Although Firdawsī makes the Oxus the tra-
447/1055 Ṭoghrıl Beg entered Baghdad and in
ditional boundary between Iran and Tūrān (the
449/1058, when he entered for the second time,
Central Asian region beyond the Jayḥūn/Āmū
the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Qāʾim legitimised his rule
Daryā), the land of the nomadic world of Western
by the bestowing of honorific titles The victory
Central Asia, and states that there was a natu-
of the second Saljuq sulṭān Alp Arslan against
ral dislike between the two groups, which were
the Byzantine ruler Romanus IV Diogenes at
like “two elements, fire and water, which rage
Manzikert/Malāzgird, north of Lake Van, in Dhu
against each other in the depths of the heart,”19
’l-Qaʿda 463/August 1071, on a day following a
there was never, as Bosworth has pointed out, a
moonless night,23 effectively destroyed the ability
cut and dried distinction between the two racial
of Byzantium (Rūm) to defend its eastern bound-
groups 20 They had a long history of interaction
aries This led to the gradual settlement of helle-
and the Turkish people were well-known to the
nised Asia Minor, or Anadolu/Anatolia as it was
Iranians, who had often been invaded by steppe
later to be known under the Turks, by successive
peoples of diverse ethnic origins The antithesis
waves of mostly nomadic Turkic tribes, and to
between Iran and Tūrān, emblematising a dual-
the establishment of the sultanate of the Saljuqs
istic conception of the world and of history, thus
of Rūm (Saljūqiyān-i Rūm) 24 in the central and
appears by Firdawsī’s time to have been more a lit-
eastern territories By the end of the century the
erary and archaising preconception of the Iranian
entire territory from the Armenian and Georgian
national consciousness than a reflection of the
marches to the Aegean sea was in Saljuq hands
actual state of affairs 21 The Qarakhanid Muslim
In their new homeland, the Turks perpetuated
philologist, Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, remarks in his
the heritage of Western Central Asian art and
lexicographic encyclopaedia Dīwān lughāt al-turk,
culture with a “markedly Khurasanian flavour ”25
written in 463/1071, that al of Transoxania, which
This was facilitated by the fact that the migra-
was closely linked with the Eurasian steppe, was
tory movement of Turkic peoples swept along
once inhabited by Turkic peoples, “but when the
migrant craftsmen from the Central Asian, in
Iranians (al-Furs) became numerous, it became
particular East Iranian, world, a process much
just like Persian territory (bilād al-ʿAjam) ”22 Thus
intensified by the invasion of Khurasan by the
the two worlds had to a large part become inter-
Mongol army under Genghis Khān in the 1220s 26
mingled culturally as well as ethnically
The signature of master craftsmen on Anatolian
The westward migration of ever-growing num-
tilework suggests that innovation on Anatolian
bers of Turkic-speaking tribes, the dominant force
Saljuq architecture owed much to craftsmen from
being the Saljuqs, into Western Asia increased
Khurasan or Ghurid Herat27 and points to Eastern
from the late tenth century onwards This accel-
Iran as one of the earlier and most important cen-
erated following their decisive victory under
tres of artistic innovation Katharina Otto-Dorn
Ṭoghrıl Beg over the Ghaznawids at Dandāndaqān
has proposed that some of the tile revetments at
(located between Marw and Sarakhs) in 431/1040,
the now destroyed palace-citadel at Kubadabad
after which all of Iran lay open before them In
(623/1226–634/1237), southwest of Konya, built
19 Kowalski, 1939–49, pp 87–9 The moon was a pre-
indicative of “an active industry or artisanship of metalwork
eminent Turkish emblem and the sun a Iranian one; idem,
in Khurasan ”
26
pp 98–9
