The continued influx of nomads from the northern steppes has brought a new group of people into Central Asia in the ninth century: the Turks, who live in the great grasslands stretching from Mongolia to the Caspian Sea.

Introduced mainly as slave soldiers to the Samanid Dynasty, these Turks served in the armies of all the states of the region, including the Abbasid army.

As the Samanids begin to lose control of Mawarannahr and northeastern Iran in the late tenth century, some of these soldiers come to positions of power in the government of the region, and eventually they establish their own states.

With the emergence of a Turkic ruling group in the region, other Turkic tribes begin to migrate to Mawarannahr.

The first of the Turkic states in the region is the Ghaznavid Empire, established in the last years of the tenth century.

The Ghaznavid state, which rulez lands south of the Amu Darya, is able to conquer large areas of Iran, Afghanistan, and northern India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud.

The dominance of Ghazna is curtailed, however, when large-scale Turkic migrations bring in two new groups of Turks who undermined the Ghaznavids.

In the east, these Turks are led by the Kara-Khanids, who conquer the Samanids.

The Seljuk family then leads Turks into the western part of the region, conquering the Ghaznavid territory of Khwarezm.

The Seljuks, attracted by the wealth of Central Asia as were earlier groups, dominate a wide area from Asia Minor to the western sections of Mawarannahr, in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq in the eleventh century.

The Seljuk Empire now splits into states ruled by various local Turkic and Iranian rulers.

The culture and intellectual life of the region continues unaffected by such political changes, however.

Turkic tribes from the north continued to migrate into the region during this period.

Near East (964 – 1107 CE): Fatimid Cairo, Tyre’s Fatimid Haven, Nubian Kingdoms, and the Ionian–Seljuk Frontier

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Near East includes Israel, Egypt, Sudan, western Saudi Arabia, western Yemen, most of Jordan, southwestern Cyprus, and western Turkey (Aeolia, Ionia, Doria, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, and the Troad), plus Tyre in extreme southwest Lebanon.

• Anchors: the Nile Valley (Egypt–Sudan), the southern Levant (with Tyre as the Near East’s only Levantine polity), the Hejaz and western Yemen along Red Sea corridors, southwestern Cyprus, and the western Anatolian littoral (Aegean coast).

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

• The Medieval Warm Period (c. 950–1250) modestly lengthened growing seasons in the Nile Delta and western Anatolian valleys.

• Nile flood variability climaxed in the 1060s crisis, stressing Egyptian agriculture until canal repairs and policy reforms restored stability.

• Red Sea monsoon windows underpinned regular sailing between Yemen and Egypt.

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Societies and Political Developments

• Egypt (Ikhshidids → Fatimids):

  • Semi-autonomous Ikhshidid rule ended when the Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969, founding Cairo and the mosque–university of al-Azhar (970).

  • Fatimid viziers (notably Badr al-Jamālī in the 1070s) restructured army and finance after mid-11th-century turmoil and the flood-famine crisis.

• Sudan (Nubia):

  • Christian Makuria and Alodia remained independent; the Baqt treaty with Egypt regulated peace and trade across the frontier.

• Southern Levant (Tyre):

  • Tyre prospered as a Fatimid-aligned port and glass/textile center. After the First Crusade (1099) seized Jerusalem and coastal towns, Tyre remained Fatimid through 1107, serving as Egypt’s last reliable Levantine outlet in this age.

• Western Arabia (Hejaz):

  • Mecca and Medina recognized caliphal prestige; practical control fluctuated, but Hajj caravans and Red Sea traffic tied the Hejaz to Cairo.

• Western Yemen:

  • Dynasties cycled along the Tihāma and highlands: Ziyadids (819–1018), Yufirids (847–997), Najahids (1022–1158) in Zabid, and the Fatimid-aligned Sulayhids (1047–1138).

  • Queen Arwa al-Sulayḥī (from 1067) governed from Jibla, extending administrative reach and facilitating Red Sea commerce under Fatimid daʿwa.

• Southwestern Cyprus:

  • Reconquered and held by Byzantium from 965, operating as a naval and provisioning theme.

• Western Anatolia (Aegean littoral):

  • A Byzantine coastal heartland until the Seljuk victory at Manzikert (1071). Turkish emirates penetrated the interior; the Smyrna-based naval strongman Tzachas (1080s) challenged Byzantine control at sea.

  • Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) launched coastal recovery; by 1107, Ionian and Carian cities remained contested but largely within the Byzantine maritime system.

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Economy and Trade

• Egypt: Nile agrarian surpluses (grain, flax, sugar) fed Cairo, a clearinghouse linking Maghreb, Levant, Yemen, and India.

• Red Sea–Indian Ocean: western Yemen’s ports (Zabid, Aden) funneled spices, aromatics, textiles, and Indian goods north to Aydhab and Qūṣ for Cairo.

• Tyre: exported fine glassware, dyed textiles, and acted as a brokerage point between Fatimid Egypt, Byzantium, and, after 1099, nearby Crusader markets.

• Western Anatolia: shipped timber, wine, oil, and manufactures through Ionian harbors; war intermittently disrupted inland routes, not the coastal arteries.

