Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 2, The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries

219 Pages·1997·20.69 MB·English

by  Andre Wink

AL-HIND
THE MAKING OF THE
INDO-ISLAMIC WORLD
BY
ANDRE WINK
Profesor ofHistory
University ofWisconsin, Madison
VOLUME II
THE SLAVE KINGS
AND THE ISLAMIC CONQUEST
11th-13th CENTURIES
BRILL
LEIDEN .NEW YORK· KOLN
1997
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper.
CONTENTS
Maps . VII
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wink,Andre.
Abbreviations . IX
Al-Hind,themakingoftheIndo-Islamicworld/byAndreWink._
p. em.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. Preface ·······························. XI
Contents:v.2.TheslavekingsandtheIslamicconquest,
lIth-13th centuries
ISBN9004095098(set).- ISBN9004102361(v.2) Introduction . 1
1.India-History-1000-1765. 2.IndianOceanRegion-History.
3.Muslims-India-eivilization. I.Title.
DS452.w56. 1997 Chapter I. Nomads, cities and trade . 8
954.02-dc20 91-22179
Chapter II. The coming of the Turks . 43
CIP
-~---
-_..- \ . ---//(··.~7 Chapter III. Kings,slavesand elephants . 79
Chapter IV.The opening of the gates of Hind...................... 111
Chapter V.The slavehousehold of Delhi 150
Chapter VI.Aworld on the move 162
Chapter VII. Garrison, plain and march 212
Chapter VIII. 'Twixtland and sea · · 265
Chapter IX. The idols of Hind 294
Chapter X. The well of Buddhism defiled 334
Chapter XI. Monks and peasants 358
-..•.w' .","'Hurt topnotocopy itemsfor internal orpersonal
use isgranted by Brill provided that Conclusion.................................................................................. 381
the appropriate fees arepaid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Bibliography.......................................................... 385
Danvers MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject tochange.
Index... ........ . . .... . . . . 403
PRINTED INTHE NETHERLANDS
MAPS
These maps supplement the ones provided in Al-Hind, 1. Some
geographical references which remain uncertain or controversial
have been left out. A fewcould not be located at all.
Map 1Central Asia 48
Map 2 Ghaznavid and Ghurid/Mamluk conquests in Hind 128
Map 3 The Qarlugh kingdom 201
Map 4 Iqta'of Bada'un 222
Map 5 Iqta's of Lahore, Multan and Uch 236
Map 6 Iqta's of Bihar and LakhnauU 258
Map 7 Gujarat 272
Map 8 Malabar, Coromandel, Sri Lanka, Indian Ocean
archipelagoes 281
Map 9 Sumatra 286
ABBREVIATIONS
AH A. Zajaczkowski (ed.), Le Traite Iranien de l'Art Militaire:
Adiib al-Harb wa-sh-Shaghii'a du XIIIe SiiJCle (Warszawa,
1969) .
FS A. M. Husain (ed.), FutulJ as-Saliitin oJ'IJiimi (Agra, 1938).
KT C. J. Tornberg (ed.), Ibn al-'Athir, Al-Kiimil fi 'l-Tiirikh, 12
vols (Leiden, 1853-1869).
MD Al-Mas'udl, Muruj adh-Dhahab, 2 vols (Cairo, 1948).
TB W. H. Morley (ed.), Ta'rikh-i-Baihaqi (Calcutta, 1862).
TF Ta'rikh-i-Firishta (Lucknow, 1864).
TFM E. Denison Ross (ed.), Ta'rikh-i-Fakhr ad-Din Mubiirakshiih
(London, 1927).
TFS S. Ahmad Khan (ed.), Ta'rikh-i-Firoz ShiiM of Ziii' ad-Din
Barani (Calcutta, 1862).
TM Tiij al-Ma'iithir: BM: Add. 7623.
TMS M. Hidayat Hosaini (ed.), Ta'rikh-i-Mubiirakshiihi of YalJya
bin AlJmad bin 'Abdulliih as-Sirhindi (Calcutta, 1931).
