Seljuqs1

Royal Tentmaker

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Tuqshurmish

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(several generations)

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Luqmān or Daquq

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Saljuq

(see below)

Saljuq, a member of the Qiniq clan, who led his household in a nomadic existance in Transoxiania in the early 1000s. In winter they stayed at Nūr in Bukhara (modern Uzbekistan) and in summer they dwelt at Sughd in Samarkand (on the border of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan)

• 1) Arslan Isrāʿīl. He succeeded his father as leader of the tribe. In the early 1020s, the size and propsperity of his household aroused the fear and jealousy of Ilak Khan of Samarkand and he contacted the Ghaznavid Sultan, Mahmud bin Sabuktagin, the pre-eminent power in Central Asia at the time, who was planning an invasion of India and he, eager to ensure that his Central Asian frontier was safe and stable, called Isrāʿīl to court. When he asked about the size and strength of the Seljuq forces, Isrāʿīl pulled several arrows from his quiver, boasting of how many thousand horsemen he could call up by sending each arrow to his kinsmen. Deeply concerned at the prospect of such a powerful force at his rear, Mahmud imprisoned Isrāʿīl in Kalinjar Castle in Multan (modern central Pakistan), where he remained for seven years. Finally, however, Isrāʿīl escaped. Fleeing, he was caught and poisoned, but he managed to send word to the Seljuqs to rebel against the Ghaznavids (The whole story, with all its folktale elements, sounds suspicious like it was created as a post facto justification for the Seljuq rebellion against Ghaznavid power - especially since relations with the Ghaznavids seem to have remained peaceful until several years after Isrāʿīl's supposed escape from Kalinjar).

  • a) Abū'l-Fawāris Qutlumush. During his father's captivity, he had hidden himself in the Desert of Sind, but in the late 1020s, he returned to Bukhara with word of the treatment which his father had received at the Ghaznavid court. He allegedly made secret plans with his uncles and cousins to rebel and together they sent a message to the Ghaznavid Sultan, asking permission to resettle in Khorasan (northeastern Iran). This permission was granted (which seems incredibly unlikely if the Seljuq account of Isrāʿīl's captivity is accurate). He played a major role in the rebellion of 1035 and received Jurjan, Damghan, and Qumis (northeastern Iran, by the Caspian Sea) as his domain in 1041. In 1060, however, he was sent to conquer Mosul and Syria, and his domain expanded to include Tabaristan & Mazandaran (central northern Iran, bordering the Caspian Sea). With the death of Ṭughrīl Bey First Seljuq Sultan in 1063, Qutlumush declared himself Sultan and beseiged the new Seljuq capital, Rayy. When the forces of the new Sultan, Alp Arslan, arrived, Qutlumush lost his nerve and fled. He was forced to battle at Isfarayin and died in the fighting. Thanks to the intercession of Alp Arslan's vizier, his son's life was spared and he was sent to be governor of the far western province of Diyarbakir (southeastern Turkey), later transferred to Anatolia, where against the odds he founded a dynasty of Sultans which long outlasted the main Seljuq line.

    • i) Sulaymān Shah (see SELJUQS OF RUM)

• 2) Mīkhāʿīl, he had issue:

  • a) Chaghrī Beg Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd, who largely worked in tandem with his brother Ṭughril and nephew Qutlumush throughout the 1030s and took the lion's share of the new territories, Merv and Khorasan, as his personal domain in 1041. He married Tarkhān Khātūn (see QARA-KHANS) 

    • i) Qāwurd. He received Tabas, Kerman, and Quhistan (central eastern Iran) as his domain in 1041. After his brother Alp Arslan died in 1072, he made a bid for the Sultanate. He was defeated at Karaj in 1073 and taken prisoner. Shortly thereafter he was poisoned.

      • (1-2) Two sons who were blinded in 1073

    • ii) ʿAdud ad-Dawla Abū Shujā Alp Arslan Muhammad, Second Seljuq Sultan (see below)

    • iii) Sulaymān, who took control of Rayy in 1063, after the death of Ṭughrīl Bey, First Seljuq Sultan, and maintained order until the new Sultan, his brother Alp Arslan, arrived. He soon found himself beseiged by his cousin Qutlumush and was saved only by Alp Arslan's timely arrival.

    • iv) Yāqūtī. He received Abhar, Zanjan & Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran) as his domain in 1041.

      • (1) Malik Ismaʿīl. He succeeded his father as ruler of the northwest. After the death of Malik Shah I in 1092, Queen Tarkān, who had raised her young son to the throne, paid him to lead an army against the legitimate heir (his own sister's son) Barkyaruq. At the battle of Karaj in 1093, Ismaʿīl was defeated. Shortly thereafter his sister killed him for the sake of her son.

      • (1) Zubayda Khātūn, who married Malik Shah I, Third Seljuq Sultan (see below)

  • b) Rukn ad-Dunyā wa'd-Dīn Abū Ṭalib Ṭughrīl Bey, First Seljuq Sultan (see below)

• 3) Perhaps Yūsuf, but his existance is uncertain

• 4) Perhaps Yūnus, but his existance is uncertain

1038 - 1063  Rukn ad-Dunyā wa'd-Dīn Abū Ṭalib Ṭughrīl Bey, First Seljuq Sultan. 

With the departure of Isrāʿīl to Ghaznavid lands in the early 1020s, he and his brother Ṭughril seem to have become the masters of the rapidly growing Seljuq clan. They led the Seljuqs into Khorasan in the late 1020s with Ghaznavid permission and in 1035 they asked the Ghaznavid Sultan to allow them to move once more: to Nishapur. 

The Ghaznavid Sultan Masʿūd, who was embroiled in a civil war with his brother and really ought to have known better, demanded a fee and the Seljuqs rebelled. Thirty thousand Ghaznavids attacked them at Taq, but the Seljuqs were victorious. Complications in India meant that Sultan Masʿūd was unable to deal with the rebellion, and the Seljuqs ran amok. In 1038 they defeated the Amir of Khurasan, conquered Nishapur, and Ṭughrīl declared himself Sultan. At this, Sultan Masʿūd was forced to return, personally, and he beseiged the Seljuqs in Dandanqan (1041). They fell upon him at night and forced him to flight (though he fought valiantly). The Seljuqs then made peace with Sultan Masʿūd, agreeing that he would retain Sistan (southeastern Iran) and regions to the east, while the Seljuqs would have Khorasan. Ṭughrīl and his relatives divided their new territories among themselves: each territory becoming an essentially independent sultanate under the loose control of the Seljuq Sultan. This decentralised structure would prove a defining feature of the Seljuq Sultanate, allowing it flexibility but also weakening the Sultan's power over the whole and encouraging civil wars.