• Nubia: exchanged ivory, gold, and slaves for Egyptian textiles and grain.

• Monetary flows: Fatimid dīnārs dominated eastern Mediterranean gold circuits; Byzantine nomismata and copper issues circulated in Anatolia and Cyprus.

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Subsistence and Technology

• Irrigation: Fatimid administrators dredged canals and repaired barrages after the 1060s failures; in Yemen, terrace farming and sāqiya wheels sustained highland fields.

• Education & law: Cairo’s al-Azhar matured into a major institution; madrasas proliferated under Seljuks in Iraq/Iran and influenced Syria.

• Military–fiscal: Fatimids balanced mercenary corps with land grants; Seljuks institutionalized iqṭāʿ to fund cavalry.

• Shipbuilding: Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean fleets used lateen-rigged merchantmen and galleys for convoy and patrol.

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Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Nile corridor: moved grain and people between Upper Egypt, Fustat–Cairo, and Alexandria.

• Red Sea lanes: Aden/Zabid ⇄ Aydhab/Qūṣ ⇄ Cairo, integrating Yemen–India traffic with the Nile economy.

• Aegean coast: Byzantine and, episodically, Turkish squadrons contested Smyrna–Ephesus approaches; southwestern Cyprus supported patrols.

• Pilgrimage routes: Hajj caravans crossed the Hejaz; Coptic and Nubian pilgrimages linked Upper Egypt and Nubia.

• Tyre’s roadstead: remained Egypt’s Levantine lifeline after 1099.

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Belief and Symbolism

• Fatimid Ismaʿilism: Cairo’s court ceremonial and missionary daʿwa articulated caliphal legitimacy.

• Sunni revival: in the Seljuk sphere, Nizām al-Mulk’s network of madrasas bolstered Sunni jurisprudence.

• Christianity: Nubian kingdoms maintained church networks; Byzantine Orthodoxy thrived in western Anatolia and Cyprus.

• Judaism: Egyptian and Tyrian Jewish communities animated long-distance trade and scholarship.

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Adaptation and Resilience

• Hydraulic recovery in Egypt after the 1060s famine restored food security and state revenue.

• Maritime redundancy: when inland Levant fell to Crusaders (1099), Tyre’s continued Fatimid allegiance preserved a critical outlet for Egyptian trade to the Aegean.

• Frontier flexibility: Byzantium shifted from interior defense to coastal control; Seljuk iqṭāʿ financed cavalry in a volatile interior.

• Hejaz–Yemen nexus: pilgrimage and monsoon schedules stabilized Red Sea commerce despite political flux.

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Long-Term Significance

By 1107 CE, the Near East was a polycentric network:

• Fatimid Cairo dominated Nile–Red Sea exchange and Islamic learning.

• Tyre—still Fatimid—served as Egypt’s last Levantine hinge after the First Crusade.

• Nubia endured as a Christian buffer south of Egypt.

• Western Anatolia stood as a militarized shore between Byzantine recovery and Seljuk advance, with southwestern Cyprus securing sea-lanes.

• Western Yemen under Sulayhid guidance (and Queen Arwa) kept the incense-and-India trade flowing to Egypt.

These strands bound Nile, Levant, Hejaz–Yemen, Cyprus, and Ionian Anatolia into a resilient system—one that would frame 12th-century struggles among Fatimids, Crusaders, and Seljuks, even as commerce and learning continued to knit the region together.

The Origins of the First Crusade and Its Launch in 1095

The origins of the Crusades, particularly the First Crusade (1095–1099), remain a subject of historical debate, with scholars attributing the movement to a combination of political, social, religious, and military factors. The Crusades were shaped by eleventh-century European dynamics, the reformist agenda of the papacy, and the broader conflict between Christianity and Islam in both Europe and the Middle East.

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The Political and Religious Background of the First Crusade

1. The Role of the Papacy and Church Reform

• The Gregorian Reform Movement within the Church had strengthened papal authority in the eleventh century.
• Pope Urban II, a reformist pope, sought to assert Rome’s leadership over Christendom, including Eastern Christianity.
• The Crusade provided an opportunity for the papacy to unify Christian warriors under a religious cause while expanding papal influence over both secular rulers and Eastern Christendom.

2. The Byzantine Appeal for Military Aid

• The Byzantine Empire, led by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, had suffered significant territorial losses to the Seljuq Turks, particularly in Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert (1071).
• Alexios, facing a deteriorating military situation, appealed to Pope Urban II in 1095, requesting western knights to help repel the Seljuqs and reclaim lost Byzantine lands.

3. The Expansion of Christian Warfare and the Idea of Holy War

• In the decades leading up to the First Crusade, Christian rulers in Iberia and Sicily had launched military campaigns against Muslim-held territories.
• The Crusades fit into this broader trend of religious warfare, framed as a divine mission to reclaim Christian lands from Muslim rule.

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The Launch of the First Crusade (November 27, 1095)

• Pope Urban II officially launched the First Crusade on November 27, 1095, at the Council of Clermont in France.
• His initial goal was to respond to the Byzantine plea for aid, calling on Christian knights to take up arms in defense of the Eastern Church.
• However, an additional goal quickly emerged—the liberation of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule, which soon became the central objective of the Crusade.
• The Crusade was framed as a religious duty, with participants promised spiritual rewards, including remission of sins.