TN N. Lees et al (eds), Tabaqiit-i-NiiJiri of Abu 'Umar al-juzjiini
(Calcutta, 1894).
TNL Tabaqiit-i-NiiJiri of Abu' Umar al-juzjiini (Lahore, 1954).
TNM Tabaqiit-i-NiiJiri of Abu 'Umar al-juzjiini: IOL: MSS no. 2553.
TNR H. G. Raverty (transl.), Tabalj,iit-i-NiiJiri: a General History of
the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, 2 vols (London, 1872-
81).
TYA Al-'Utbl, Tiirikh al-Yamini (Delhi, 1847).
TYP Al-'utbl, Ta'rikh-i- Yamini: Persian translation by Jurbiidqiini
(1206 AD) (Teheran, 1334 H.).
ZA M. Nazim (ed.), Zayn al-Akhbiir of Gardizi (Berlin, 1928).
PREFACE
This book has been long in the making. Inevitably I incurred
numerous debts with individuals and institutions across the world.
I began my research on the thirteenth century in the Netherlands,
as a Huygens fellow of the Nederlandse Stichting voor Weten-
schappelijk Onderzoek (N.W.O.) in 1984-1989, and, in 1985, as a
Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge. Most of the book
however was 'made in the U.S.A.', in Madison, after Ijoined the
History Department of the University of Wisconsin. To my col-
leagues and students at the UW I cannot but express my deepest
gratitude for the constant interest they have expressed in mywork.
In addition, lowe a special debt to the Research Committee of
the Graduate School for providing research money, travelgrants,
summer support over a number of years, as well as a semester's
leave of absence. Most helpful was also the award of a Vilas Asso-
ciateship for the years 1992 and 1993, and a residency fellowship
at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at Madison in the
Fall Semester of 1993. Other institutions where I spent time
include the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard Univer-
sity, where I am indebted to its director William Graham for an
affiliation in the Fall of 1991; the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sci-
ences Sociales, Paris, where I was able to conduct seminars in Dec.
1992- jan.1993 at the invitation of Marc Gaborieau, Claude
Markovits and Alexander Popovic; the Rockefeller Foundation
which provided a residency scholarship at the Villa Serbelloni in
August 1993; and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington
D.C., where the book was completed during a residential fellow-
ship in 1995-96.
Most of the chapters of this book were presented in earlier
forms at meetings, lectures or conferences: in Paris at the EHESS,
at the annual South Asia conferences in Madison, at the history
departments of the University of California at Berkeley and Har-
vard University, at ARlT in Istanbul, at the Southern Asia Insti-
tute at Columbia University, and at meetings of the Association
XII PREFACE
for Asian Studies in Chicago and the World History Association
in Honolulu, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, as
well as at meetings in Washington. To all these audiences I must INTRODUCTION
express my gratitude for their generous comments.