On the large-scale movement of metalworkers to west-
20 Bosworth, 1963, p 205
ern Iran, Anatolia, the Jazira, Syria and Egypt, see Ward,
21 Idem, p 206
1993, pp 79, 87
22
27
Tr Atalay, B , vol 3, Ankara, 1939–1943, pp 149–50,
The signature of the bannāʾ Muḥammad ibn
as cited in Bosworth, 1963, p 206
Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Ṭūsī, who probably came from
23 Hillenbrand, C , “Malāzgird,” EI 2 VI, 242b
Khu rasan, found on the tile-mosaic of the Sırçalı madrasa in
24 The use of the ethnic/dynastic term Rūm by the Ana-
Konya (640/1242–3) is discussed by Meinecke, 1976, vol 1,
tolian Saljuqs whose principality was based on the region
pp 35–45, and idem, vol 2, no 71 For further examples
of Konya and southern Cappadocia reflected their concep-
of craftsmen who, judging from their geographical epithet
tion as heirs to the Byzantines in south-central Anatolia,
( nisba; generally pointing to someone’s tribal, geographi-
territories which continued to be strongly Greek in ethnos
cal or religious affiliation) may have come from the
Bosworth, “Rūm Relations between the Islamic powers and
eastern Islamic lands to the west, see, for instance, those
the Byzantines,” EI 2 VIII, 601a
listed in idem, vol 1, pp 187–9, addendum II (i e , Aḥmad
25 Melikian-Chirvani, 1974, pp 112, 114 Note however
ibn Abī Bakr al-Marandī, c 612/1215, or miʿmār Badr
Oleg Grabar’s caveats (2006, pp 314–5) with regard to an
al-Dīn Tabrīzī, post-672/1273); Pickett, 1997, pp 37–41
argumen tation for a Khurasan “style” or “mode” as being
See however the cautionary remarks on this subject, idem,
hypo -thetical on visual and historical grounds and merely
n 349
the medieval islamic world from central asia to anatolia
19
at the apogee of Saljuq power by sulṭān ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn
uity 32 Marriage alliances between eleventh- and
Kay Qubādh I (r 616/1219–634/1237), may have
twelfth-century Muslim ruling families and Geor-
been made by Iranian craftsmen 28 Moreover, the
gian33 and Armenian34 royal families resulted in a
extent to which the Rūm Saljuqs (just like their
nexus of Christian-Muslim relations, while pro-
Iranian cousins, the Great Saljuqs) embraced the
viding intermediaries between Christians and
Iranian tradition of kingship was particularly
Muslims More Islamic culture penetrated into
marked, as also evidenced by their tendency to
Georgia during the reign of queen Tʿamar of
choose pre-Islamic Iranian royal names 29 Fur-
Georgia (1184–1211/2), whose territory stretched
thermore, Persian was the official language of the
from Azerbaijan to the borders of Cherkessia, and
court and administration in the sultanate of Rūm,
from Erzurum to Ganja, forming a pan-Cauca-
which welcomed streams of poets and mystics
sian Empire The evidence of this can be seen in
( ṣūfi s, “those who wear wool”) from the West-
Geor gian literature35 and manuscript il ustration36
ern Central Asian world, the most celebrated of
based on Iranian models This influence is also
whom was certainly Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Rabīʿ I
discernible in metalwork from Daghistan, located
604/30 September 1207–5 Jumāda II 672/1273),
east of Georgia and west of Iran 37
who had left Balkh (ancient Bactra) at the age
In spite of internecine strife the successive
of twelve with his family 30 On the other hand,
and partly overlapping major dynasties of the
the sedentary population over which the Saljuqs
Ghaznawids, the Ghurids, the Qarakhanids, the
ruled was extremely heterogeneous and included
Great Saljuqs, the Zangids, the Ayyubids and the
large numbers of Armenian, Georgian and Greek
Saljuqs of Rūm succeeded in spite of the ethnic
Christians
diversity of their subjects in creating a com-
The transmission of art and culture from the
