Seljuks

“ And the victorious and voluptuous Seljuks, even now they tremble at the dim mention of the distant name of Arslan. Yet I, Bostenay, and the frail remnant of our scattered tribes, still we exist, and still, thanks to our God! we prosper. But the age of power has passed; it is by prudence now that we must flourish. The gibe and jest, the curse, perchance the blow, Israel now must bear, and with a calm or even smiling visage. ”

“ Seljuks, a Turkish people who in the 10th century, headed by a chief named Seljuk (whence their name) , broke away from their allegiance to the khan of Kirghiz, adopted the Mohammedan faith, and subsequently conquered Bokhara, but were driven across the Oxus and settled HI Khorassan; under Toghril Beg, grandson of Seljuk, they in the 11th century won for themselves a wide empire in Asia, including the provinces of Syria and Asia Minor, whose rulers, by their cruel persecution of Christian pilgrims, led to the Crusade movement in Europe. ”

“ But it fell to the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century, from whose hands it passed into those of the Merwanids, a line of Kurdish princes which had arisen from the debris of the caliphate, and whom the Seljuks had dispossessed of their seats about Diarbekr.10 The rule of these Kurds appears to have been so harsh that they were driven out by the inhabitants; a warrior of Turkish descent, who had been the slave of the Seljuk governor of Marand in Azerbaijan, was called in as their Prince. ”

“ Apparently they took the Mohammedan religion as embodied in the Koran literally and fanatically, and, considering nothing beyond these, sought to propagate the doctrine through conquest by sword. They are frequently known as Seljuks. It is to the credit of the Arabs, whether in Mesopotamia, Africa, or Spain, that their minds reached beyond the Koran into the wider ranges of knowledge, a fact which tempered their fanatical zeal, but the Seljuk Turks swept forward with their armies until they conquered the Byzantine Empire of the East, the last branch of the great Roman Empire. ”

“ Sultan Sanjar and the Kara-Khitāys The country of Khwārazm300 was one of the first conquests of the Seljūks. On becoming masters of Khorāsān, the `Irāks, Persia, and Syria, they chose men from among their Turkish slaves whom they placed in charge of the various provinces. The governor thus set over Khwārazm was named Balkategin, who was Tasht-dār, or Grand Ewer-bearer,301 to Sultan Melik Shāh, who exercised paramount authority in that country. ”

“ In A.H. 551 (1156) 322 Atsiz died at the age of sixty-one, and was succeeded by his son Il-Arslān, with whom the independent dynasty of Khwārazm-Shāhs properly begins. Meanwhile the affairs of Sultan Sanjar were going from bad to worse, and the end of the last great Seljūk was as ignoble as his career had been glorious. Strange to say, his ultimate ruin was caused by a Turkish tribe who came of the same stock as the Seljūks themselves. ”

“ Upon the plain of the Tigris the enemy formed into battle array. The centre was commanded by Malek, the Grand Sultan of the Seljuks himself; the right wing, headed by the Sultan of Syria, was protected by the river; and the left, under the Sultan of Roum, was posted upon the advantageous position of some irregular and rising ground. Thus proud in the number, valour, discipline, and disposition of his forces, Malek awaited the conqueror of Persia. ”

“ Turkish adventurers founded the dynasty of Ghaznevids at Ghazni, and there was a Uighur kingdom in the east comprising Kashgar and Khotan. Boghra Khan, the ruler of this kingdom, was converted to Islam at the end of the 10th century, and it continued under various branches of Uighurs until 1120. An interesting memorial of this period is the book Kudatku Bilik (see below) . More important politically is the rise of the Seljuks. They were the princely family of the Kabaks, who were a section of the group of tribes called Ghuzz (Oghuz, Οὔζοι) , and are heard of in Transoxiana about 985. ”

“ The Mongol armies penetrated as far as Smyrna. Everywhere submission was complete, although no effort was made to provide a new government for the conquered regions in the western part of the peninsula. The Emperor of Trebizond became a vassal of the Mongols. [694]
The battle of Mughan cost the Seljuk Empire its independence. [695] After 1246, when Kaï Khosrew died, the situation of the Seljuks of Konia is depicted by Shehabeddin in these words: ‘The princes of the family of Seljuk kept only the title of sovereign, without having any authority or any power. ”

