Sultanate of Rum

Sultanate of Rûm
Anadolu Selçuklu Devleti (Turkish)
سلجوقیان روم (Persian)
Saljūqiyān-i Rūm
1077–1308
Expansion of the Sultanate, c. 1100–1240
  Sultanate of Rûm in 1100
  Conquered from the Danishmendids up to 1174
  Conquered from the Byzantines up to 1182
  Other conquests until 1243
Status
  • Independent sultanate (1077–1243)
  • Mongol vassal (1243–1256)
  • Ilkhanid vassal (1256–1308)
Capital
Common languagesPersian (official, court, literature, spoken)[1][2]
Arabic (numismatics)[3]
Byzantine Greek (chancery, spoken)[4]
Old Anatolian Turkish (spoken)[5]
Religion
Sunni Islam (official), Greek Orthodox (majority of population)[6]
GovernmentHereditary monarchy
Triarchy (1249–1254)
Diarchy (1257–1262)
Sultan 
• 1077–1086
Suleiman ibn Qutalmish (first)
• 1303–1308
Mesud II (last)
History 
1071
1077
1243
1308
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Byzantine Empire
Seljuk Empire
Danishmends
Mengujekids
Saltukids
Artuqids
Anatolian beyliks
Ilkhanate
Today part ofTurkey

The Sultanate of Rûm[a] was a culturally Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim state, established over conquered Byzantine territories and peoples (Rûm) of Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks following their entry into Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert (1071). The name Rûm was a synonym for the medieval Eastern Roman Empire and its peoples, as it remains in modern Turkish.[8] The name is derived from the Aramaic (romī) and Parthian (frwm) names for ancient Rome, via the Greek Ῥωμαῖοι (Romaioi).[9]

The Sultanate of Rûm seceded from the Seljuk Empire under Suleiman ibn Qutalmish in 1077, just six years after the Byzantine provinces of central Anatolia were conquered at the Battle of Manzikert (1071). It had its capital first at Nicaea and then at Iconium. It reached the height of its power during the late 12th and early 13th century, when it succeeded in taking key Byzantine ports on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. In the east, the sultanate reached Lake Van. Trade through Anatolia from Iran and Central Asia was developed by a system of caravanserai. Especially strong trade ties with the Genoese formed during this period. The increased wealth allowed the sultanate to absorb other Turkish states that had been established following the conquest of Byzantine Anatolia: Danishmendids, House of Mengüjek, Saltukids, Artuqids.

The Seljuk sultans bore the brunt of the Crusades and eventually succumbed to the Mongol invasion at the 1243 Battle of Köse Dağ. For the remainder of the 13th century, the Seljuks acted as vassals of the Ilkhanate.[10] Their power disintegrated during the second half of the 13th century. The last of the Seljuk vassal sultans of the Ilkhanate, Mesud II, was murdered in 1308. The dissolution of the Seljuk state left behind many small Anatolian beyliks (Turkish principalities), among them that of the Ottoman dynasty, which eventually conquered the rest and reunited Anatolia to become the Ottoman Empire.

  1. ^ Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, (Rutgers University Press, 2002), 157; "...the Seljuk court at Konya adopted Persian as its official language."
  2. ^ Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire, (University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), 29; "The literature of Seljuk Anatolia was almost entirely in Persian...".
  3. ^ Mecit 2013, p. 82.
  4. ^ Andrew Peacock and Sara Nur Yildiz, The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East, (I.B. Tauris, 2013), 132; "The official use of the Greek language by the Seljuk chancery is well known".
  5. ^ Mehmed Fuad Koprulu (2006). Early Mystics in Turkish Literature. p. 207.
  6. ^ A.C.S. Peacock and Sara Nur Yildiz, The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East, (I.B. Tauris, 2015), 265.
  7. ^ Beihammer, Alexander Daniel (2017). Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040–1130. New York: Routledge. p. 15.
  8. ^ Alexander Kazhdan, "Rūm" The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford University Press, 1991), vol. 3, p. 1816. Paul Wittek, Rise of the Ottoman Empire, Royal Asiatic Society Books, Routledge (2013), p. 81: "This state too bore the name of Rûm, if not officially, then at least in everyday usage, and its princes appear in the Eastern chronicles under the name Seljuks of Rûm (Ar.: Salâjika ar-Rûm). A. Christian Van Gorder, Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-muslims in Iran p. 215: "The Seljuqs called the lands of their sultanate Rûm because it had been established on territory long considered 'Roman', i.e. Byzantine, by Muslim armies."
  9. ^ Shukurov 2020, p. 145.
  10. ^ John Joseph Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 79.


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