed tomb in Merv, and he was the last of the Great Seljuk sultans to rule the whole eastern empire. After his death Khurasan fell to local warlords and to the rising Khwarazmshahs, while the Seljuk sultans in western Iran became puppets of their own generals. On the map the empire shrinks to western Iran and Iraq.

13. 1194
    Khwarazmshah Tekish defeats Toghrul III; the Great Seljuks end

    Tughril III became sultan in 1175, but power lay with the Eldiguzid atabegs, the commanders who ruled in his name. When Tughril tried to rule for himself, his rivals and the caliph al-Nasir called in the Khwarazmshah Tekish against him. In 1194 Tekish defeated and killed Tughril III near Rayy, and sent his head to the caliph in Baghdad. Tughril was the last Seljuk sultan of Iran. The Great Seljuk Empire ended, and its lands passed to the Khwarazmian Empire, while only the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum survived in Anatolia.

Periods and reigns

• Tughril 1037–1063
• Alp Arslan 1063–1072
• Malik-Shah I 1072–1092
• Mahmud I 1092–1094
• Berkyaruq 1094–1105
• Muhammad I Tapar 1105–1118
• Ahmad Sanjar 1118–1157
• Arslan-Shah 1160–1176
• Toghrul III 1176–1194

Rulers

• Tughril Beg 1037 – 1063

  Founder; entered Baghdad as sultan in 1055

• Alp Arslan 1063 – 1072

  Defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert

• Malik-Shah I 1072 – 1092

  Ruled at the empire's height with vizier Nizam al-Mulk

• Ahmad Sanjar 1118 – 1157

  Last great sultan of the eastern Seljuks

• Kilij Arslan II 1156 – 1192

  Sultan of Rum who defeated Byzantium at Myriokephalon

• Kayqubad I 1220 – 1237

  Height of the Sultanate of Rum

Realms on the map

• Great Seljuk Empire 1040–1194
• Seljuk Dynasty 990–1039
• Sultanate of Rum 1094–1313
• Allegiance of Sultanate of Rum to Abbasid Caliphate 1202–1249

Wars

• First Crusade 1096 – 12 August 1099
• Third Crusade May 1189 – 9 October 1192

Chapters

• The world in 1100: Crusaders in Jerusalem