The list of individual scholars to whom I am indebted for ideas, In the preceding volume the argument has been put forward that
intellectual and moral encouragement, correspondence on select- in the period up to the early eleventh century the impact of the
ed topics, and various forms of aid is even longer. I would like to expansion of Islam on the area which the Muslims called ai-Hind,
thank in particular Chris Bayly,Burton Stein, Robert Frykenberg, 'India' and the 'Indianized' world of the Southeast-Asian main-
A. K. Narain, Dick Eaton, Tosun Aricanli, Gavin Hambly, Kather- land and Indonesian Archipelago, was largely of a commercial
ine Bowie, Kingsley de Silva, Sumit Guha, Steve Album, Max nature. Sind, the passage of overland and maritime traffic to and
Nihom, Mark Kenoyer, Richard Davis, Jan Vansina, George from the Middle East, politically and culturally an unsettled 'fron-
Brooks, Patricia Crone, John Newman, Marie Martin, Uli Schami- tier of aI-Hind' which generated brigandage and piratical activity
loglu, Christopher Beckwith, James Hoover, Mesfin Kebede, Heinz as far off as Sri Lanka, was conquered by the Arabs in order to
Bechert, Muzaffar Alam, Tom Allsen, Bill Spengler,Jos Gommans, safeguard the Persian Gulf and the feeder routes of the India
Ticia Rueb, Douglas Mudd, and Victor Lieberman. My thanks are trade which was to become a great source of wealth in the new-
also due to Dick Eaton, Anatoly Khazanov and Jan Heesterman ly evolving Muslim economy. But the early conquests did not
for reading the entire manuscript before it went to the press. For extend beyond Sind. In effect, the commercial ascendancy of the
research assistance I am indebted to S.Y.Saikia and E. Palm. Over Islamic world in the early medieval period derived from its intel""
the past five years, above all, I derived a great deal offa'ida from mediate position as a conduit of exchange between the Mediter-
discussions with Michael Chamberlain and Anatoly Khazanov, ranean and the Indian Ocean; in other words, from being at the
who, like myself, were recent arrivals at Wisconsin and did their crossroads of world trade, at the junction of Christendom, Africa,
best to educate me in the intricacies of Middle Eastern and Cen- Central Asia and China, and India. In monetary terms this result-
tral Asian history respectively. Lastly, I cannot fail to mention, ed in the transition to a unified bi-metallic currency based on the
once again, my general intellectual debt to Jan Heesterman. It gold dinar and the silver dirham which had a stable exchange rate
has been a matter of no small satisfaction for me that we could and was made possible by the systematic exploitation of all known
continue to meet regularly, both in the Netherlands and the sources of precious metals. The political frontiers of early Islam
U.S.A., and that I could continue to benefit from his unrivaled were, thus, more or less stationary from the early eighth until the
erudition. early eleventh century, but its commercial hegemony continued
to increase far beyond.
Washington, D. C. Secondly, it was also suggested in the same volume that the
May, 1996 often complex and protracted political, social and economic
developments in those areas of ai-Hind which remained beyond
the frontier of Islamic conquest were determined or significantly
influenced by interaction with the outside world-that of Islam
above all, but also Tibetan power and Tang and Sung China. Polit-
ical power in India did not arise in isolation from the great pan-
Asian movements of conquest and trade of this age. To the con-
trary, by tapping into the world of nomadism and commerce
outside the settled parts of the subcontinent such power could be
all the more effectively asserted. Here the peculiar dynamic of
INTRODUCTION 3
2 INTRODUCTION
idity and openness which produced a dynamic impetus that was
early medieval India became manifest in two complementary
absent in the densely settled agricultural (and civilizational) heart-
forces which seemingly pulled in different directions. In the sub-
land. This second argument, then, sought to show that shifts of
continent generally we noted an increase in town-building and
power occurred, in combination with massive transfers of wealth,
the multiplication of small and middle-sized market-centres, i.e. a
across multiple centres along the periphery of aI-Hind in the sev-
densification of regional exchange patterns, and, with it, an over-
enth to eleventh centuries. It was an attempt to show, in short,
all increase of sedentary agriculture and the formation of new,
how these multiple centres mediated between the world of mobile
more vertically organized states-epitomized by monumental
wealth on the Islamic-Sino-Tibetal) frontier (which extended into
stone temple building- and widespread brahmanization in many
Southeast Asia) and the world of sedentary agriculture, epito-
areas, including the periphery, which resulted in a more struc-
mized by brahmanical temple Hinduism in and around Kanauj.
tured social system. In the 'Middle Country', the Indian heartland
In a diachronic perspective, this was the familiar dialectic between
of madhyadesha, the city of Kanauj remained the pre-eminent and
civilization ('ritual purity') and 'barbarian' power.
'exemplary' sacred centre throughout the early medieval period.
