Seljuk Empire

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.

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. Iraq remained under Seljuk control until 1135.

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).

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 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.

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.

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.

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, Imad al-Din 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 Artuqids against him. This event triggered the launch of the Second Crusade.

Seljuk power was indeed at its zenith under Malikshāh I, and both the Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids had to acknowledge the overlordship of the Seljuks. Seljuk dominion was established over the ancient Sasanian domains, in Iran and Iraq, and included Anatolia, Syria, as well as parts of Central Asia and modern Afghanistan. Their rule was modelled after the tribal organization common among Turkic and Mongol nomadic cultures, resembling a "family federation" or "appanage state". Under this organization, the leading member of the paramount family assigned to family members portions of his domains as autonomous appanages.

The Seljuks exercised full control over Islamic Central Asia and the Middle East between 1040 and 1157. For most of its history, the empire was split into a western and eastern half and did not have a single capital or political center. In the east, the chief seat of Seljuk rule was Marv in present-day Turkmenistan. In the west, various cities, where the Seljuk rulers lived periodically, served as capitals: Rayy, Isfahan, Baghdad, and, later, Hamadan. These western lands were known as the Sultanate of Iraq. Following the death of Muhammad I Tapar in 1118, Isfahan ceased being an imperial residence. After 1118, the Seljuk rulers of Iraq recognized the suzerainty of the Seljuk sultan Ahmad Sanjar, who mostly ruled from Marv, and was known by the title of al-sultān al-a'zam, 'the Greatest Sultan'. The Seljuk rulers of Iraq were often mentioned as the "Lesser Seljuks".

Much of the ideological character of the Seljuk Empire was derived from the earlier Samanid and Ghaznavid kingdoms, which had in turn emerged from the Perso-Islamic imperial system of the Abbasid caliphate. This Perso-Islamic tradition was based on pre-Islamic Iranian ideas of kingship molded into an Islamic framework. Little of the public symbolism used by the Seljuks was Turkic, namely the tughra. The populace of the Seljuk Empire would have considered this Perso-Islamic tradition more significant than that of steppe customs.

Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuks also played an important role in the development of the Turco-Persian tradition, even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia. Under the Seljuks, Persian was also used for books lecturing about politics in the mirrors for princes genre, such as the prominent Siyasatnama (Book of Politics) composed by Nizam al-Mulk. During this period, these types of books consciously made use of Islamic and Iranian traditions, such as an ideal government based on the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his successors, or the Sasanian King of Kings Khosrow I (r. 531–579).

In most of their coins, the Seljuk sultans used the Sasanian title of shahanshah (King of Kings), and even used the old Buyid title of "Shahanshah of Islam." The title of malik was used by lesser princes of the Seljuk family. Like the caliphate, the Seljuks relied on a refined Persian bureaucracy. The settlement of Turkic tribes in the northwestern peripheral parts of the empire, for the strategic military purpose of fending off invasions from neighboring states, led to the progressive Turkicization of those areas. According to the 12th-century poet Nizami Aruzi, all of the Seljuk sultans had a liking for poetry, which is also demonstrated by the large compilation of Persian verses written under their patronage. This had already started under Tughril, who was praised in Arabic and Persian by poets such as Fakhruddin As'ad Gurgani and Bakharzi, albeit he could not understand the verses. The last Seljuk sultan Tughril III was well known for his Persian poetry. The Saljuq-nama of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri, which was most likely dedicated to Tughril III, indicates that the Seljuk family now used Persian to communicate, and even were taught about the achievements of their forefathers in that language.

Tughril relied on his vizier to translate from Arabic and Persian into Turkic for him, and Oghuz songs were sung at the wedding of Tughril to the caliph's daughter. Later sultans, like Mahmud, could speak Arabic alongside Persian; however, they still used Turkic among themselves. The most significant evidence of the importance of Turkic language is the extensive Turkic–Arabic dictionary, or the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, assembled in Baghdad for caliph al-Muqtadi by Mahmud al-Kashgari. However, besides the Diwan, no works written in Turkic language survive from the Seljuk Empire. While the Maliknama was compiled from Turkic oral accounts, it was written in Persian and Arabic.

