Seljuk Empire Timeline

In 1046, Tughril built the madrasa al-Sultaniya in Nishapur, while Chaghri Beg founded a madrasa in Merv, beginning a tradition of Seljuk religious patronage.

In 1056, Tughril built a Friday mosque with a newly constructed quarter in Baghdad which was surrounded by a wall.

The Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk founded the first madrasa in Baghdad in 1063, called the Nizamiya. By this time there were twenty-five madrasas throughout Persia and Khorasan founded by Seljuk princes.

During a night in 1091, all of Baghdad was lit with candles under the orders of Malik-Shah I, resembling the Zoroastrian ritual of sadhak.

Image source: Malik-Shah I

After the fall of the Great Seljuk Empire, there was a sudden burst of artistic production between 1150 and 1250, largely unrelated to court patronage. Seljuk styles of art and military equipment continued in the Turkic successor states such as the Zengids, Artuqids, and Anatolian Seljuks.

The Daqa'iq al-Haqa'iq, or Fine Points of Eternal Truths, an occult manuscript dating to the Sultanate of Rum, was created in 1272, showing the continuation of Seljuk influence on the book arts in Anatolia.

In 1058, the Abbasid caliph granted Tughril the title of King of East and West, officially making him the temporal protector of Abbasid caliph al-Qa'im.

In 1087, the Abbasid caliph titled Malik-Shah I The Sultan of the East and West, recognizing the height of Seljuk power.

When Malik-Shah I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire. He had built the Jami al-Sultan Mosque in Baghdad that same year.

In 1096, Ahmad Sanjar was tasked to govern the province of Khorasan by his brother Muhammad I, beginning his rise to supreme power.

Image source: Ahmad Sanjar

Malik-Shah I's brother Tutush I made a claim to the throne but was killed in battle against Berkyaruq in February 1096.

In 1118, Ahmad Sanjar became the sole ruler of the Great Seljuk Empire, though Mahmud II ruled as a subordinate Sultan in Iraq from Baghdad. Sanjar was known as al-sultān al-a'zam, the Greatest Sultan.

To counter the ambitions of Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid, Mahmud II granted Zengi the city of Wasit as an iqta in 1124 and the military governorship of Basra with Baghdad and Iraq in 1126; in 1127 Zengi became Governor of Mosul, forming the Atabegdom of Mosul.

Seljuk control of the Abbasids ended in 1135 after al-Mustarshid confronted Sultan Mas'ud in battle and died in captivity. Mas'ud briefly recaptured Baghdad in 1136, but Caliph al-Muqtafi successfully resisted the Seljuk siege of Baghdad in 1157.

Image source: Al-Mustarshid

In 1153, the Oghuz Turks rebelled and captured Sanjar, collapsing Seljuk rule. He was held in captivity until escaping in the fall of 1156.

Sanjar died in Merv in 1157, and with his death the empire fractured even further, rendering the Atabegs effectively independent.

In 1181, Sultan Shah, a pretender to the Khwarezmian throne, took control of Khorasan, until 1192 when he was defeated near Merv by the Ghurids, who captured his territories.

Toghrul III was defeated by Ala al-Din Tekish, Shah of the Khwarazmian Empire, and the Seljuk Empire finally collapsed in 1194, supplanted in the east by the Khwarazmians and in the west by the Zengids and Ayyubids.

Image source: Tughril III

The Ghurids took control of all Khorasan following the death of Tekish in 1200, as far as Bastam in Qūmes, but the province was conquered by the Khwarazmians after the Ghurid defeat at the Battle of Andkhud in 1204.

The Tomb of Ahmed Sanjar was destroyed by the Mongols led by Tolui, who sacked Merv in 1221 during their catastrophic invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, reportedly killing 700,000 people, a figure modern scholarship considers exaggerated.

Image source: Siege of Merv (1221)

The last surviving Seljuk sultanate, the Sultanate of Rum, fell in 1308, ending Seljuk rule entirely after nearly three centuries.

Image source: Sultanate of Rum