Rûm, Sultanate of
State | Defunct
1097 CE to 1307 CE
The Sultanate of Rum or Seljuq Sultanate of Rum is a medieval Turko-Persian, Sunni Muslim state in Anatolia.
It exists from 1077 to 1307, with capitals first at İznik and then at Konya.
Since the court of the sultanate is highly mobile, cities like Kayseri and Sivas also function at times as capitals.
At its height, the sultanate stretches across central Anatolia, from the shoreline of Antalya and Alanya on the Mediterranean coast to the territory of Sinop on the Black Sea.
In the east, the sultanate absorbs other Turkish states and reaches Lake Van.
Its westernmost limit is near Denizli and the gates of the Aegean basin.The term "Rûm" comes from the Arabic word for the Roman Empire.
The Seljuqs call the lands of their sultanate Rum because it had been established on territory long considered "Roman", i.e.
Byzantine, by Muslim armies.
The state is occasionally called the Sultanate of Konya (or Sultanate of Iconium) in older western sources and is known as Turkey by its contemporaries.
The sultanate prospers, particularly during the late 12th and early 13th centuries when it takes from the Byzantines key ports on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.
Within Anatolia the Seljuqs foster trade through a program of caravanserai-building, which facilitates the flow of goods from Iran and Central Asia to the ports.
Especially strong trade ties with the Genoese form during this period.
The increased wealth allows the sultanate to absorb other Turkish states that had been established in eastern Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert: the Danishmends, the Mengücek, the Saltukids, and the Artuqids.
Seljuq sultans successfully bear the brunt of the Crusades but in 1243 succumb to the advancing Mongols.
The Seljuqs become vassals of the Mongols, following the battle of Kose Dag, and despite the efforts of shrewd administrators to preserve the state's integrity, the power of the sultanate disintegrates during the second half of the 13th century and had disappears completely by the first decade of the 14th.In its final decades, a number of small principalities, or beyliks, emerge and rise to dominance in the territory of the Sultanate, including that of the Osmanoğlu, known later as the Ottomans.
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The Great Crossroads
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Any hope of normal relations between Constantinople and the West disintegrates as the crusading movement, motivated partly by a desire to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem, partly by the hope of acquiring new territory, increasingly encroaches on imperial preserves and frustrates Emperor Alexios' foreign policy, which is primarily directed toward the reestablishment of imperial authority in Anatolia.
His relations with Muslim powers are disrupted on occasion and former valued imperial possessions, such as Antioch, pass into the hands of arrogant Western princelings, who even introduce Latin Christianity in place of Greek.
Thus, it is during Alexios' reign that the last phase of the clash between the Latin West and the Greek East is inaugurated.
He does regain some control over western Anatolia; he also advances into the southeast Taurus region, securing much of the fertile coastal plain around Adana and Tarsus, as well as penetrating farther south along the Syrian coast.
Neither Alexios nor succeeding Komnenian emperors will be able to establish permanent control over the Latin crusader principalities, however.
Continual Latin (particularly Norman) attacks, constant thrusts from Muslim principalities, the rising power of Hungary and the Balkan principalities—all conspire to surround Byzantium with potentially hostile forces.
Even Alexios' diplomacy, whatever its apparent success, cannot avert the continual erosion that will ultimately lead to the Ottoman conquest.
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.
Kilij Arslan in 1104 resumes once more his war with the Danishmends, who are now weakened after the death of Malik Gazi, demanding half the ransom gained for Bohemond.
As a result Bohemond allies with the Danishmends against Rüm and Constantinople.
Kilij Arslan I had moved towards the east after the crusades of 1096-1101, taking Harran and …
…Diyarbakir.
Kilij Arslan conquers Mosul in 1107, but …
…he is defeated by Muhammad I of Great Seljuq, supported by the Artuqids and Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan of Aleppo, in battle at the Khabur river.
Having lost the battle, Kilij Arslan dies trying to escape across the river.
This clash, the last encounter of the Iran-based Great Seljuqs with the descendants of Qutalmïsh, limits the ambitions and the sphere of influence of the latter to Anatolia.
The Turks have resumed their offensive operations against the Empire following the success of the First Crusade and the failure of the Crusade of 1101.
In the aftermath of the Frankish invasions, much land has been reconsolidated by the Seljuq Turks under the centralized authority of Iconium, where the Sultanate of Rum has established itself.
Kilij Arslan, Sultan of Rüm, had conquered Mosul in 1107, but had been defeated in the Battle of the Khabur River by Emir Jawali al-Saqawu for Muhammad I of Great Seljuq, supported by the Artuqids and Radwan of Aleppo, at the Battle of Mosul.
He had drowned in the river while retreating from Mosul.
His son, Malik Shah, kept prisoner in Isfahan, returns to Anatolia in 1100 to assume his father's succession in Konya.
The Turks have resumed their offensive operations against the Empire following the success of the First Crusade and the failure of the Crusade of 1101.
Emperor Alexios, aged and suffering from an illness that will prove to be terminal, is unable to deal with the swift Turkish raids into what remains of Roman Anatolia, penetrating as far as the Bosporus, but internal dissension has caused disunity following the death of Sultan Kilij Arslan.
Nonetheless, in the aftermath of the Frankish invasions, much land has been reconsolidated by the Seljuq Turks under the centralized authority of Iconium, where the Sultanate of Rum has established itself under Malik Shah.
After the imperial forces thwart an attempt to take Nicaea in 1113, the Seljuq Turks make a forced withdrawal across Anatolia.