Abstract:

This paper focuses on the political history of the Saljuqs and their relationship with the Qarakhanids from the reign of the Saljuq sultan Malikshāh to Sanjar in the 11th and 12th centuries. From their early history, the Saljuqs have encountered the Qarakhanids in Mā Warāʾ al-Nahr. Despite frequent military clashes between them, they have long maintained relations through marriage, in which elite women played an important connecting role. One of the most famous women was Terken Khatun, a Qarakhanid princess and a wife of Malikshāh. Both historical sources and academic studies focus on her remarkable role in the decline of Niẓām al-Mulk and the struggle for her son Maḥmūd to succeed to the throne after Malikshāh’s death, but pay less attention to her Qarakhanid background. In this paper, I intend to connect the Saljuq history with the Qarakhanids, reconsider the role of Terken Khatun, and also analyze the influences of other figures, such as the vizier Tāj al-Mulk, members of the Saljuq family Tutush b. Alp Arslan and Ismāʿīl b. Yāqūtī, and the Qarakhanid ruler Shams al-Mulk Naṣr. In comparison, another Terken Khatun who was Sanjar’s wife and also from Qarakhanids, was a more “silent” figure in the texts. I argue that Sanjar’s appointment of the rulers of Mā Warāʾ al-Nahr was largely based on this Qarakhanid princess’s branch of kinsmen, and it in turn consolidated Sanjar’s own authority in this region and ensured his dominance within the Saljuq family. In contrast to previous studies, I try to demonstrate that the political conflicts among the Saljuq family members were not just an internal issue, but closely related to their relationship with Central Asia, in this case, the Qarakhanids. This paper uses historical texts in Persian and Arabic, mainly Ẓahīr al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī’s Saljūqnāma, al-Rāwandī’s Rāḥat al-Ṣudūr wa Āyat al-Surūr, Ibn al-Athīr’s al-Kāmil fīʾl-Taʾrīkh, and Bundārī’s Zubdat al-nuṣra wa-nukhbat al-ʿuṣra, the Mirror for princes Siyāsatnāma of Niẓām al-Mulk and the Arabic biographical dictionary Jihat al-aʾimma al-khulafāʾ min al-darāʾir wa-’l-imāʾ of Ibn al-Sāʿī, as well as some numismatic and architectural evidence.