The Seljuks: Baghdad, Manzikert and Nizam al-Mulk
The Seljuk Turks take the caliph under their protection, defeat Byzantium and open Anatolia to the Turks; their vizier builds madrasas across Iran.
In 1055 Tughril Beg, chief of the Seljuk Turks, enters Baghdad: the caliph remains the spiritual head, but power passes to the sultan. His nephew Alp Arslan in 1071 at Manzikert in Armenia defeats the Byzantine army and takes the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes prisoner; after this the Turkish tribes spread across Anatolia, and within half a century the Sultanate of Rum stands there—the beginning of the Turkey that exists today. Under Malik-Shah (1072–1092) the realm stretches from Central Asia to Syria; all affairs are run by the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, author of the Book of Government, founder of the Nizamiyya madrasas in Baghdad, Nishapur and Isfahan; at his court Omar Khayyam reforms the calendar. In 1092 the vizier is killed by an Ismaili, a month later the sultan dies, and the realm is divided among heirs. Manzikert is one of the reasons the West will set out on crusade a quarter of a century later: Byzantium asks for help.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Michael Attaleiates and Nikephoros Bryennios on Manzikert — the battle of 1071 and the capture of Romanos IV
- Nizam al-Mulk, the Book of Government — the workings of the Seljuk realm through the vizier’s eyes
Scholarship
- history of the Seljuks — the dating to 1055–1092 and the Turkish settlement of Anatolia
Basis: documents and evidence.