History of Iran - Part 16
The current situation in the Middle East has focused attention on Iran — a country whose history rivals that of any on earth, stretching back over 5,000 years and encompassing 29 UNESCO World Heritage sites. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) defines a World Heritage Site as a landmark or area recognized for its outstanding cultural, historical, or natural significance and protected under an international treaty for the benefit of all humanity.
This is part 16 of a multi-part series examining that history.
Click here for a list of the articles in this series.
The Great Seljuk Empire
Seljuk Empire at its Peak - Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY NC-SA 4.0 license (CLICK TO EXPAND)
Ever wonder how Turkey got its name? And what that has to do with the history of Iran? The answer is the Seljuk Empire, which ended the Iranian Intermezzo in 1055. Over the following century, this dynasty would build one of the largest and most consequential empires of the medieval Islamic world.
The Turkic people were a large family of related peoples and languages originating in Central Asia, much like how "Slavic" or "Germanic" describes a family of European peoples rather than a single nation. It is estimated that over 150 million people speak Turkic languages today across a wide area ranging from the Balkans to Siberia. One branch of these peoples is called the Oghuz Turks, originally steppe nomads from the region between the Aral and Caspian Seas — modern-day Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
From the Steppe to Baghdad
The dynasty took its name from Seljuk, an Oghuz Turkic military commander whose people converted to Sunni Islam in the late 900s while living near the Aral Sea. His grandsons, brothers Tughril and Chaghri Beg, led their followers into the region of Khorasan in the early 1000s. Khorasan is a historical region in northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia, including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. In 1040, the Seljuks routed Ghaznavid forces and secured Khorasan for good at the Battle of Dandanaqan, just east of modern-day Iran.
Tughrul Tower - Burial Tower of Founder of Seljuk Empire - click to expand - By Pdc damavand - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Abbasid Caliph al-Qa'im, located in Baghdad, the capital, was Sunni, but the Buyid dynasty then ruling the area was Shia. The majority of the population was Sunni. The Buyids were weakened by internal division, and the Caliph invited the Sunni Seljuks to enter Baghdad, which they did without a fight in 1055. Tughril was received with honor and granted the title of Sultan. The Caliph remained the spiritual head of Sunni Islam, while political power belonged to the Sultan.
Anatolia Becomes Turkey
Modern-day Turkey was formerly called Anatolia, Greek for ‘The East.’ When Tughril died in 1063, his nephew, Alp Arslan, expanded the empire aggressively. He pushed west into Byzantine Anatolia, extending the Seljuk Empire as far as Damascus and Jerusalem, even recovering Mecca and Medina from the rival Shia Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo.
His defining moment came in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikert, fought in eastern Turkey. Alp Arslan decisively crushed a Byzantine army and personally captured Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. According to several Byzantine chroniclers, Alp Arslan asked his captive what he would have done in the reverse situation. Romanos reportedly answered that he'd have had the sultan flogged, or worse. Alp Arslan responded with calculated mercy instead, releasing him with gifts and an honor guard. It did the deposed emperor little good: his own court, taking advantage of his capture, had already crowned a replacement, and Romanos was later blinded and tortured to death by his own people — a far crueler fate than his enemy ever intended for him.
The Byzantine defeat at Manzikert began the transition of Greek Anatolia into Turkey (the land of the Turks), a process that concluded over 800 years later. At the end of World War I, the Greeks and Turks fought a brutal war in 1919, including ethnic cleansing and massacres. In 1923, the Greeks and Turks negotiated a mandatory population exchange, relocating over one million Greeks from Turkey to Greece and several hundred thousand Muslims in the other direction. This was the final chapter.
Alp Arslan didn't live to see the full fruits of his victory. He was assassinated the following year, in 1072, and succeeded by his son, Malik-Shah I.
Jameh Mosque of Isfahan - done under Seljuk Vizier Nizam al-Mulk - click to expand - By Hamidespanani - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Malik-Shah and Nizam al-Mulk
The reign of Malik-Shah (1072–1092) marks the empire's peak. Nizam al-Mulk, his Persian vizier (prime minister), effectively ran the government.
Nizam al-Mulk founded a network of educational institutions known as the Nizamiyya madrasas, which taught both secular and religious subjects. He wrote the Siyasatnama ("Book of Government"), a treatise on statecraft that continued to influence Persian rule long after Nizam’s death. Written in Persian, the book included practical guidance on taxation, justice, and the proper conduct of rulers.
Fragmentation
Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated in 1092. Malik-Shah himself died a few weeks later, possibly poisoned, leaving no clear plan for succession. His sons plunged the empire into a bitter civil war. Over the following decades, the Seljuk realm splintered into competing branches: an eastern sultanate based at Merv, in modern-day Turkmenistan; one at Hamadan in western Iran, and one in Anatolia known as the Sultanate of Rum. The eastern Seljuks suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Qatwan in 1141 against the Qara Khitai, people from Mongolia and China. With the exception of the Sultanate of Rum, the Seljuk Empire collapsed when the last sultan, Tughril III, was killed in 1194.
The First Crusade
Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, still reeling from defeat at Manzikert two decades earlier, appealed to Pope Urban II for military help. This request helped spark the First Crusade in 1095. Crusader armies took Jerusalem in 1099, establishing Christian states along the Levantine coast that would endure for nearly two centuries. The fragmented Seljuk empire was unable to mount a unified military response to the Crusaders.
Nizam al-Mulk's assassination, mentioned above as the spark that helped unravel the empire, was no ordinary political murder. It was the work of a secretive, highly organized sect operating from a remote mountain fortress. Their name eventually entered the English language itself as a word for political murder. Their story is next.