What happened now, in the subsequent period, the eleventh to
Here the agricultural state had the longest pedigree, the social
thirteenth centuries, can be summarized as the successful fusion
hierarchy of caste was relatively rigid, and here too the ritual stan-
of the organizational mode of the frontier (with its patterns of
dard of brahmanical orthodoxy was preserved. Spreading out
long-distance trade and mobile wealth as well as its raiding capac-
from this epicentre, the brahmans of Kanauj would reconstitute
ity) with that of the settled society of the agricultural plains,
its ritual infrastructure in the periphery of the Indian subconti-
inland, from the Panjab to the Ganges-Yamuna Doab and to Bihar
nent which sought to overcome its semi-barbarian or mleeeha sta-
and Bengal, but also in the coastal areas of Gujarat, Malabar, the
tus by endowing such brahmans with land and other wealth and
Coromandel, and Sumatra. The rhetorical demonization on both
by replicating the sacred geography of the Ganges-Yamuna region.
sides notwithstanding, it was this fusion that would make India
Kanauj, however, was also a 'dead centre'. Political and military
the hub of world trade, while in the Middle East re-nomadization
power and mobile wealth (trade goods and precious metals), in
occurred (the fusion of frontier and settled society, in other
general, continued to be found on the frontier of settled societ~.
words, was unsuccessful here) under Mongol rule. The Mongols
Hence madhyadesha, the agricultural heartland of the North-IndI-
hardly penetrated into India-for avariety of reasons, most impor-
an plains, during this period continued to be dominated by polit-
tant of which was probably the lack of sufficient good pasture
ical formations which arose and maintained themselves in the
land. Instead of being devastated by the Mongols during one or
periphery of the subcontinent, and whose hegemony, in effect,
several major invasions, the agricultural plains of North India were
was based on a compromise with 'barbarian' power across the
brought under Turko-Islamic rule in a gradual manner. This con-
Islamic-Sino-Tibetan frontier: Greater Kashmir, extending into
quest, which continued throughout the eleventh to thirteenth
Turkestan, and allied to the Tang Chinese in a scramble for the
centuries, was effected by professional armies, built around a core
proceeds along the silk route; Bengal, the ruling dynasty of which
of Turkish slave soldiers, which were relatively small in size and
was propped up by Tibetan military power; the Rashtrakuta
were not accompanied by any large-scale invasions of nomadic ele-
dynasty in the Western Deccan, which was part of the Persian Gulf
ments (complete with flocks and herds), as happened in the Mid-
trading system of the Muslims; and Ma'bar or Southeast India,
dle East. Unlike the Mongols, too, these Turkish groups had
extending itself (through the famous Cola expeditions) in the late
already converted to Islam before they came to India. The mili-
tenth and eleventh century into the burgeoning Southeast-Asian
tary differential between the Turkish invaders on the one hand
maritime economy which became dominated by the Chinese
and the opposing Indian armies on the other was both technical
under the early Sung. It is in these peripheral states of the Indi-
and social in its origin, revolving as it did around the co-ordi-
an subcontinent that we can locate the fluid resources, intensive
nated deployment of mounted archers. In India, of course, the
raiding and trading activity, as well as the social and political flu-
5
INTRODUCTION
4 INTRODUCTION
gained momentum before the second half of the thirteenth cen-
horse and horsemanship had a long history. But it seems that
tury. Recent work by R. M. Eaton shows that in the Panjab and
archery was largely left to infantry and a relatively small number
Sind, and in Bengal, Muslim converts were drawn from indige-
of elephant-riders. Like in the case of the Byzantines, it was the
nous groups which had hardly been integrated in the Hindu social
failure of the Indians to develop mounted archery that was
order or caste system (however defined) at all, such asforest tribes
exposed by the Turks from the steppes of Central Asia. And it
and pastoral groups who were in the process of settling down as
was, paradoxically, this military differential that made possible the
tax-paying agriculturists.! Elsewhere too, conversion, rather than
fusion of nomadic and agricultural society in the eleventh to thir-
providing 'liberation' from the allegedly intolerable rigidities of
teenth centuries.
