The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids[Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161, 164; "renewed the Seljuk attempt to found a great Turko-Persian empire in eastern Iran…", "It is to be noted that the Seljuks, those Turkomans who became sultans of Persia, did not Turkify Persia-no doubt because they did not wish to do so. On the contrary, it was they who voluntarily became Persians and who, in the manner of the great old Sassanid kings, strove to protect the Iranian populations from the plundering of Ghuzz bands and save Iranian culture from the Turkoman menace."][Nishapuri, Zahir al-Din Nishapuri (2001), "The History of the Seljuq Turks from the Jami’ al-Tawarikh: An Ilkhanid Adaptation of the Saljuq-nama of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri," Partial tr. K.A. Luther, ed. C.E. Bosworth, Richmond, UK. K.A. Luther, p. 9: "The Turks were illiterate and uncultivated when they arrived in Khurasan and had to depend on Iranian scribes, poets, jurists and theologians to man the institution of the Empire")]
The founder of the Seljuk dynasty, Seljuk Beg, was a descendant of a royal Khazar chief Tuqaq who served as advisor to the King of the Khazars. in West Asia and Central Asia. The Seljuks established the Seljuk Empire (1037–1194), the Sultanate of Kermân (1041–1186) and the Sultanate of Rum (1074–1308), which stretched from Iran to Anatolia and were the prime targets of the First Crusade.
Early history
The Seljuks originated from the Kinik branch of the
Oghuz Turks,
[Concise Britannica Online Seljuq Dynasty article][The History of the Seljuq Turks: From the Jami Al-Tawarikh ( LINK)][Shaw, Stanford. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey ( LINK)][Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic People. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. p. 209] who in the 8th century lived on the periphery of the Muslim world; north of the
Caspian Sea and
Aral Sea in their Oghuz Yabgu State
[Wink, Andre, Al Hind: the Making of the Indo-Islamic World Brill Academic Publishers, 1996, p. 9] in the
Kazakh Steppe of
Turkestan.
[ Islam: An Illustrated History, p. 51] During the 10th century, Oghuz had come into close contact with Muslim cities.
[ When Seljuk, the leader of the Seljuk clan, had a falling out with Yabghu, the supreme chieftain of the Oghuz, he split his clan from the bulk of the Oghuz Turks and set up camp on the west bank of the lower Syr Darya. Around 985, Seljuk converted to Islam.][Michael Adas, Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History, (Temple University Press, 2001), 99.]
In the 11th century, the Seljuks migrated from their ancestral homelands into mainland Persia, in the Greater Khorasan, where they encountered the . The Seljuks defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Nasa in 1035. Seljuk's grandsons, Tughril and Chaghri, received the insignias of governor, grants of land, and were given the title of dehqan.[Bosworth, C.E. The Ghaznavids: 994–1040, Edinburgh University Press, 1963, 242.] At the Battle of Dandanaqan, they defeated a Ghaznavid army, and after a successful siege of Isfahan by Tughril in 1050/51,[Tony Jaques, Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: F–O, (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), 476.] established the Great Seljuk Empire. The Seljuks mixed with the local population and adopted the Persian culture and Persian language in the following decades.[M.A. Amir-Moezzi, "Shahrbanu", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, (): "... here one might bear in mind that Turco-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs 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 ..."][F. Daftary, "Sectarian and National Movements in Iran, Khorasan, and Trasoxania during Umayyad and Early Abbasid Times", in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol 4, pt. 1; edited by M.S. Asimov and C.E. Bosworth; UNESCO, Institute of Ismaili Studies: "... Not only did the inhabitants of Khurasan not succumb to the language of the nomadic invaders, but they imposed their own tongue on them. The region could even assimilate the Turkic Ghaznavids and Seljuks (eleventh and twelfth centuries), the Timurids (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries), and the Qajars (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) ..."]