“ We find them also at war with many of these powers, and with the Genoese, who endeavoured to monopolize the commerce of the Black Sea. The city was several times besieged, the most formidable attack being that which occurred in the reign of Andronicus I., the second emperor, when the Seljuks, under the command of Melik, the son of the great sultan Ala-ed-din, first assaulted the northern wall in the direction of the sea, and afterwards endeavoured to storm the upper citadel by night. ”

“ Reign of Moqtafi.—His successor Al-Moqtafi li-amri’llāh (“he who follows the orders of God”) , son of Mostazhir, had better success. He was real ruler not only of the district of Bagdad, but also of the rest of Irak, which he subdued by force. He died in the month of Rabia II. 555 (March 1160) . Under his reign the central power of the Seljuks was rapidly sinking. In the west of Atabeg (prince’s guardian) Zengī, the prince of Mosul, had extended his dominion over Mesopotamia and the north of Syria, where he had been the greatest defender of Islam against the Franks. ”

“ HOUSE OF THE AMERICAN CONSUL IN SIVAS. Kaisarieh (ancient Cæsarea) is filled with the ruins and the monuments of the fourteenth-century Seljuks. Arrowheads and other relics are every day unearthed there, to serve as toys for the street urchins. Since the development of steam-communication around the coast, it is no longer the caravan center that it used to be; but even now its charshi, or inclosed bazaars, are among the finest [pg 27] in Turkey, being far superior in appearance to those of Constantinople. ”

“ These nomads caused dreadful devastation, trampled to the ground the flourishing civilisation of vast territories, and contributed almost nothing to the culture of the human race; but they mightily strengthened the religion of Mohammed. The rude Turks took up with zeal the faith which was just within the reach of their intellectual powers, and they became its true, often fanatical, champions against the outside world. They founded the powerful empire of the Seljuks, and conquered new regions for Islam in the north-west. ”

“ Masūd fell, probably about 1295, a victim to the vengeance of one of the amirs, whose father he had ordered to be put to death. After him Kaikobād, son of his brother Farāmarz, entered Konia as sultan in 1298, but his reign is so obscure that nothing can be said of it; some authors assert that he governed only till 1300, others till 1315. With him ended the dynasty of the Seljūks; but the Turkish empire founded by them continued to exist under the rising dynasty of the Ottomans. ”

“ For of the two roads into Asia Minor from Armenia, the upper one lay through Sivas and Angora, and the lower through Caesarea, Akseraï, and Konia. Whichever route they took would lead them through the Seljuk dominions.
It is doubtful if Alaeddin viewed the appearance of these{17} fighting bands with any other emotion than that of alarm. In spite of their undoubted skill as fighters, the Seljuk Sultan did not dare to enroll many of them in his army. If he were defeated in battle, or if he should die, he knew well that such vigorous mercenaries might upset his line. ”

“ During his reign—he died in 1155—the Greek emperors undertook various expeditions in Asia Minor and Armenia; but the Seljūk was cunning enough to profess himself their ally and to direct them against his own enemies. Nevertheless the Seljūkian dominion was petty and unimportant and did not rise to significance till his son and successor, Kilij Arslān II., had subdued the Danishmands and appropriated their possessions, though he thereby risked the wrath of the powerful atabeg of Syria, Nureddin, and afterwards that of Saladin. ”

“ The reader is requested to remember that the Seljouks were first settled in Khorasan, the Persian province, and founded an independent sovereignty that, under the three vigorous rulers Alp Arslan, Melik Shah and Togrul Bey, rapidly enlarged its bounds, as to include the whole of Persia, Armenia, Syria and the greater part of Asia Minor. The period of the Seljoukian kingdom in Asia Minor lasted about 250 years (1045–1299 A. D.) . The Ottoman, or the present Turks, are their kindreds under a different dynasty or government, as will be seen elsewhere. ”