the Hindu caste system, seems to have largely affected previous-
Another essential part of the process which is dealt with in this
ly marginal groups living in frontier areas. Such groups, if they
volume was that, as soon as the conquest of ai-Hind was under
were not forest tribes or pastoralists in the process of becoming
way, a migration corridor was opened up between the eastern
peasants, could also be, as in Malabar or Indonesia, part of the
Islamic world, including Central Asia, and the subcontinent. The
newly rising trading communities on the coasts. In Indian terms,
gradual establishment of a new Muslim ruling elite in India was
the seaside was always a place of extraordinary license.
further enhanced by the immigration of fugitives from the lands
Mu<~hof the conversion to Islam that occurred in these fron-
which had been overrun by the pagan Mongols. The total num-
tier areas of ai-Hind did not, it must be emphasized, begin to
ber of Muslim immigrants could at no time have been very high,
affect large numbers of people until the early modern era. Until
and it was dwarfed by the number of India's native population
then, Islam, in any part of our area, was primarily the culture of
(which was probably already then over 70 million, while Iran and
an immigrant military and political elite which was usually urban-
Central Asia each contained no more than a few million people
based and at one remove from peasant society. It represented a
at most). No massive demographic shifts occurred in India, unlike
link between the world of mobile wealth (money, trade) and of
in Iran. There was no re-nomadization but the imposition of pur-
mobile-we could even saymonetized-elites, including slaves, of
poseful Islamic rule by invading horse warriors who recruited per-
Iran and Central Asia, on the one hand, and the sedentary world
haps tens of thousands of supporters as military retinue. The Turk-
of primordial kinship ties of the Indian peasantry and fixed field
ish conquest uprooted the sacred geography of Indian peasant
cultivation on the other. But, strikingly, even when Islam became
society, during innumerable campaigns, but it did not result in
a peasant religion, as in Sind and ~engal, it still mediated between
any significant loss of population. In the Indo-Islamic world, long-
the realm of settled agriculture and the frontier of pastoralists
distance trade, elite slavery, and monetization (the result of the
and shifting cultivators.
de-hoarding of Indian temple treasure) went hand in hand with
It is in this direction, probably, that we have to look for an
imperial expansion. The result of the conquest was, in short, the
answer to the question why Buddhism disappeared, in the
revitalization of the economy of settled agriculture through the
eleventh to thirteenth centuries, from its homeland in the South-
dynamic impetus of forced monetization and the expansion of
Asian subcontinent, while being successfully disseminated to the
political dominion.
peasant societies of mainland Southeast Asia. When one turns to
The argument of this volume, focusing on long-distance trade,
the secondary literature on Buddhism one finds mere hints of an
agricultural expansion, migration, and nomadic penetration, cul-
explanation of this issue. If it is addressed somewhat more sys-
minates in the negative conclusion that conversion to Islam
among the native population is insignificant in most parts of al-
Hind except the coasts almost throughout the eleventh-thirteenth 1 R. M. Eaton, 'The Political and ReligiousAuthority of the Shrine of Baba
Farid', in: Metcalf,B.D. (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in
centuries. More specifically, the conversion of some key groups in South Asian Islam (Berkeley,LosAngeles and London, 1984), pp. 333-56;idem,
Sind and the Panjab, as well as among the coastal communities The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and
of Malabar and Northeast Sumatra, does not appear to have London, 1993).