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Consequences and the Path Forward

• The Crusade sparked an unprecedented movement, drawing thousands of knights, nobles, and commoners from across Western Europe.
• It redefined Christian-Muslim relations, setting the stage for centuries of conflict and interaction between Latin Christendom and the Islamic world.
• The campaign ultimately led to the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, establishing the first Crusader states in the Levant.

The First Crusade, launched in 1095, was a product of both immediate military necessity and long-standing religious tensions, blending Byzantine requests for aid with the broader ambition of reclaiming the Holy Land.

The First Crusade is largely concerned with Jerusalem, a city which has not been under Christian dominion for for hundred and sixty-one years, and the crusader army refuses to return the land to the control of the East Roman Empire.

The status of the First Crusade as defensive or as aggressive in nature remains controversial.

The Crusaders, on arrival at Jerusalem, invest the city and capture it in July 1099, massacring many of the city's Muslim, Christian, and Jewish inhabitants.

The Crusaders declare the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which approximates the borders of the present Israeli state.

Their gains in Syria and Palestine enable them to establish fiefdoms under the suzerainty of the King of Jerusalem: the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa, and, soon after, the County of Tripoli.

The Muslim forces of Mosul and Damascus, the western emirates in the Hamadan fold, halt the Christian advance.

The old order in the East collapses as Christian crusaders slaughter Jews and Muslims alike and carve new states from the Seljuq and Fatimid realms in Syria and Palestine, and the Seljuq sultanate of Rüm (i.e., Rome), extends its empire throughout the former imperial lands of Anatolia.

The successful crusade had prompted a call for reinforcements from the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Pope Paschal II, successor to Pope Urban II (who will die before learning of the outcome of the crusade that he had called), urges a new expedition.

He especially urges those who have taken the crusade vow but have never departed, and those who had turned back while on the march, some of whom are already scorned at home and face enormous pressure to return to the east.

The First Crusade will be followed by the Second to the Ninth Crusades, but the gains made will last for less than two centuries.

It is also the first major step since the fall of the Western Roman Empire towards reopening international trade in the West.

The Seljuq dynasty had fallen into chaos upon the death of Sultan Malik-Shah I at thirty-seven in 1092.

The empire split as his brother and four sons quarreled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves.

Malik-Shah had been succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who has refounded the Sultanate of Rum, and in Syria by his brother Tutush I.

In Persia he had been succeeded by his son Mahmud I, whose reign had been contested by his other three brothers: Barkiyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad, and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan.

At the assassination of Mahmud and his mother in 1094, Barkiyaruq had succeeded as the Sultan of Great Seljuq.

When Tutush I died in 1095, his sons Radwan and Duqaq had inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively; they contest with each other as well, further dividing Syria among emirs antagonistic towards each other.

Elsewhere in nominal Seljuq territory are the Artuqids in northeastern Syria and northern Mesopotamia; they will control Jerusalem until 1098.

The Danishmend dynasty has founded a state in eastern Anatolia and northern Syria and contests land with the Sultanate of Rum, and Kerbogha exercises independence as the atabeg of Mosul.

Raymond immediately breaks his promise, attacking and capturing Tartus with help from a Genoese fleet.

He has with him only three hundred men.

Fakhr al-Mulk, qadi of Tripoli, is not as accommodating to Raymond as his predecessor had been, and calls for assistance from Duqaq of Damascus and the governor of Homs.

However, the troops from Damascus and Homs defect once they reach Tripoli, and the qadi is defeated at the beginning of April, losing seven thousand men.

Raymond cannot take Tripoli itself, but captures the Tortosa becomes the base of all future operations against Tripoli.

Raymond, with the aid of imperial engineers, constructs Mons Peregrinus, "Pilgrim's mountain" or "Qalaat Saint-Gilles" ("fortress of Saint-Gilles") in 1103 in order to block Tripoli's access inland.

Taking the nominal title of Count of Tripoli, Raymond is aided by Alexios I, who prefers a friendly state in Tripoli to balance the hostile state in Antioch.

With the Genoese Hugh Embriaco, Raymond also seizes Gibelet.

Muhammad Tapar, following the internecine conflict with his half brother, Barkiyaruq, had been given the title of malik and the provinces of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Dissatisfied by this, he had revolted again, but had had to flee back to Armenia.

Barkiyaruq, ill and tired of war, had agreed by 1104 to divide the sultanate with Muhammad.

During Barkiyaruq's short reign, he has had five viziers, three of them the children of Nizam al-Mulk; Izz al-Mulk, Mu'ayyid al-Mulk and Fakhr al-Mulk.

The two other viziers were Abd-al-Dihistani Jalil and Khatir al-Mulk Abu Mansur Maybudi.

During his reign, Barkiyaruq has mostly focused on ways to fund the expenses of the Seljuq state.

In 1105, Barkiyaruq dies in Borujerd, and is succeeded by his son Malik-Shah II, who is soon deposed and killed by his uncle Muhammed Tapar.