Question: Seljuk Turks

[colontos]

Tell me if this is correct, and feel free to expand...

The Oghuz Turks, also known as Seljuks, were a nomadic people out of Asia who showed up in Persia/Mesopotamia around 1050. They conquered a bunch of stuff, eventually getting into Asia Minor by taking some Byzantine land. The Seljuk empire hung around for a while until the Mongols showed and reduced the Seljuk empire to many small 'states' under the control of the ghazis that payed tribute to the Mongols. The ghazis become increasingly independent as Mongol power declines, blah blah blah and eventually the Osmanli ghazis rise to power.

So the Seljuk Turks were obviously distinct from the Ottomans, but the Seljuks were the ancestors of the Ottomans. Right?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Yes, that seems about right. Calling upon all my vast knowledge of Turkey (in other words, 10 minutes on Wikipedia), I think the Ottomans were inside Turkey, and not foreign invaders.

 

[Vrylakas]

A crucial point here is to realize that we are talking about tribal and clan organizations here, not ethnic groups. When we speak of "Seljuk" or "Osmanli" Turks, we're talking about tribal loyalties and not any ethnic, linguistic or cultural differences.

The Seljuks derived from a group of gazis/Oguz Turks who entered the service of the Bahgdad Abbasid caliphate in the 10th century and in the next century, led by a particularly ambitious sultan, Tugrul-bey ("bey" or "beg" = Turkish territorial title), took over the Bahgdad caliphate and essentially founded their own empire stretching from Persia to (after Manzikert) Anatolia. The Seljuks always had this split personality problem whereby they wanted to maintain their old Turkish Steppe lifestyles and organizations but also wanted to emulate the great empires (Persia, Byzantium, Islamic, etc.) around them. This would be their weakness. They established in Anatolia a mirror "Rum" (name derived from "Rome") empire at old Byzantine Iconium which, again, functioned partially as an established empire and partially as a Steppe tribal confederation. Rum survived in battered form both the Crusades and the Mongol invasions through by the early 14th century it was a mere shadow of its former self.

The Ottomans arose out of a new tribal confederation based around an upstart sultan, Osman, who wanted to return to the days of conquest and so launched in the 14th century the beginnings of that conquest. At first the Seljuks tried to accomodate the Osmanli and repeatedly tried to integrate their growing exploits into the Rum structures in Anatolia but the Osmanli overran them. The Seljuks were temporarily saved from destruction by Tamerlane's invasion in the early 15th century that defeated an Ottoman force and re-established Seljuk power in Anatolia but by then the Ottomans had already firmly established themselves in the southern Christian Balkans, which they used as a base to launch attacks against the Seljuks again. By the mid-15th century the Ottomans had not only overwhelmed the Seljuks in Anatolia but, in 1453, captured the jewel of Byzantium itself, Constantinople, and for the next century Ottoman power would expand almost unchecked in all directions.

When you're talking about tribal confederations you're talking about loyalties based on advantage, and those change when advantage changes. Clans and tribes always claim a unique descendant bloodline but these are always mythological, and these rarely stop individual clan or tribal groups from switching alliances when circumstances warrant.

 

[Steve Thompson]

AGAIN! I want to respond to a thread only to find that someone else got to it before me! What's the point...