Later period
After arriving in Greater Iran, the Seljuks adopted the Persianate and used the Persian language as the official language of the government,[Bosworth, C.E.; Hillenbrand, R.; Rogers, J.M.; Blois, F.C. de; Bosworth, C.E.; Darley-Doran, R.E., "Saldjukids," Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2009: "Culturally, the consisting of the Seljuq Empire marked a further step in the dethronement of Arabic from being the sole lingua franca of educated and polite society in the Middle East. Coming as they did through a Transoxania which was still substantially Iranian and into Persia proper, the Seljuqs with no high-level Turkish cultural or literary heritage of their own – took over that of Persia, so that the Persian language became the administration and culture in their land of Persia and Anatolia. The Persian culture of the Rum Seljuqs was particularly splendid, and it was only gradually that Turkish emerged there as a parallel language in the field of government and adab; the Persian imprint in Ottoman Empire civilization was to remain strong until the 19th century.][Ehsan Yarshater, "Iran" in Encyclopedia Iranica: "The ascent of the Saljuqids also put an end to a period which Minorsky has called "the Persian intermezzo" (see Minorsky, 1932, p. 21), when Iranian dynasties, consisting mainly of the Saffarids, the Samanids, the Ziyarids, the Buyids, the Kakuyids, and the Bavandids of Tabarestan and Gilan, ruled most of Iran. By all accounts, weary of the miseries and devastations of never-ending conflicts and wars, Persians seemed to have sighed with relief and to have welcomed the stability of the Saljuqid rule, all the more so since the Saljuqids mitigated the effect of their foreignness, quickly adopting the Persian culture and court customs and procedures and leaving the civil administration in the hand of Persian personnel, headed by such capable and learned viziers as ‘Amid-al-Molk Kondori and Nezam-al-Molk."][C.E. Bosworth, "Turkish expansion towards the west", in UNESCO History of Humanity, Volume IV: From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century, UNESCO Publishing / Routledge, 2000. p. 391: "While the Arabic language retained its primacy in such spheres as law, theology and science, the culture of the Seljuk court and secular literature within the sultanate became largely Persianized; this is seen in the early adoption of Persian epic names by the Seljuk rulers (Qubād, Kay Khusraw and so on) and in the use of Persian as a literary language (Turkish must have been essentially a vehicle for everyday speech at this time). The process of Persianization accelerated in the thirteenth century with the presence in Konya of two of the most distinguished refugees fleeing before the Mongols, Bahā' al-Dīn Walad and his son Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, whose Mathnawī, composed in Konya, constitutes one of the crowning glories of classical Persian literature."] and played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition which features "Persian culture patronized by Turkic rulers".[Daniel Pipes: "The Event of Our Era: Former Soviet Muslim Republics Change the Middle East" in Michael Mandelbaum, "Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkemenistan and the World", Council on Foreign Relations, p. 79. Exact statement: "In Short, the Turko-Persian tradition featured Persian culture patronized by Turcophone rulers."] Today, they are remembered as great patrons of Persian culture, Persian art, literature, and Persian language.[O. Özgündenli, "Persian Manuscripts in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Libraries", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, ()][ Encyclopædia Britannica, "Seljuq", Online Edition, ( LINK ): "... 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. 25–26 (2005), pp. 157–169]
Seljuk rulers
Rulers of the Seljuk Dynasty
The "Great Seljuks" were heads of the family; in theory their authority extended over all the other Seljuk lines, although in practice this often was not the case. Turkic custom called for the senior member of the family to be the Great Seljuk, although usually the position was associated with the ruler of western Persia.
