Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm

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The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum was the Seljuk Turkish sultanate that ruled in direct lineage from 1077 to 1307 in Anatolia, with capitals, successively, in İznik (Nicaea) for a brief period in its beginnings, and then in Konya in Central Anatolia. Its sultans having pursued their reigns in a high degree of mobility, cities like Kayseri and Sivas also bore aspects of capitals at times. At its height, it stretched across central Turkey from Antalya-Alanya shoreline on the Mediterranean coast to Sinop and the neighboring region on the Black Sea coast. To the east, the sultanate reached the region of Lake Van, after having absorbed other Turkish states, and its westernmost limit was near Denizli at the gates of the Aegean basin proper, where their rule was succeeded by smaller Beyliks.

The name "Rum" was given by virtue of the former Roman ownership of its lands, a fuller term in that context is the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The terms preferred in Turkish sources are Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate (Anadolu Selçukluları) or more recently, Türkiye Selçukluları - Seljuks of Turkey. The state is alternatively called the Sultanate of Konya or Sultanate of Iconium in western sources, although the state's realm had extended far beyond the region of Konya already as of the second half of the 12th century.

Controlling a geography which constituted a vital chain in a vast network of trade by means of caravans, Anatolian Seljuks prospered particularly as of the end of the 12th century, when they also acquired, at the expense of the Byzantine Empire, key port towns along Anatolia's Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, where they traded especially with the Genoese. Their perseverance and increased wealth enabled them to absorb other Turkish Beyliks that were established in Anatolia to their east after the Battle of Manzikert, the Danishmends, the Mengücek, the Saltuklu and the Artuklu. They endowed Anatolia with landmarks of civilization which remain very remarkable to this day. They successfully bore the brunt, from the Muslim world's perspective, of the Crusades, but in 1243, they were struck by the power of the Mongol Empire that had risen suddenly. Having become Mongol vassals in a gradual phase of decline and despite desperate efforts they made for preserving the state's integrity, Anatolian Seljuks disintegrated in the decades following the 1243 defeat. Their territory saw the emergence of a number of Anatolian Turkish Beyliks among which, one, that of the family of Osmanoğlu, the future Ottoman Empire, was to prove dominant.

[edit] Establishment

In the 1070s, Süleyman I bin Kutalmish, a distant cousin of Malik Shah and initially a Great Seljuk commander who had contended for the Great Seljuk throne, rose to power in western Anatolia. In 1075, Süleyman captured the Byzantine cities of İznik (Nicaea) and İzmit (Nicomedia). In defiance of Malik Shah, he declared himself sultan in 1077 and established the capital at İznik.

The Sultanate expanded, but then Süleyman was killed in Antioch (Antakya) in 1086 by Tutush I, the Seljuk ruler of Syria, and Süleyman's son Kilij Arslan I (Kılıç Arslan meaning Lion Sword in Turkish) was imprisoned. When Malik Shah died in 1092, Kilij Arslan was released and he immediately re-established possession over his father's territories. He was eventually beaten by Crusaders in 1097 and driven back into south-central Anatolia, where he set up his state with capital in Konya. In 1107, he ventured east and captured Mosul but died the same year fighting Mehmed Tapar, son of Malik Shah.

In the meantime, Konya was captured by another member of the family, Melikshah, not to be confused with the Great Seljuk sultan, but the city was taken back by Kılıj Arslan's son Mesud I in 1116 with the help of the neighboring Beylik of Danishmends. Upon Mesud's death in 1156, the sultanate's realm included, roughly, all of central Anatolia. Mesud's son Kilij Arslan II (1156-1192) captured the remaining territories (around Sivas and Malatya) of the already largely absorbed Danishmends in 1174. A Byzantine army led by Manuel I Comnenus was defeated and thwarted in the Battle of Myriocephalon on September 17 1176, resulting in a gradual weakening of the Byzantine hold over western Anatolia. Although the Third Crusade's German forces temporarily occupied the sultanate capital of Konya in 1190, this did not shake the state's cores. In the meantime, with the foundation, in 1198, of the Crusader State of Cilicia (Armenia Minor), the sultans of Konya had another Christian neighbor.

After the death of the last sultan of Great Seljuk, Tuğrul III, in 1194, the Seljuks of Rum became the sole ruling representatives of the dynasty. Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I seized back Konya from the Crusaders in 1205. Under his rule and his two successors, Izzeddin Keykavus I (1211-1220) and Alaeddin Keykubad I (1220-1237), the Seljuks of Rum reached the zenith of their power. Keyhüsrev's most important achievement was the capture of the harbour of Antalya (Attalia) on the Mediterranean coast in 1207. His son Keykavus captured Sinop and made Trebizond (Trabzon) a vassal in 1214, also vassalizing Cilicia, though he was forced to surrender the city of Aleppo he had acquired to al-Kamil in 1218. Keykubad pursued the Turkish advance along the Mediterranean coast from 1221 to 1225. In 1225, he also sent an expeditionary force across the Black Sea to Crimea^[1]. In the east, he defeated the Mengüceks, replacing their rule with his, and he started to put pressure on Artukid territory.

[edit] Downfall

Kaykhusraw II (1237-1246) began his reign by capturing the region around Diyarbekir, but in 1239 he had to face an uprising led by a popular preacher named Baba Ishak. After three years, when he had finally quelled the revolt, the Crimean foothold was lost and the state and the sultanate's army had weakened. It is in these conditions that he had to face a far more dangerous threat, that of the expanding Mongols. Mongol forces took Erzurum in 1242 and in 1243, the sultan was crushed by Bayju in the Battle of Köse Dag (a mountain between the cities of Sivas and Erzincan) and the Seljuks henceforth began to owe allegiance to the Mongols and gradually became their vassals. The sultan himself had fled to Antalya after the 1243 battle, where he died in 1246, his death starting a period of tripartite, and then dual rule that lasted until 1260.

