| Despite challenges to their authority and the loss of military and effective political power, the Abbasid caliphs retained immense prestige in the eyes of most townspeople and many of the tribes as the lawful successors to the Prophet and heads of the Muslim community. The division of the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb facilitated the spread of Islam centripetally as well as centrifugally: when tribes from the margins who encountered Muslim merchants, scholars, or wandering Sufis, accepted Islam the caliphs tended to legitimize their rule, appointing their leaders as governors. Conversion civilized the nomadic and pastoral peoples by subjecting them formally (if not always in practice) to the Sharia law, reducing the cultural differences between the peoples of the desert and steppes and those of the cities and settled regions. Tribes recently converted often became the greatest builders and patrons of Islamic high culture in art, architecture, and literature. At the same time conversion made it difficult for rulers to defend their heartlands from nomadic predators, since if the nomads were no longer infidels the jihad (struggle or “holy war”) launched against them lost its raison d’être. |
Following the rapid advance of the Saljuqs into Anatolia, Konya (formerly Iconium) became their capital. This elaborately decorated portal from the Ince Minare Madrasa shows the extraordinary richness of the Saljuq style. The “Slender Minaret” from which the school takes its name was partially destroyed by lightning in 1900.
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| Two Turkish-speaking peoples, the Qarluqs and the Oghuz, established states that made significant contributions to this process. In Transoxiana the Qaraqanid dynasty accepted the nominal authority of the Abbasid caliphs, becoming the patrons of a new Turkish culture derived in part from Arab and Persian models. After defeating the Ghaznavids the Oghuz people, led by the Saljuq family, became the rulers of Khurasan, laying the foundations of the Saljuq Empire. Defeating the Buyids in 1055 they took control of Baghdad, where the caliph crowned their leader Tughril Beg Sultan in acknowledgment of his supreme authority. In exchange for formal recognition, the sultans agreed to uphold Islamic law and defend Islam from its external enemies. The massive defeat inflicted by the Saljuqs on the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 was one of the factors leading to the First Crusade in 1096. Although the Saljuqs conquered half of Anatolia, laying the foundations for later Ottoman-Turkish rule, their system of authority was too fragmented to maintain the unity of the empire, or to defend the frontiers of Islam against further nomadic incursions. |
The Saljuq Era |
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