In the late 10th century, a nomadic chief named Seljuk broke away from his Khazar overlords in the north of the Caspian Sea. Thus began his tribe’s migration from the lands of modern-day Kazakhstan down to Iran and Azerbaijan.
The Great Seljuks (ca. 1038-1194), a nomadic people culturally related to the Mongols, adopted Persian and Islamic customs. This helped them establish themselves as conquerors and Sultans of Western and Central Asia.
When the Great Seljuk Empire crumbled in 1194, an offshoot of their state, called the “Anatolian Seljuks” was created in modern-day Turkey.
Traditional Life on the Central Asian Steppes
Before they established the Great Seljuk Empire, the Oghuz Turks lived a pastoralist life on the harsh steppes of Central Asia. These wide-open plains gave their herds of horses, sheep, and goats plenty of sustenance. In turn, these nomads lived off animal produce. Staples of their diet included dairy products like milk, yogurt, cheese, and kimiz, a fermented mare’s milk drink still popular in Central Asia. Wool was taken from sheep and goats and woven by women into fabrics and kilims, a traditional flat-woven carpet or wall-hanging.
Like the Mongols, another nomadic Asian people, the Oghuz had strong tribal and clan ties. The 10th-century warlord Seljuk, along with his clan, belonged to the Kinik tribe of the Oghuz Turkic people. This tribe was considered a kingly and respected one. From time to time, the Kinik went to war with other tribes who, like the Seljuks, revered horse archers, warriors, and raiders.
Tribes frequently joined alliances and confederations to ensure the protection of their people and possessions. It is believed that Seljuk was either a mercenary or chief who worked for the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people who formed a powerful buffer state on the borders of Southeastern Russia, Kazakhstan, and Crimea.
Due to a possible falling out, or Seljuk’s conversion to Islam, his tribe left Khazaria and began a tiresome migration across Central Asia. His grandsons, Tughril and Chağri bey (lord), were responsible for the formation of the Great Seljuk Empire, although it was known by their ancestors’ name.
Adapting to a Sedentary Islamic Life
Tughril (d.1063) and Chağri conquered Nishapur (Iran), and Merv (Turkmenistan) and besieged the great Islamic capital of Baghdad. They were now the Sultans of these Islamic centers. However, their volatile upbringing on the Central Asian steppe had only prepared them for a life of raids, plunder, and war.
Tughril realized that to maintain power, he would have to adopt all the trappings of a sedentary lifestyle. Persian culture, seen as more refined than Turkic culture, was adopted in court. Rather than beys (lords) or khans, the Great Seljuks began to refer to themselves as Sultans, a tradition that would be carried into Anatolia.
Ruling over a sedentary empire also required a palace, rather than the felt tents that the nomads were accustomed to. In addition to palaces, the Seljuks built architecture like caravanserais, mosques, and madrasas for townspeople to use. Persio-Islamic motifs and architectural styles, such as the gonbad or Persian dome, were adopted.
The Many Languages of the Seljuk Court
Turks made up the bulk of the military class in the Seljuk Empire. Commanders, soldiers, beys (lords), and shihna (representatives of frontier nomads) were responsibilities dominated by Turkic men. The steppe nomadic heritage of the Turks made them experts in the art of war. Aware of this, the Seljuks preferred to assign military positions to the Oghuz. These positions often used Turkic names, such as bey and subashi (commander-in-chief).
The administration of this growing empire, however, was left to Persians who understood how to govern sedentary populations. As a result, Persian became the lingua franca of the Great Seljuk Empire. Poetry, epic tales, and other literary works were all commissioned in written Persian. Persian epics, like the Shahnameh, also gained popularity. The Anatolian offshoots of the Seljuks, the Sultans of Rum, would even name newborn princes after the heroes of this epic.
The last common language spoken in the Seljuk Empire was Arabic. This was mainly used as the language of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. Scholars who memorized, taught, and interpreted the Qur’an and Quranic Law stuck to this language as it was the language in which the Qur’an was first introduced.
Women’s Roles in the Seljuk Empire
A new culture, a mix of Turkic and Persian elements, was formed by the Seljuk conquests. What were women’s roles in these changes? Women were active participants in the transition from a nomadic steppe life to a sedentary one. As a semi-nomadic group, Oghuz women had greater visibility and a more active lifestyle than their sedentary counterparts.