The Seljuk realm was divided among Kaykhusraw's three sons. The eldest, Kaykaus II (1246-1260), assumed the rule in the area west of the river Kızılırmak. His younger brothers, Kilij Arslan IV (1248-1265) and Kayqubad II (1249-1257) were set to rule the regions east of the river under Mongol administration. In October 1256, Bayju defeated Kaykaus II near Aksaray and all of Anatolia became officially subject to Möngke Khan. In 1260 Kaykaus II fled from Konya to Crimea where he died in 1279. Kilij Arslan IV was executed in 1265 and Kaykhusraw III (1265-1284) became the nominal ruler of all of Anatolia, with the tangible power exercised either by the Mongols or the sultan's influential regents.

The Seljuk state had started to split into small emirates (Beyliks) that increasingly distanced themselves from both Mongol and Seljuk control. In 1277, responding to a call from Anatolia, the Mameluk sultan Baybars raided Anatolia and defeated the Mongols, temporarily replacing them as the administrator of the Seljuk realm. But since the native forces who had called him to Anatolia did not manifest themselves for the defense of the land, he had to return to his homebase in Egypt, and the Mongol administration was re-assumed, officially and severely.

Towards the end of his reign, Kaykhusraw III could claim direct sovereignty only over lands around Konya. Some of the Beyliks (including the Ottomans in their very beginnings) and Seljuk governors of Anatolia continued to recognize, albeit nominally, the supremacy of the sultan in Konya, delivering the khutba in the name of the sultans in Konya in recognition of their sovereignty, and the sultans continued to call themselves Fahreddin, the Pride of Islam. When Kaykhusraw III was executed in 1282, the Seljuk dynasty suffered another blow from internal struggles which lasted until 1303 when the son of Kaykaus II, Mesud II, established himself as sultan in Kayseri. He was murdered in 1307 as well as his son Mesud III soon afterwards. A distant relative to the Seljuk dynasty momentarily installed himself as emir of Konya, but he was defeated and his lands conquered by the Karamanoğlu in 1328. The sultanate's monetary sphere of influence lasted slightly longer and coins of Seljuk mint, generally considered to be of reliable value, continued to be used throughout the 14th century, once again, including by the Ottomans.

[edit] Art and Architecture

The exceptional period that flourished in Anatolia in the 12th and the 13th centuries, between the Crusades and the Mongol invasion, is marked by outstanding works of architecture and decorative arts.

Among these, the caravanserais (or hans), used as stops, trading posts and defense for caravans, and of which about a hundred structures were built during the Anatolian Seljuks period, are particularly remarkable. Their unequalled concentration in time and in Anatolian geography represent some of the most distinctive and impressive constructions in the entire history of Islamic architecture, and their preservation and restoration continue to preoccupy the daily agenda in Turkey, especially with a view to their use in tourism, while scholars and admirers express reserves by stressing the need to understand their original historic functions first ^[2].

The largest caravanserai is the 1229-built Sultan Han on the road between the cities of Konya and Aksaray, in the township of Sultanhanı depending the latter city, enclosing 4,900 square meters. There are two caravanserais that carry the name "Sultan Han", the other one being between Kayseri and Sivas. Furthermore, apart from Sultanhanı, five other towns across Turkey owe their names to caravanserais built there. These are Alacahan in Kangal, Durağan, Hekimhan and Kadınhanı, as well as the township of Akkale/Akhan within Denizli metropolitan area. The caravanserai of Hekimhan is unique in having, underneath the usual inscription in Arabic with information relating to the edifice, two further inscriptions in Armenian and Syriac, since it was constructed by the sultan Alâeddin Keykubad I's doctor (hekim) who is thought to have been a Christian by his origins, and to have converted to Islam. There are other particular cases like the settlement in Kalehisar site (contiguous to an ancient Hittite site) near Alaca, founded by the Seljuk commander Hüsameddin Temurlu who had taken refuge in the region after the defeat in the Battle of Kose Dag, and had founded a township comprising a castle, a medrese, a habitation zone and a caravanserai, which were later abandoned apparently around the 16th century. All but the caravanserai, which remains undiscovered, was explored in the 1960s by the art historian/Ottoman archaeologist Oktay Aslanapa, and the finds as well as a number of documents attest to the existence of a vivid settlement in the site, such as a 1463-dated Ottoman firman which instructs the headmaster of the medrese to lodge not in the school but in the caravanserai.

[edit] The Dynasty

As regards the names of the sultans, there are variants in form and spelling depending on the preferences displayed by one source or the other, either for strict fidelity along the lines of the Arabic script which the sultans used, or for the rendering living through their successors Ottomans' times up until modern-day Turks. Some sultans had two names that they chose to use alternatively in reference to their legacy. While the two palaces built by Alaeddin Keykubad I carry the names Kubadabad Palace and Keykubadiye Palace, he named his mosque in Konya as Alaeddin Mosque and the port city of Alanya he had captured as "Alaiye". Similarly, the medrese built by Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I in Kayseri, within the complex (külliye) dedicated to his sister Gevher Nesibe, was named Gıyasiye Medrese, and the one built by Izzeddin Keykavus I in Sivas as Izzediye Medrese. The two Mesud's of the dynasty had different first names (respectively, Rükneddin and Gıyaseddin) and they are commonly referred to under their sole second name in the dynastical order.

[edit] See also

• Seljuk Turks
• Anatolian Turkish Beyliks
• Alaeddin Mosque (Konya, Turkey)
• Ince Minaret Medrese
• Karatay Medrese
• Gevher Nesibe
• Rum

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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