Foundations of Modern Islam: "Barbarian" Turks

The sudden and violent arrival of the Seljuq Turks in the Middle East is one of the great migrations of human history . That their 'first contact' was with the Iranians - inheritors of one of the region's most ancient civilizied legacies - makes their invasion and subsequent rise to dominant ethnic group particularly interesting. 

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Largely illiterate, pagan, tribal and warlike society they were considered - and still are by many - comparative 'barbarians' invading the more refined and developed cultures of the Middle East. Several questions are raised by the idea of early Turks being 'barbarians' conquering civilized Iranians (and later Arabs, Byzantine Greeks, Slavs).

First, the idea of the Barbaric-Civilized dichotomy must be considered and a basic definition, or set of definitions, decided upon. There are three ideas - connected yet each significantly different in emphasis - of what constitutes a barbarous people which are relevant to Iran/the wider Dar al-Islam and the Saljuqs. The first is that held by the ancient Greeks who defined as 'barbarous' all non-Greeks and of the Romans who considered all beyond the boundries of their empire ( a fairly simple "us and them" distinction).

Second is the idea held within Islam itself which is based in the memory of, and continuation amongst others, of al-Jahiliyya; the Age of Ignorance or simply Ignorance of Islam. While this specifically Islamic term is fairly synonymous within Islam as a term for Barbarism its root within the condemnation of Ignorance of Islam makes it distinct and unique. Simply put, while it would be impossible for a Barbarous people to become anything other in the Graeco-Roman view those living in Ignorance in the view of Muslims could embrace God and Truth, Islam, to escape this status.

The final definition, or perhaps rather a general idea, of what distinguishes barbarous and civilized peoples is their level of urban development and perhaps the evolution of a unified culture ; one might put it simply as a distinction between settled, city based civilizations and more rural, tribal and frequently roving civilizations under a far looser cultural grouping. With reference to these ideas of barbarism, as well as the historical and comparative contexts, that the Saljuq invasion of Iran will be appraised. 

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At the end of the 9th century the Middle East had been fairly stable for a number of centuries - since the Muslims had erupted from Arabia to shatter the ancient Roman-Persian domination of the region to establish the Caliphate - however, the ensuing century would witness great upheaval and change within the region and within Islamic society in almost every respect. By the 11th century, Islamic state and society show many signs of internal weakness.

The vulnerability of the Islamic world was quite evident by the end of the 10th century. The authority and prestige of the Caliphs receded gradually until the position became little more than that of a figurehead outwith Baghdad. A consequence ( or cause) of this was the growth of factionalism and the fragmentation of the empire into a number of regional polities which maintained a token allegiance to the Caliph as had of the Islamic community while him little, if any, temporal significance.

The administrative apparatus inherited from the vanquished Roman and Sasanid states had begun to decay, or indeed to collapse. The weakness of the Caliphate led to it suffering several attacks on every front. Christendom, which had seen such enormous and continuous losses in the face of fervently prosecuted Jihad by the nascent Islamic civilization, began to reassert itself with re-conquests of territory in Iberia and Sicily and with the beginning of Crusade against the heart of the Caliphate in the Levant itself.   This restlessness was also found amongst the Berbers of north Africa who, as passionate, newly converted believers in Islam of a nomadic, unsettled background who come to conquer settled, 'civilized', states are useful for purposes of comparison with the Saljuqs. The Berbers spread from upper Egypt into Libya and Tunisia where they "wreaked havoc and devastation from which Arab North Africa never fully recovered".

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The Saljuqs did not simply arrive in great numbers via invasion. For centuries Turks had been enslaved and brought from beyond the borders of Islam to service the empire. The Caliph al-Mu'tasim is said to have been the first to use these Mamluks to any great extent. Reliance upon Turks increased and they came to achieve a status as the dominant race in both military and political spheres. Infiltration of Persian (and wider Muslim society) by the Turks in Mamluk form meant that the coming of the Saljuqs was not a sudden, violent, arrival of the Turks en masse.

As well as the infiltration of Middle Eastern society by the Turks in the guise of slaves or Mamluks significant migration on a wide scale was ongoing generally stretching from the northern Middle East to Eastern Europe. The Turks, part of the wider Oghuz people who were migrating under the eponymous Saljuq are said to have entered the Islamic lands towards the end of the 10th century , settling in Bukhara and immediately converting to Islam. Initially they and their men served other dynasties until, while nominally subject to the Ghaznavids, they made moves towards achieving dominance. We are told that :

"In the early years of the 11th century, the sons of Saljuq - Musa, Mikail and Arslan Israil and Mikails two sons- Toghril Beg Muhammad and Chaghri Beg Da'ud - took part in the struggles of the warring factions in Tansoxania and Khwarazm."

