Seljuk Empire

Seljuk Empire آلِ سلجوق Āl-e Saljuq
1037–1194
Seljuk double-headed eagle
Seljuq Empire at its greatest extent in 1092, upon the death of Malik Shah I
Capital	Nishapur (1037–1043) Rey (1043–1051) Isfahan (1051–1118) Merv, Eastern capital (1118–1153) Hamadan, Western capital (1118–1194)
Common languages	Persian (official and court; literature and lingua franca)[1][2][3] Oghuz Turkic (dynastic and military)[4][3][5] Arabic (theology, law and science)[1][3]
Religion	Sunni Islam (Hanafi)
Government	De facto: Independent Sultanate De jure: Under Caliphate[6]
Caliph
• 1031–1075	Al-Qa'im
• 1180-1225	Al-Nasir
Sultan
• 1037–1063	Toghrul I (first)
• 1174–1194	Toghrul III (last)[7]
History
• Tughril formed the state system	1037
• Battle of Dandanaqan	1040
• Battle of Manzikert	1071
• First Crusade	1095–1099
• Battle of Qatwan	1141
• Replaced by the Khwarezmian Empire[8]	1194
Area
1080 est.[9][10]	3,900,000 km2 (1,500,000 sq mi)
Preceded by Succeeded by Oghuz Yabgu State Ghaznavids Buyid dynasty Byzantine Empire Kakuyids Fatimid Caliphate Kara-Khanid Khanate Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm Anatolian beyliks Ghurid Dynasty Khwarezmian Empire Atabegs of Azerbaijan Salghurids Bavandids Ayyubid dynasty Burid dynasty Zengid dynasty Danishmends Artuqid dynasty Shah-Armens Shaddadids

The Seljuk Empire was an empire of the Seljuk Turks and a Muslim dynasty.^[11][12][13] It ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to the 14th centuries. It was founded by Tughril Beg in 1037. The Seljuk Empire stretched from Anatolia and the Levant to Afghanistan. It was replaced by the Khwarezmian Empire in 1194.

The Seljuk Empire united the eastern Islamic world, and fought against the Crusaders in the First Crusade and Second Crusade. The Seljuk Empire made several long lasting changes. These affected the region even after the empire was gone. Among them was making Farsi the language for history and events. They also shifted the center for the Arabic language culture from Baghdad to Cairo.^[14]    

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Savory, R. M., ed. (1976). Introduction to Islamic Civilisation. Cambridge University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-521-20777-5.
2. ↑ Black, Edwin (2004). Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-year History of War, Profit and Conflict. John Wiley and Sons. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-471-67186-2.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} C.E. Bosworth, "Turkish Expansion towards the west" in UNESCO History of Humanity, Volume IV, titled "From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century", UNESCO Publishing / Routledge, p. 391: "While the Arabic language retained its primacy in such spheres as law, theology and science, the culture of the Seljuk court and secular literature within the sultanate became largely Persianized; this is seen in the early adoption of Persian epic names by the Seljuk rulers (Qubād, Kay Khusraw and so on) and in the use of Persian as a literary language (Turkish must have been essentially a vehicle for everyday speech at this time)."
4. ↑ Stokes 2008, p. 615. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStokes2008 (help)
5. ↑ Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, Ed. Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, (Elsevier Ltd., 2009), 1110; "Oghuz Turkic is first represented by Old Anatolian Turkish which was a subordinate written medium until the end of the Seljuk rule."
6. ↑ Holt, Peter M. (1984). "Some Observations on the 'Abbāsid Caliphate of Cairo". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 47 (3). University of London: 501–507. doi:10.1017/s0041977x00113710. S2CID 161092185.
7. ↑ Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 167.
8. ↑ Grousset, Rene (1988). The Empire of the Steppes. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. 159, 161. ISBN 978-0-8135-0627-2. In 1194, Togrul III would succumb to the onslaught of the Khwarizmian Turks, who were destined at last to succeed the Seljuks to the empire of the Middle East.
9. ↑ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D. (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-systems Research. 12 (2): 223. ISSN 1076-156X. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
10. ↑ Rein Taagepera (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 496. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793.
11. ↑
    • A. C. S. Peacock, Great Seljuk Empire, (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1–378
    • Christian Lange; Songül Mecit, eds., Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 1–328
    • P.M. Holt; Ann K.S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, The Cambridge History of Islam (Volume IA): The Central Islamic Lands from Pre-Islamic Times to the First World War, (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 151, 231–234.
12. ↑ * "Aḥmad of Niǧde's al-Walad al-Shafīq and the Seljuk Past", A. C. S. Peacock, Anatolian Studies, Vol. 54, (2004), 97; "With the growth of Seljuk power in Rum, a more highly developed Muslim cultural life, based on the Persianate culture of the Seljuk court, was able to take root in Anatolia."
    • Meisami, Julie Scott, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century, (Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 143; "Nizam al-Mulk also attempted to organise the Saljuq administration according to the Persianate Ghaznavid model k..."
    • Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Šahrbānu", Online Edition: "here one might bear in mind that non-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs and Ilkhanids were rapidly to adopt the Persian language and have their origins traced back to the ancient kings of Persia rather than to Turkmen heroes or Muslim saints ..."
    • Josef W. Meri, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2005, p. 399
    • Michael Mandelbaum, Central Asia and the World, Council on Foreign Relations (May 1994), p. 79
    • Jonathan Dewald, Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004, p. 24: "Turcoman armies coming from the East had driven the Byzantines out of much of Asia Minor and established the Persianized sultanate of the Seljuks."
    • Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161, 164; "renewed the Seljuk attempt to found a great Turko-Persian empire in eastern Iran." "It is to be noted that the Seljuks, those Turkomans who became sultans of Persia, did not Turkify Persia-no doubt because they did not wish to do so. On the contrary, it was they who voluntarily became Persians and who, in the manner of the great old Sassanid kings, strove to protect the Iranian populations from the plundering of Ghuzz bands and save Iranian culture from the Turkoman menace."
    • Wendy M. K. Shaw, Possessors and possessed: museums, archaeology, and the visualization of history in the late Ottoman Empire. University of California Press, 2003, ISBN 0-520-23335-2, ISBN 978-0-520-23335-5; p. 5.
13. ↑ * Jackson, P. (2002). "Review: The History of the Seljuq Turkmens: The History of the Seljuq Turkmens". Journal of Islamic Studies. 13 (1). Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies: 75–76. doi:10.1093/jis/13.1.75.
    • Bosworth, C. E. (2001). 0Notes on Some Turkish Names in Abu 'l-Fadl Bayhaqi's Tarikh-i Mas'udi". Oriens, Vol. 36, 2001 (2001), pp. 299–313.
    • Dani, A. H., Masson, V. M. (Eds), Asimova, M. S. (Eds), Litvinsky, B. A. (Eds), Boaworth, C. E. (Eds). (1999). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers (Pvt. Ltd).
    • Hancock, I. (2006). On Romani origins and identity. The Romani Archives and Documentation Center. The University of Texas at Austin.
    • Asimov, M. S., Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. IV: "The Age of Achievement: AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century", Part One: "The Historical, Social and Economic Setting". Multiple History Series. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
    • Dani, A. H., Masson, V. M. (Eds), Asimova, M. S. (Eds), Litvinsky, B. A. (Eds), Boaworth, C. E. (Eds). (1999). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers (Pvt. Ltd).
14. ↑ Andre Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 2, 16.