paratively unified culture from India to Egypt
greater Khurasan region was also apparent in the
In particular the artistic traditions of the West-
Transcaucasian region, particularly in thriving
ern Central Asian world, the Caucasus, Trans-
twelfth-century Georgia31 and Armenia, regions,
caucasia, northern Syria, eastern Anatolia and
valuable repositories of ancient oral and icono-
northern Mesopotamia certainly had to varying
graphical traditions that had been in the orbit of
degrees a symbiotic development In the twelfth
successive stages of Iranian culture since antiq-
and thirteenth centuries, the region underwent
28 Otto-Dorn and Önder, 1969, pp 468–9 Cf Meli kian-
(Allen, 1932, pp 91–2) The ruler of Erzurum ordered his
Chirvani, 1974, p 115 and n 25
son, Mughīth al-Dīn Toghrıl, to convert to Christianity
29 At least from trom the time the Saljuqs entered Iran,
to marry Rusudan (1223–1247), the daughter of queen
the Turks came under the influence of Iranian culture
Tʿamar of Georgia, and heir to the throne after the sudden
The impact of this influence is reflected, for instance, in
death of her brother, whose daughter was in turn married
al-Juwaynī’s account of the last Great Saljuq sulṭān of Iran
to the Saljuq sulṭān of Rūm, Giyāth al-Dīn Kay Khusraw
and Iraq, Ṭoghrıl III ibn Arslan (r 571/1176–590/1194),
II (634/1237–644/1246); after his death she married the
reciting verses from the Shāh-nāma (ed Vullers, p 188, ll
Parwāna Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān Muʿīn al-Dīn (exe-
1060–2) while wielding his heavy mace in battle:
cuted in 676/1277), one of the most powerful Anatolian
magnates of the thirteenth century Cf Minorsky, 1953,
“When the dust arose from the countless army,
p 135; Melikian-Chirvani, 1974, p 113, n 17; Rogers, 1976,
the cheeks of our worthies turned pale
p 316
As for me I raised the mace that kills with a single
34 The eleventh-century ruler of Dwīn, Abu ’l-Aswār
blow and felled that host upon the spot
Shawūr, of the minor Armenian dynasty of the Shaddādids,
I uttered a yell from my saddle saying, ‘The earth
was married to a sister of the Armenian king of Tashir,
has become a millstone upon them ’”
David Anholin Akhsatān ibn Manuchihr ibn Afrīdūn, ruler
Cited after Taʾrīkh-i jahān-gushāy, tr Boyle, 1912–37, vol 2,
of Ani, and son of this princess, also married an Armenian
p 302
princess of the Bagratid house (Minorsky, 1953, p 81) See
30 Cf Melikian-Chirvani, 1974, pp 114–5
also Melikian-Chirvani, 1974, p 113, n 17
31
35
The close relationship between cultures in the twelfth
For instance the close similarities between the eleventh-
century appears to have been a result of the Christian-Islamic
century narrative poem, Wīs u Ramīn, and Shota Rusta veli’s
symbiosis at Tbilisi among the ruling families (Minorsky,
twelfth-century epic Vepkhis-tkaosani (“The Knight in the
1953, p 157; attested by king Dimitri’s attendance at Friday
Panther’s Skin”); see idem, 1974, p 112 and n 14
36
prayers in 548/1153 (as recorded by al-Fāriqī), and p 135
See, for instance, a Georgian astrological treatise of
(Christian-Islamic marriages)) Cf Melikian-Chirvani, 1974,
1188, illustrated under Islamic influence which Melikian-
p 112 and n 15
Chirvani (1974, pp 112–3 and n 15) interpretes as Persian,
32 Baltrušaitis, 1929, pp 43–5; Melikian-Chirvani, 1974,
detecting Khurasanian influence in the Kufic inscriptions
pp 113–5 and ns 17, 18, 20
Amiranašvili, 1966, pls 56–66 and pp 28–30, where the
33 After his incursions into Georgia against Bagrat IV,
writer also connects the Iranian stylistic influence with the
the Saljuq sulṭān Alp Arslan (455/1063–465/1073) strength-
Persianising aspect in Georgian literature
37
ened his influence there by marrying one of the king’s nieces
Melikian-Chirvani, 1974, p 113 and n 16
20