They were tasked with not only the upkeep of the tent but also the tending of animals and the creation of textiles to be sold or traded. The militarized lifestyle of the Turks also allowed women to do traditionally “masculine” activities. Seljuk women learned to ride horses and use weapons like swords, and bows and arrows.
However, over the 11th century, some of the Seljuks began to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, swapping their herds and tents for life in towns and cities. This meant that women spent more and more hours inside the domestic sphere, performing household tasks like cleaning and cooking.
This does not mean that women had no opportunities or freedoms in the Great Seljuk Empire. Women, such as Inanch Hatun and Terken Hatun, played important roles as queens, advisors, administrators, and commanders of the armed forces. Syriac historian Bar Hebraeus (d.1286) mentioned that Khatun, the wife of Tughril Bey, administered the business of the kingdom and was much loved by her husband.
A Nomadic Turkic Interpretation of Islam
The Great Seljuks were officially adherents of Sunni Islam. As recent converts, they learned Islamic theology, doctrine, and practice from the Sunni Persians and Sufi dervishes. Madrasas that they built in Baghdad and Isfahan were run by Hanafi scholars, adherents of one of the four main schools of orthodox Islamic jurisprudence.
Yet the bulk of the Seljuks’ followers were semi-nomadic Turks, whose conversion to Islam was still very superficial. These nomads continued to follow pagan and shamanistic practices and beliefs, mixing them with newer Islamic ideals. In place of the shamans who practiced spiritual ritual dances and healed the sick, they followed Sufi saints who claimed to have spiritual powers.
This nomadic heritage also influenced Seljuk art and cultural practices. Orthodox Islamic communities discouraged the creation of statues and human figures. Yet, human figures appeared in Seljuk miniatures, and large stone figures, elaborately carved and painted, graced Seljuk palaces.
Culture and Science in Seljuk Lands
Many different cultures existed in the lands ruled by the Great Seljuk Empire. In the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, Persian culture reigned supreme. While in Baghdad, Arab and Abbasid culture was dominant. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks added not only a Turkic but also a steppe nomadic element to these civilizations. However, Turkic culture was never adopted by the local populations who saw Turks as uncivilized nomads.
Written histories and mirrors for princes, like the Siyasatnama, were patronized by the Seljuks, who originally came from a Turkic society based on orality. Seljuk miniatures and pottery were painted with Central Asian figures and motifs. Ceramic works from the late 12th century reveal that the Seljuks liked to paint figures in the steppe nomadic tradition: with long braided hair, knee-length kaftans, and serpush — hats with pointy triangular fronts.
Under the Seljuks, great strides were made in the fields of literature, science, philosophy, and mathematics. The polymath Omar Khayyam made precise calculations of the solar year and formulated several mathematical equations. Today, he is commonly known as the author of the Rubaiyat, poetry discussing the complexities of love, life, death, and God. The famous polymath Al-Ghazali (d.1111) who lived in the Great Seljuk Empire, critiqued Aristotelian scientific methods centuries before European scientists would.
The Continuation of the Seljuk Dynasty
By 1100, the Great Seljuk Dynasty had begun to show signs of internal weakness. The vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk and Terken Hatun, wife of Sultan Malikshah, were in a bitter rivalry for power. After Malikshah died, his brother and four sons attempted to divide the empire, as per Oghuz Turkic tradition. Apart from this internecine war, the Great Seljukids were also faced with the First and Second Crusades.
The empire lost territory around Central Asia due to revolts by the Karluks, another Turkic tribe, and various dynasties like the Karakhanids and Ghurids. The final nail in the coffin was the revolts of the Oghuz—the original semi-nomadic Turkic followers of Seljuk—in 1153. In 1154, Sancar, the last sultan of the Iranian branch of the Seljuks, died. The Great Seljuk Empire was soon broken up into two states: the Sultanate of Rum (Anatolian Seljuks) and Kirman Seljuks (Kirman, Iran).
The Anatolian Seljuks were the more powerful and longer-lasting of these two states. They continued the administrative, political, and cultural traditions of the Great Seljuks, albeit in a Byzantine Anatolian milieu. The Anatolian Seljuks would crumble in 1308, following devastating Mongol sieges and popular revolts in the 13th century.