The widespread and intimate involvement of the Saljuqs in Persian affairs is well demonstrated here and is further evidence of the infiltration of Iran by the Turks and the gradually more intimate the relation between the newly arrived race and the politics of the region. It is essential to consider the state of Iran prior to the ascendance of the Saljuq dynasty and the attitudes of the people towards them. The Ghaznavid regime were harsh rulers and is condemned as an army which :

"had become the state and its commander the sultan, and the main, or only, function of the people was to pay taxes."

The native Persians of Khurasan were discontent with Ghaznavid rule, which was effectively that of a ruling elite enforcing high taxes while supplying no security. The Saljuqs progressed into western Iran once they had secured Khurasan and enjoyed some support from the Ghuzz who were already present.Between 1037, when prayers were first recited in their names and 1055, when Baghdad was acquired, the Saljuqs successfully moulded a new empire which would enjoy a brief prominence and impressive size before disintegrating under the influence of traditional Turkic succession ( which favoured succession by family rather than primogeniture ) which led to factionalism as provinces were inherited by individual family members.

However the legacy of the Saljuq empire would be far longer lasting than the unified state itself and would continue in the form of the various Saljuq rulers and dynasties which sprouted from it.   One of the things which makes the Turks remarkable within Islamic history is the eagerness with which they freely accepted the teachings of Muhammad. The Karakhanids were the first tribe to do so and what is most significant is the way in which Lewis asserts that "after their conversion...(they) seem to have forgotten their pre-Islamic Turkish past and identified themselves to the full with Middle Eastern Islamic civilization".

One of the factors which explains the relative lack of disruption by Turkish assumption of power and invasion is now evident - in Islamic terms they were no longer barbarians living in the Age of Ignorance but Muslims and, as they accepted Islamic civilization and identity so absolutely, the nations into which they came were viewed as a part of their own civilization. Another pertinent, and connected, factor was the continuation of al-Jahiliyya beyond the borders of Islam and amongst unconverted tribes which led to them being "at once involved...in Holy War against their own pagan kinsmen".

One could view this as something approaching a civil war between the Turkic peoples - between the old "barbarous" and the newly "civilized" elements of a civilization and its character.    While the status of the Saljuq Turks as Muslims, and fervent ones at that, ensured a more peaceful and ordered transition of power to the invading peoples than is usual their status as rulers, once achieved, put forward certain challenges which promoted integration so as to further secure this position. As the Turks were comparatively few in number the Saljuqs felt required to find support from other quarters to ensure their position.

The total assumption of a different identity, the willing self-subjugation to another culture/society/civilization blunted almost entirely the "barbarous nature" of the Turks and made them eminently compatible with the civilization they were infiltrating and coming to rule - unlike the situation we find following the early years of most typical barbarian invasions and consequent rule.

"Even the very name Turk came to be synonymous with Muslim, for Turks as well as for Westerners "

This is a hugely significant, and fairly succinct, statement which emphasises how the Turks differed form traditional barbarous conquerors or rulers ; How common are the instances where conquerors so completely assumed the identity of the conquered that the former became the accepted ideal of the latter? A further vindication of Saljuq rule is the tremendous impact they had upon the revival of mainstream, Sunni, Islam and its institutions which had been under great pressure form the Shi'ite ascendancy which had come to dominate so much of the Dar al-Islam before the coming of the Turk.

The orthodoxy of their nature and their status as the powerhouse which led to revival of Sunni Islam is surely another significant factor in their remarkably successful integration. Within the Islamic world and specifically Iran one can compare the Saljuqs to other peoples who perhaps accepted Islam but could be said to have adapted it to themselves - as the Persians arguably did.

By contrast the Turks adapted themselves - individually and as a civilization - to Islam completely. Indeed Lewis states quite succinctly the special status of the Turks within Islam and their total submission to their new religion by comparing them to the other two great Muslim races: There is no Turkish equivalent to Arab memories of the heroic days of Pagan Arabia, to Persian pride in the bygone glories of ancient Iran. In the earnestness and seriousness of their loyalty to Islam the Turks are equalled by no other people. Not even the Arabs - first adherents of Islam, the Prophet's own people - can claim to have emerged so completely form the Age of Ignorance into the absolute submission to Islam. 

Under the Sultan Malik Shah and his vizier Nizam al-Mulk the nizamiyyah theological schools were founded in major cities - the great Al-Ghazali heading the one located in Baghdad. Among the other examples of good rule by the dynasty under its greatest Sultan and inspired Vizier were numerous hospitals and other extensive public works. The achievements and developments secured under Saljuq rule display a most impressive legacy. Iran maintained the systems of government and education established under the greatest Saljuq vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, until the 19th century . The respect accorded the, now largely impotent, Caliph in his position as head of the community secured the Saljuqs religious legitimacy and a place as the "defenders of Sunni Islam."

A title which was justified both by the their indulgence of the Caliph and their successful attempts at putting down the deviant sects and heretic regimes which had denied the Caliph entirely. It is their position as 'defenders' of the Islamic faith which most emphatically demonstrates the difference between the Saljuqs and the traditional idea of a barbarian people/rulers in that they actually strengthen the traditional centres of power held by the traditional and ceremonial rulers in the society they have conquered.

