3 - The Great Seljuq Sultanate

Summary

Seljuq Bilad al-sham

This chapter re-examines the emergence and nature of Seljuq power in bilad al-sham. It details how in addition to the difficulties provoked by Malik Shah's death in 485/1092, there were systemic factors inherent to the political structures of the Great Seljuq Sultanate which inhibited efforts to expand their influence within Syria, both before and after 485/1092.

In broad terms, there is unanimity among modern historians about the growth and decline of Seljuq influence in Syria and Palestine between 463 and 492/1071 and 1099. The origins of Seljuq power in bilad al-sham is typically traced to the arrival of the Sultan Alp Arslan in Aleppo, and the defeat of the Byzantine army at the battle of Manzikert that same year. Taj al-Dawla Tutush b. Alp Arslan, the brother of the Seljuq Sultan Malik Shah, took control of Damascus in 472/1079–80. This is viewed as another indicator of increasing Seljuq authority in Syria. Malik Shah's campaign of 479/1086–7, which led to the direct appointment of Yaghi Siyan in Antioch, Aqsunqur b. ʿAbd Allah in Aleppo and Buzan in Edessa, marked the apogee of Seljuq control. Later collaborative campaigns by these new governors led to the addition of Homs to the Great Seljuq Sultanate's dominions.

Then, in 485/1092, disaster struck. Malik Shah and his powerful Vizier Nizam al-Mulk died. In the ensuing succession crisis, Tutush, Aqsunqur and Buzan were all killed in various battles in the following three years. Thereafter, conflict erupted between Tutush's sons Ridwan and Duqaq in Syria, who came to control Aleppo and Damascus, respectively. This destabilising series of events brought a new level of autonomy to Syrian-based rulers. In the midst of this ongoing crisis, the armies of the First Crusade arrived in bilad al-sham in Dhu ʾl-Qaʿda 490/October 1097. The Crusaders and western European settlers took advantage of the continuing regional volatility to establish polities at Antioch, Jerusalem, Edessa and Tripoli.

This chronology feeds into the conception of a linear development and decline of Seljuq regional authority in late fifth/eleventh-century Syria, beginning with Alp Arslan's campaign and culminating in joint military campaigns by those directly appointed by the sultan against Fatimid possessions in bilad al-sham, before collapsing in 485/1092 in the aftermath of Malik Shah's death.