|
Bey
| Tughril I
| 1037–1063 |
Suleiman
| 1063 |
Sultan
| Alp Arslan (Arslan I)
| 1063–1072 |
Sultan
Jalāl al-Dawlah
| Malik Shah I
| 1072–1092 |
Sultan
Nasir al-Duniya wa al-Din
| Mahmud I
| 1092–1094 |
Sultan
Abul Muzaffar Rukn al-Duniya wa al-Din
| Barkiyaruq
| 1094–1105 |
Sultan
Muizz al-Din
| Malik Shah II
| 1104–1105 |
Sultan
Ghiyath al-Duniya wa al-Din
| Muhammad I Tapar
| 1105–1118 |
Sultan
Muizz al-Din
| *Ahmad Sanjar
| 1118–1153 |
| Khwarazmian dynasty replaces the Seljuk dynasty. From 1157, the Oghuz Turks took control of much of Khurasan, with the remainder in the hands of former Seljuk emirs. |
-
Muhammad's son Mahmud II succeeded him in western Persia, but Ahmad Sanjar, who was the governor of Greater Khorasan at the time being the senior member of the family, became the Great Seljuk Sultan.
Seljuk sultans of Hamadan
The rulers of western Persia, who maintained a very loose grip on the Abbasid dynasty of Baghdad. Several Turkic emirs gained a strong level of influence in the region, such as the Eldiguzids.
-
Mahmud II 1118–1131
-
1131–1133 disputed between:
-
Dawud 1131–1132
-
Mas'ud (in Jibal and Iranian Azerbaijan) 1132
-
Toghrul II, 1132–1133
-
Mas'ud 1133–1152
-
Malik Shah III 1152–1153
-
Muhammad II 1153–1159
-
Suleiman-Shah 1159–1161
-
Arslan-Shah 1161–1177
-
Toghrul III 1177–1194
In 1194, Toghrul III was killed in battle with the Khwarezm Shah, who annexed Hamadan.
Seljuk rulers of Kerman
Kerman province was a province in southern Persia. Between 1053 and 1154, the territory also included Oman.
-
Qavurt 1041–1073 (great-grandson of Seljuq, brother of Alp Arslan)
-
Kerman Shah 1073–1074
-
Sultan Shah 1074–1075 or 1074–1085
-
Hussain Omar 1075–1084
or 1074 (before Sultan Shah)
-
Turan Shah I 1084–1096 or 1085–1097
-
Iranshah ibn Turanshah 1096–1101 or 1097–1101
-
Arslan Shah I 1101–1142
-
Muhammad I 1142–1156
-
Tuğrul Shah 1156–1169 or 1156–1170
-
Bahram-Shah 1169–1174 or 1170–1175
-
Arslan Shah II 1174–1176 or 1175–1176
-
Turan Shah II 1176–1183
-
Muhammad II Shah 1183–1187 or 1183–1186
Muhammad abandoned Kerman, which fell into the hands of the Oghuz chief Malik Dinar. Kerman was eventually annexed by the Khwarezmid Empire in 1196.
Seljuk rulers in Syria
-
Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I 1085–1086
-
Jalal ad-Dawlah Malik Shah I of Great Seljuk 1086–1087
-
Qasim ad-Dawla Abu Said Aq Sunqur al-Hajib 1087–1094
-
Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I ( second time) 1094–1095
-
Fakhr al-Mulk Ridwan 1095–1113
-
Tadj ad-Dawla Alp Arslan al-Akhras 1113–1114
-
Sultan Shah 1114–1123
To the Artuqids
/ of Damascus:
-
Aziz ibn Abaaq al-Khwarazmi 1076–1079
-
Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I 1079–1095
-
Abu Nasr Shams al-Muluk Duqaq 1095–1104
-
Tutush II 1104
-
Irtash 1104
Damascus seized by the Burid Toghtekin
Seljuk sultans of Rum (Anatolia)
The Seljuk line, already having been deprived of any significant power, effectively ended in the early 14th century.
Gallery
File:Chess Set MET DP170393.jpg|Shatranj chess set, glazed fritware, 12th-century Iran. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
File:Eskişehir Archaeological Museum 1270.jpg|Seljuk sarcophagus at the Eskişehir Eti Archaeology Museum
Family tree
See also
-
Khatun Seljuk princess
-
Seljuk Empire
-
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum
-
Seljuk (warlord)
Further reading
-
-
Peacock, A.C.S. (2010). Early Seljuq History: A New Interpretation. New York: Routledge.