Steppe traditions influenced Seljuk marriages, with Tughril marrying his brother Chaghri's widow, a practice despised in Islam. Seljuk ceremonies were based on the Abbasid model, but sometimes ancient Iranian ceremonies were observed. During a night in 1091, all of Baghdad was lit with candles under the orders of Malik-Shah I, which resembled the Zoroastrian ritual of sadhak.

In 985, the Seljuks migrated to the city of Jend, where they converted to Islam. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks into Persia, and their patronage of constructing madrasas, allowed for Sunni Islam to become the dominant sect of Islam. Until the death of Sultan Sanjar, the Seljuks were pious Sunnis and represented a re-establishment of Sunni Islam in Iraq and western Persia since the 10th century.

In 1046, Tughril built the madrasa al-Sultaniya in Nishapur, while Chaghri Beg founded a madrasa in Merv. Tughril and Alp Arslan chose Hanafi qadis and preachers for these madrasas. By 1063, there were twenty-five madrasas scattered throughout Persia and Khorasan, founded by Seljuk princes. In the 12th century there were over thirty madrasas in Baghdad.

In 1056, Tughril built a Friday mosque with a newly constructed quarter in Baghdad which was surrounded by a wall. The new quarter separated the Shia community from the Sunnis, since there had been frequent outbreaks of violence. Through the influence of Tughril's vizier, al-Kunduri, a Hanafi Sunni, the Ash'ari and Ismaili Shi'ites were exiled from Khurasan and cursed at Friday sermons in Seljuk mosques. Al-Kunduri's vizierate persecuted Ash'aris and Sharifis, although this ended with the vizierate of Nizam al-Mulk. It was under the vizierate of al-Kunduri that the Islamic scholar, al-Juwayni was forced to flee to Mecca and Medina. In 1065, Alp Arslan campaigned against the Kingdom of Georgia, subjugated Tbilisi, and built a mosque in the city.

In 1092, Malik-Shah built the Jami al-Sultan Mosque in Baghdad. At the capital, Isfahan, Malik-shah had constructed a madrasa, a citadel and a castle near Dizkuh. Following Malik-Shah's death, the familial civil war drew attention away from religious patronage, slowing the building of madrasas and mosques. Although in 1130, the Seljuk sultan Sanjar ordered the construction of the Quthamiyya madrasa in Samarkand.

While the Seljuk sultans were prodigious builders of religious buildings, Seljuk viziers were no different. The Seljuk vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, founded the first madrasa in Baghdad in 1063, called the Nizamiya. In the madrasas he built, he patronized Shafi'is. The vizier Taj al-Mulk and Malik-shah's widow, Terken Khatun, patronized the building of a madrasa to compete with Nizam al-Mulk's Nizamiya.

The region of Iraq was under the control of the Seljuk Empire from 1055 to 1135, since the Oghuz Turk Tughril Beg had expelled the Shi'ite Buyid dynasty. Tughril Beg entered Baghdad in 1055 and was the first Seljuk ruler to style himself Sultan and Protector of the Abbasid Caliphate. From that time, the Abbasids were only puppets in the hands of the Seljuks. In 1058, the Abbasid caliph granted Tughril the title of "King of East and West", officially becoming the temporal protector of Abbasid caliph Qa'im. Iraq remained under the control of the Great Seljuks during the reign of Muhammad I Tapar (1082–1118 CE), but from 1119, his 14-year-old son Mahmud II (1118–1131) was restricted ruling Iraq, while Ahmad Sanjar took control of the rest of the Empire.

In order to counter the ambitions of Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid (1118–1135), who wanted to acquire world dominance, in 1124 Mahmūd granted the city of Wasit to Imad al-Din Zengi as an iqta, and conferred him the Military Governorship of Basra together with Baghdad and the whole of Iraq in 1126. In 1127, Imad al-Din Zengi was named Governor of Mosul, where the Atabegdom of Mosul was formed. The Seljuk control of the Abbasids ended in 1135, with direct military confrontation between the Abbasids and the Seljuks: after rebuilding the walls of Baghdad and recreating a Caliphal after many centuries, al-Mustarshid confronted the subordinate Seljuk Sultan of Iraq Mas'ud in battle. The caliph lost and was taken prisoner, and died in captivity in 1135, but conflicts continued with Al-Mustarshid's successors. Mas'ud briefly recaptured Baghdad in the Siege of Baghdad (1136), forcing Caliph al-Rashid Billah to abdicate, but the next caliph, al-Muqtafi (1136–1160), managed to restore a high degree of independence and successfully resisted the Seljuk siege of Baghdad (1157).