“ The empire, which at one time included nearly the whole of Asia Minor, with portions of Armenia and Syria, passed to the Mongols when they defeated the sultan of Rum in 1243, and the sultans became vassals of the Great Khan. The Seljuk sultans were liberal patrons of art, literature and science, and the remains of their public buildings and tombs are amongst the most beautiful and most interesting in the country. ”

“ Thus, for instance, in the history of the Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come, Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom its glories ended, is represented to us in history in colours so bright and perfect, that it is difficult to believe we are not reading the account of some mythical personage. He came to the throne at the early age of seventeen ”

“ All the members of the Seljūk house had the same obligations in this respect, but they had not the same rights, as one of them occupied relatively to the others a place almost analogous to that of the great khān of the Mongols in later times. This position was inherited from father to son, though the old Turkish idea of the rights of the elder brother often caused rebellions and violent family disputes. After the death of Malik Shāh the head of the family was not strong enough to enforce obedience, and consequently the central government broke up into several independent dynasties. ”

“ Kilij Aslaun the sultan of Roum and chief of the Seljukian Turks, whose deeds, surrounded by the false halo of romance, are familiar to the readers of Tasso, under the name of Soliman, marched to defend this city, but was defeated after several obstinate engagements, in which the Christians shewed a degree of heroism that quite astonished him. The Turkish chief had expected to find a wild undisciplined multitude, like that under Peter the Hermit, without leaders capable of enforcing obedience ”

“ No Salgarid was left save two daughters of the Atabeg Saïd, son of Abu Bekr. One of these, Uns Khatun, whose mother Seljuk Shah had beheaded, was placed on the Fars throne by Hulagu (1264) .
When Seljuk Shah’s life was ended Timur wished to put all Shiraz men to death, and thus give a warning to people such as Seljuk and his partisans, but Altadju insisted that the citizens were innocent, and that punishment like that might be given only at Hulagu’s order. The army was dismissed, and Altadju taking the most notable people of Fars went to Hulagu’s court with them. ”

“ North of the old Seljuk capital are the ruins of Iskender Kalah, probably to be identified with the ancient Merv of the Seleucid dynasty.
New Merv, the present chief town of the oasis, founded in the first quarter of the 19th century, is on the Transcaspian railway, 380 m. by rail south-west from Samarkand. It stands on both banks of the Murghab, 820 ft. above the Caspian. Pop. (1897) , 8727, including Russians, Armenians, Turkomans, Persians and Jews. It has a meteorological observatory. Corn, raw cotton, hides, wool, nuts and dried fruit are exported. ”

“ The triumphs achieved by the Seljukian Turks between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries would in that case have been anticipated by above a thousand years through the efforts of a kindred, and not dissimilar people. ”

“ Surrounded by a barren and desolate country, Konia, when seen from afar, looks like an oasis in the desert. It is situated on an elevated plateau well-watered by mountain streams and blessed with a salubrious climate. It was these attractive features that led the Seljukian Turks to choose it for their capital. Its luxuriant gardens and orchards have long been famous and add much to the city’s picturesqueness—especially when viewed from a distance. For when one enters the old Seljukian capital there is little to attract attention except a few mosques. ”

“ He settled there and, with all his followers, embraced Islamism." Under Seldjuk and his two grandsons, Togrul and Tchakar, the Seldjukides grew formidable in numbers and power, on the border of the empire of Mahmud the Ghaznevide, then rising on the ruins of the principality of the Samanides. Thinking to control these turbulent kinsmen of his race, Mahmud unwisely proposed to them to quit the country they occupied, between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and to settle themselves in Khorasan. ”

“ Cappadocia was already desolated from end to end, and the Turkish raids had reached as far as Amorium, in Phrygia.
In 1071 came the final disaster. In pursuing the Seljouk plunderers, Romanus was drawn far eastward, to Manzikert, on the Armenian frontier. There he found himself confronted, not by a flying foe, but by the whole force of the Seljouk sultanate, with Alp Arslan himself at its head. Though his army was harassed by long marches, and though two large divisions were absent, the Emperor was eager to fight. ”