6 INTRODUCTION 7
INTRODUCTION
tematically, it usually amounts to one or another version of the
ments of land as well as by donations from the mercantile com-
theory that since Buddhism at one time prevailed only in those
munities, tended to become large academically oriented centres
areas which later converted to Islam, and since there are no Bud-
with permanent residents, vulnerable to outside attack, but still
dhists left in these areas, we must deduce that the Buddhists con-
aloof from the rural masses (which only adopted random cultic
verted to Islam. Thus it is most often observed that Buddhism dis-
elements from the religion). What happened, then, during the
appeared from those parts of South and Southeast Asia which
Islamic conquest, is that the academic (and soteriological / philo-
were overrun by Muslim armies in the medieval period and hence-
sophical) tradition of Buddhism was uprooted in India itself, but
forward became subject to Islamic rule. Mass conversion of Bud-
replaced, outside the orbit of Muslim rule, by a variety of region-
dhists to Islam in Sind and Bengal, it is then alleged, occurred
al forms of Buddhism. These regional forms of Buddhism, in Sri
due to political pressure or because Buddhists saw in Islam a
Lanka, Tibet and the Himalayas, and in mainland Southeast Asia,
means to escape from the Hindu caste system and brahmanical
still developed in conjunction with kingship (especially in the ear-
oppression. This, we are told, is also the reason why Buddhism
ly modern period), but took on the aspect of a communal reli-
survived in areas which did not suffer the largely 'destructive' gion as well. In other words, they were, apart from perpetuating
Islamic impact: the Himalayas and beyond, Sri Lanka, mainland
the high tradition, above all peasant religions-trade and money
Southeast Asia (but not Indonesia, which was conquered by
matters being left in these areas to foreign communities of Mus-
indigenous Islamic rulers). lims and expatriate Chinese. Asa peasant religion, Buddhism took
An alternative explanation will be offered here-one that is in root in areas of al-Hind with relatively little previous exposure to
line with the previously presented arguments. We have to begin
organized ,scriptural religion and with relatively little social and
by recognizing that there was a vast difference between ancient
economic d.ifferentiation of their own. Like Islam at a later stage
Indian Buddhism and all surviving later forms in Sri Lanka, South-
in the peripheral parts of our area which were not yet brought
east Asia, and Tibet and the Himalayas. Buddhism in ancient India
under cultivation (Sind, the Panjab, Bengal, parts of Indonesia),
to a large extent remained embedded in the cosmopolitan con-
Buddhism developed in the context of the formation of settled
text of long-distance trade and itinerant monkhood, but never
states on the frontier of agriculture.
became a peasant religion with broad, socially inclusive, under- In broad terms, then, the religious transformation of al-Hind
pinnings. In this sense, it can be argued, Buddhism remained a
can be analysed as the result of the same dynamic interaction
phenomenon of the frontier of settled society, to some extent .;im-
between frontier and settled society, or parallels to it, that the ear-
ilar to the Islam of the Arab or Turkish immigrant groups of lat-
lier parts of this volume discuss. The making of the Indo-Islamic
er times. But this type of Buddhism belonged to a time when the
world is synonymous with the successful integration, from the sev-
Indian subcontinent was still mostly a forested realm with a but
enth century on, of relatively densely settled and still expanding
scattered and small population in comparison with medieval
agricultural societies into the patterns of long-distance trade and
times. On a purely abstract level again, it can perhaps be said that
the mobilization of wealth, as well as raiding and conquest activ-
Buddhism, like Islam, mediated between settled society and the
ity, which were characteristic of the frontier peoples of Central
frontier of mobile wealth (the world of money, trade goods,
Asia, China and the Middle East, and later of Europe. This, in
nomads, cities), but at an earlier stage in the evolution of the
the final analysis, also implies an essential continuity between the
Indian economy. For the same reason, we should probably aban-
ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, at least on the
don the idea that there ever was a 'Buddhist India'. By the time
level of social and economic development, rather than the dis-
that the Turko-Islamic conquerors arrived in North India, in the
continuity which was perceived by earlier writers on the subject
eleventh to thirteenth centuries, Buddhism was no longer a reli-
who focused on culture and religion, or by even earlier writers
gion of a floating population of itinerant monks but had become
who focused on race.
institutionalized in monasteries, which, supported by royal endow-
NOMADS, CITIES AND TRADE 9
The Iranian empire of the Buyids however had crumbled fast after
the succession struggles which ensued at the death of 'Adud ad-
CHAPTER I Daula in 983 J\.D., and it was not much later that they had to
yield to the Seljuqs, who took control of Baghdad in 1055 and of
NOMADS, CITIES AND TRADE Shiraz in 1062.
