Seljuk dynasty

Early history

The Seljuks originated from the Kinik branch of the Oghuz Turks, 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 in the Kazakh Steppe of Turkestan. During the 10th century, Oghuz had come into close contact with Muslim cities.

In the 11th century, the Seljuks migrated from their ancestral homelands into mainland Persia, in the province of Khurasan, where they encountered the Ghaznavids. 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. At the Battle of Dandanaqan, they defeated a Ghaznavid army, and after a successful siege of Isfahan by Tughril in 1050/51, established the Great Seljuk Empire. The Seljuks mixed with the local population and adopted the Persian culture and Persian language in the following decades.

Later period

After arriving in Persia, the Seljuks adopted the Persian culture and used the Persian language as the official language of the government, and played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition which features "Persian culture patronized by Turkic rulers". Today, they are remembered as great patrons of Persian culture, art, literature, and language.

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.

• Muhammad's son Mahmud II succeeded him in western Persia, but Ahmad Sanjar, who was the governor of Khurasan 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 Abbasids 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

Main article: Kerman Seljuk Sultanate

Kerman was a province in southern Persia. Between 1053 and 1154, the territory also included Umman.

• 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

Sultans/Emirs 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
• Muhi ad-Din Baktāsh (Ertaş) 1104 Damascus seized by the Burid Toghtekin

Seljuk sultans of Rum (Anatolia)

Main article: Sultanate of Rûm

The Seljuk line, already having been deprived of any significant power, effectively ended in the early 14th century.

• Kutalmish 1060–1077
• Suleyman I (Suleiman) 1077–1086
• Dawud Kilij Arslan I 1092–1107
• Malik Shah 1107–1116
• Rukn ad-Din Mesud I 1116–1156
• Izz ad-Din Kilij Arslan II 1156–1192
• Ghiyath ad-Din Kaykhusraw I 1192–1196
• Suleyman II (Suleiman) 1196–1204
• Kilij Arslan III 1204–1205
• Ghiyath ad-Din Kaykhusraw I (second time) 1205–1211
• Izz ad-Din Kaykaus I 1211–1220
• Ala ad-Din Kayqubad I 1220–1237
• Ghiyath ad-Din Kaykhusraw II 1237–1246
• Izz ad-Din Kaykaus II 1246–1260
• Rukn ad-Din Kilij Arslan IV 1248–1265
• Ala ad-Din Kayqubad II 1249–1257
• Ghiyath ad-Din Kaykhusraw III 1265–1282
• Ghiyath ad-Din Mesud II 1282–1284
• Ala ad-Din Kayqubad III 1284
• Ghiyath ad-Din Mesud II (second time) 1284–1293
• Ala ad-Din Kayqubad III (second time) 1293–1294
• Ghiyath ad-Din Mesud II (third time) 1294–1301
• Ala ad-Din Kayqubad III (third time) 1301–1303
• Ghiyath ad-Din Mesud II (fourth time) 1303–1307

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

Notes

References

References

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7. 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."
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22. 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 [[Clifford Edmund Bosworth. C.E. Bosworth]]; [[UNESCO. UNESCO Publishing]], [[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) ..."
23. 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. Ottoman]] civilization was to remain strong until the 19th century.
24. 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."
25. [[Clifford Edmund Bosworth. 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."
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28. ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', "Seljuq", Online Edition, ([http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9066688 LINK] {{Webarchive. link. (2007-12-19 ): "... 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 ...")
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