The army of the earliest Seljuks was not similar to the renowned Turkic military of the classical Abbasid era. Their first invasions were more of a great nomadic migration accompanied by their families and livestock rather than planned military conquests. They were not a professional army; however, warfare was a way of life for nearly all of adult male Turkmens.

According to a Seljuk vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, by the reign of Malik-Shah I, the sovereign had a large army at his disposal. There were Turkmens, mamluks, a standing army, infantry and the sultan's personal guard. Nizam al-Mulk also estimated Malik-Shah's forces at 400,000 men, and often opposed cost-cutting plans (instituted by Taj al-Mulk) to bring these to 70,000.

Vizier Nizam al-Mulk, the greatest advocate of Iranian orientation for the Seljuk empire, admitted the debt the dynasty owed to the Turkmens. After the establishment of the Seljuk state, Turkmens continued to be the driving force behind the Seljuk expansion in Anatolia. After the rule of Malik-Shah I, however, there are very few mentions of Turkmens in the Jibali region of the state, especially in their traditional axis of Rayy, Hamadhan and Hulwan.

Turkmens were difficult to manage, and they were susceptible to undisciplined pillaging. The greatest issue, however, was their dependence on pasturelands for their livestock. A great number of regions that constituted the Seljuk state were ecologically ill-suited for supporting a nomadic army. Turkmens' limitations are adeptly described by Arab scholar Sibt ibn al-Jawzi:

The sultan (Tughril I) ordered his soldiers to prepare [themselves] and to send to bring their tents, children and families to Iraq and to head to Syria with him. They said, "This land is ruined, there is neither food nor fodder here and we have no funds left. We cannot stay [indefinitely] on the backs of horses. What if our families, horses and beasts come, but our absence becomes drawn out? We must visit our families, so we are asking for permission to return to them and to go back to the place which is assigned to us."

Long campaigns had to be discontinued due to Turkmens' insistence on returning home, and conquests had to be scheduled to satisfy the demands of Turkmens. The short-term needs of Turkmens made longer-term military plans unachievable.

This system, previously used by the ancient Islamic states, was established for military purposes during the Great Seljuk period during the reign of Sultan Malik-Shah I and gained a significant place in the military sphere. The army the Great Seljuks established using this system was called the Iqta' Army. The Ikta system, reorganized by Vizier Nizam al-Mulk, both trained soldiers and increased the prosperity of these lands. The Iqta' System underwent centralization movements during the Sanjar era. This army resembled the Timar Army of the Ottoman Empire.

The Palace Ghilmans or Special Army, were an army troops paid by the state and tasked with protecting the imperial palace and the sultan during the Seljuk period. These troops also served as the Seljuk sultan's personal guard during battles and campaigns. For example, at the Battle of Manzikert, 4,000 ghilman formed the central army of the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan. Furthermore, these troops were of Sipahi origin.

The alternative to nomadic Turkmen troops was mamluks. While also of Turkic and often nomadic origin, dependence on pasturelands was non-existent for mamluks, as they did not live a nomadic life. Previously, mamluks had constituted the later Abbasid, the Samanid, and the Ghaznavid armies. In fact, the Ghaznavid dynasty was itself of Mamluk origin.

The process of Mamluk recruitment is well known from other periods in Islamic history, but there is almost no information directly relating to the Seljuks. The chief source of Mamluks was most probably forays to the steppe. The alternative to raids was buying them from slave traders and various dealers as evidenced from a slave dispute between a merchant and Muhammad I Tapar.

Many depictions of military figures are known from the period immediately following the Seljuk Empire (which ended in 1194), as illustrated manuscripts started to enjoy a major boom from circa 1200. Seljuk styles of military equipment continued during the 13th century in the Turkic post-Seljuk successor states (generally included under the term "Seljuk period"), such as the Seljuk Rums, the Zengids, the Artuqids or the Khwarizmians, and are documented in their manuscripts.