As well as the strengthening of the Caliphate a religious revival of sorts affected government in its entirety under Saljuq rule. The patronage of Madrassas is the most obvious manifestation of this and under the new Turkish dynasty:

"The religious institution had codified its doctrines, increased its cohesion, extended its influence both with the people and the state."

Saljuq rule strengthened the state. The nature of Islam as an all encompassing religion is pertinent here the importance of the total Saljuq devotion to Islam cannot be overestimated as the reason for the respect they displayed in maintaining and revitalising their adopted civilization which, we must remember, is synonymous and intertwined with Islam in a way it has never been with Christianity. To strengthen Islam was to strengthen the state and society as a whole.

The immediate and lasting vitality of Turkish Islam was moulded by the situation within the Islamic world at the time of their conversion at a time when:

"Islam itself had to be defended against the threefold attack of the Eastern heathen, the Western Christian and the internal heretic".

Indeed, the need of defence by the Saljuqs against the Eastern heathen ironic given that the Turks would, under the traditional idea of a barbarous people, be the very eastern barbarians threatening Islam. Their transformed a potentially great threat into the greatest ally and defender of Islam not only against the pagan cousins of the newly converted but against all enemies of Islam be they heretic or infidel.

A (rather clumsy) analogy to emphasise the unusual status of the Saljuqs of having integrated with, and revitalising from a state of decay and stupor, the Caliphate is to consider the Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire and their destruction of that state. The thought of the Germanic tribes converting freely, and on a wide scale, to Roman Christianity and then embracing as their own Roman civilization and becoming in effect its guardian - in a matter of some few decades - is fairly incredible and while two situations are obviously greatly different in numerous ways the comparison does serve to illuminate the remarkable nature of the Saljuq arrival within Islamic civilization.

The Mongols were a people more intimately related to the Saljuq Turks and the Middle East and, as they follow - indeed cause - the end of Saljuq rule a review of their invasion might serve to provide, in reflection to the already discussed impact of the coming of the Turks, a more fitting comparison. Put concisely, the arrival of the Mongols was disastrous in many respects for Islam. The position of Caliph was effectively ended with the capture and destruction of Baghdad and the execution of al-Mustasim and his family. "The House of Abbas, for almost exactly five centuries the titular heads of Sunni Islam, had ceased to reign"

Baghdad and Iraq never recovered from the Mongol invasion - the destruction of the irrigation works upon which the region depended led to irreversible decline and it was relegated to the status of a frontier province. Following the fall of the Caliph the Middle East reverted, for the first time since the establishment of Muslim empire at the expense of Byzantium and Persia, to a region contested between two great empires. Iran became the great power in the east once more while the Turks, under the House of Osman, took the place of Rome/Byzantium as the western power in this ancient contest. 

Consider the difference in Saljuq and Mongol arrival ; Mongol rulers, as is the usual trend for barbarous conquerors, were eventually were absorbed into or adopted the culture and language of the people they had conquered. However their initial arrival was destructive with great and permanent consequences. The Saljuqs, on the other hand, adopted Islamic civilization before they came into the Islamic world and thus had a deep respect for its institutions -which were now their own - and strengthened them rather than destroyed. 

The impact of Mongols might be said to have been more profound in terms of change within the Muslim world compared to the Saljuqs as the latter did not truly change but rather strengthened the Muslim world and the central pillars of Islamic civilization. Under the Saljuqs Sunni orthodoxy recovered and the Muslim world was largely re-united. As a result of the Mongols the Islamic world was split effectively into two competing spheres which would eventually take on a clearly opposed sectarian element in the form of the Iranian/Shi'ite - Ottoman/Sunni rivalry. The Saljuq invasion of Iran can be classed as a barbarian invasion in only the most superficial and limited of senses. Indeed the word 'invasion' is of questionable suitability given the prominent and widespread presence of Turks within the civilization which was to be 'invaded'.

As can be seen from comparison with other conquests traditionally viewed as stemming from 'barbarian invasion' the behaviour, immediate impact and legacy of the Saljuqs divorces them from the likes of the Mongols. The importance of their conversion to Islam before attaining power cannot be overstated - in the words of one author this made them "acceptable" as conquerors. As Lapidus states :

"The Saljuqs reunited most of the former Abbasid empire and rekindled the dream of Muslim unity and universal empire."

The impact of the Saljuqs touched every aspect of Islamic society and left a positive legacy which lasted centuries beyond the end of the dynasty itself. Perhaps the most illustrative way in which the basic civility of the Saljuqs can be shown is through the evocative anecdote concerning Alp Arslan and defeated Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes following the victory of the Turks at Manzikert. Romanus, having been asked by Arslan what treatment he might mete out had Byzantium been victorious and he been captured instead, replied :

"Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople."

In response to which the Sultan is said to have rebuked the Emperor with regard to the Christian teachings on forgiveness and then told him :

"My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free."