The arrival of the Seljuqs in the Middle East in the eleventh
In this first chapter, we will begin by looking at the changing glob- century marks the beginning of Turkish rule, i.e. of formerly
al context o~ the eleventh to thirteenth centuries and briefly nomadic chiefs with origins in Central Asia, which in one way or
analyse the dIfferent waysin which this affected the economy and another was to continue in the area until the early sixteenth cen-
commerce of India and the Indian Ocean. If in the previous cen- tury, and, in a more restricted sense, until the twentieth. The
turies the Islamic Middle East maintained its position as a con- Seljuqs were able to downplay Iranian notions of monarchical
necting link between Africa, Europe, Byzantium and the Mediter- legitimacy and, unlike the Buyids, did not present themselves pri-
ranean, and India, Central Asia and China, in the period from marily as Shiihanshiihs (although this title is sometimes found on
the eleventh century onwards the situation in the Middle East and their coins) by introducing a new claim to authority through the
the relative importance of the other areas changed considerably. institution of the Sultanate, a form of Islamic dominion derived
A large part of the Middle East came to be occupied by nomads from the caliphate and supported by the Sunni-Islamic establish-
fro~ Central Asia, and, with its agricultural economy and some ment. The Seljuqs were a tribe of Ghuzz or Oghuz Turks (later
of Its urban centres severely damaged, acquired the characteris- also styled Turkomans), who had long been living on the pastures
tics of.a frontier zone. At the same time, through the Mongols, to the north of the Caspian and Aral Seas, on the periphery of
the MIddle East became more closely linked to Central Asia. the Islamic world. They were named after their leader Seljuq,
Europe and China ('Cathay'), with large settled populations, rose under whom, in about 950 AD, they withdrew from the Ghuzz con-
in relative importance at both ends of the Turko-Mongol world. federacy and settled in and around jand, along the lower Syr
And .India, also with a large settled population, now partly under Darya Oaxartes) river, where they soon converted to Islam. The
MuslIm rule, assumed an ever more central position in the trad- Seljuqs then rose to prominence and power while the Ghaznavid
ing. e,conomy ~f Islam. and the world at large. Put differently, rulers Mahmud and his son Mas'ud were preoccupied with their
IndIa s expandmg agncultural economy was integrated, in the campaigns in India and had their backs turned to the Turkish
eleventh to thirteenth centuries, in a widening global market nomads in Transoxania. They were able to take Khurasan in 1035,
~hroug~ the new Turko-Mongol nomadic intermediary which pro- five years after the death of Mahmud of Ghazna, and made Nisha-
Jected Itself across the Eurasian landmass. pur the first of their capitals in 1037. Warfare with the Ghaznavids
culminated in the battle of Dandanqan in 1040, where the Ghaz-
navid forces, under Mas'ud, were routed and forced to withdraw,
THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE INDIAN OCEAN first to Ghazna and ultimately to the Panjab. In 1059, four years
after Baghdad was taken, and the capital restored to Sunni rule,
Before the arrival of the Seljuqs, in the tenth and early eleventh
the Seljuq Sultanate was established throughout Iran and Iraq,
century, the most important dynasty in the Middle East had been
and up to Syria and the Byzantine empire in Anatolia. Under Alp
the Buyids. These came from Dailam, in the Alborz mountains,
Arslan (l063-72) and his son Malik Shah (l072-92), Seljuq pow-
~othe southwest of the Caspian Sea. Of Iranian origin, establish-
er reached its zenith, and both the Ghaznavids and the
mg their power in Shiraz, Ray and Baghdad-first on the Iranian
Qarakhanids (992-1211) of Transoxania and eastern Turkestan
plateau, then in Iraq-, the Buyids presided over the most sus-
were forced to accept the Seljuqs as overlords. From Ajarbayjan
tained attempt to link Islamic kingship with the Sasanid tradition.
nomadic raids continued to be made into Byzantine territory, and