Table Of ContentThe Seljuks of Anatolia : Their History and
title:
Culture According to Local Muslim Sources
author: Köprülü, Mehmet Fuat.; Leiser, Gary
publisher: University of Utah Press
isbn10 | asin: 0874804035
print isbn13: 9780874804034
ebook isbn13: 9780585106823
language: English
Seljuks--Turkey--History--Sources, Turkey-
subject
-History--To 1453--Sources.
publication date: 1992
lcc: DS27.K5813 1992eb
ddc: 956.1/014
Seljuks--Turkey--History--Sources, Turkey-
subject:
-History--To 1453--Sources.
Page iii
The Seljuks of Anatolia
Their History and Culture According to Local Muslim
Sources
by
Mehmed Fuad Köprülü
Translated and Edited by
Gary Leiser
University of Utah Press
Salt Lake City
Page iv
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Copyright © 1992 University of Utah
All rights reserved
This symbol indicates books printed on paper that meets the minimum
requirements ot American National Standard for Information
ServicesPermanence of Paper Library Materials, ANSI A39.38-1984.
Cover: A silver dirham struck by the last independent Seljuk sultan of
Anatolia, Ghiyath al-Din Kai-Khusraw II (634-44/1237-45 or 1246).
The inscription reads: al-Imam al-Mustansir bi'llah Amir al Mu'minin
(the Abbasid caliph at that time).
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-
PUBLICATION DATA
Köprülü, Mehmed Fuat, 1890-1966.
[Anadolu Selçuklulari
tarihi'nin yerli kaynaklari. English]
The Seljuks of Anatolia : their history and culture according to local
Muslim sources / by Mehmed Fuad Köprülü ; translated and edited by
Gary Leiser.
p. cm.
"Translation and edition of . . . Anadolu Selçuklulari tarihi'nin yerli
kaynaklari, . . . originally published in Belleten 7 (1943)"Pref.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87480-403-5
I. SeljuksTurkeyHistorySources. 2. TurkeyHistoryTo
1453Sources. I. Leiser, Gary, 1946- . II. Title.
DS27.K5813 1992
956.1'014dc20 92-53611
CIP
Page v
This Translation is Dedicated to Anne and Terry
Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xii
1. The Importance of Local Sources; Published Local 1
Sources
2. Unpublished Sources 5
3. Chronicles 9
4. Lost Chronicles 15
5. Diplomatic Sources 23
6. Other Literary Sources 31
Notes 65
Bibliography 89
Index 99
Page ix
Preface
I present here a translation and edition of a long article in Turkish by
Mehmed Fuad Köprülü entitled "Anadolu Selçuklulari
tarihi'nin yerli kaynaklari" [Local sources for the history of the
Seljuks of Anatolia], which was originally published in Belleten 7
(1943), 379-458. This article was intended to be the introduction to a
series of studies in which Köprülü planned to describe, one by one,
the most important surviving local sources for the history of the
Seljuks of Anatolia. The only such study to appear, however, was an
appendix to this article in Belleten (pp. 459-519) on Qadi Burhan al-
Din al-Anawi's Anis al-qulub. There Köprülü described the life of the
author and the manuscript of his work and its historical value, then
presented an edition of the Persian text. In the course of the
introduction translated here, Köprülü frequently promised future
publications on various subjects in addition to those in the series, but
they too never appeared. All these works remained unfinished chiefly
because Köprülü's attention was drawn to other pursuits. After 1940,
he devoted most of his scholarly energy to publishing the Islâm*
Ansiklopedisi and, at the same time, he became increasingly involved
in Turkish politics. Indeed, by 1950, when he helped found the
Democratic Party, his major interests had shifted completely from
scholarship to politics. This introduction was one of his last
substantial publications before his death in 1966 at the age of seventy-
six.1
Köprülü was the most dynamic Turkish intellectual of this century.
His prolific and scholarly writings on the study of Turkish literature
and history had a profound influence on the development of these
disciplines in Turkey and rapidly earned him an international
reputation. Nearly all
Page x
of his publications were in Turkish, so his reputation was limited
essentially to specialists in Turkish literature and history. The latter
were primarily Ottomanists rather than medievalists (i.e., historians of
medieval Islam), who were not particularly interested in his work on
pre-Ottoman Turkish history. Thus, most of his work on this period
has never reached a non-Turkish audience. Medieval Islamicists
generally included pre-Ottoman Turkish history in their purview, but
because virtually none of the sources for this history were in Turkish
they believed they had no compelling need to learn that language.
Even today, despite the growing body of work produced by Turkish
specialists on pre-Ottoman Turkish history, very few of these
medievalists bother to learn Turkish and are therefore mostly
oblivious to scholarship in Turkey. As a result, there are both actual
and potential shortcomings in some of their works. To study the
history of the Seljuks, for example, without being able to read modern
Turkish is somewhat like studying the history of medieval North
Africa without being able to read French.
It is with this problem in mind that I have undertaken the translation
of several contemporary works of Turkish scholarship on the Seljuks,
especially the Seljuks of Anatolia.
2 I hope on the one hand to encourage at least a few non-Turkish
medievalists to take greater account of the work of their Turkish
colleagues and, on the other, to make some significant Turkish
scholarship available for wider criticism.
The work translated here represents a kind of watershed in the modern
historical study of the Seljuks of Anatolia. It was the first, and so far
only, attempt to assess the "state of the art" and the first attempt to
define, categorize, and analyze the local Muslim sources for the
history of this dynasty. After almost half a century, it is still the
starting point for research on this subject. Naturally, Köprülü's study
has begun to show its age somewhat. It has been superseded in a few
respects and I have therefore tried to bring it up to date, adding to the
author's already extensive notes. Köprülü also published an earlier
study, never completed, that supplements this one to a considerable
degree: "Anadolu'da islamiyet: Türk istilasindan* sonra Anadolu
tarih-i dinisine bir nazar ve bu tarihin menbalari*" [Islam in Anatolia:
A review of the religious history of Anatolia after the Turkish invasion
and the sources for this history] in Darülfünün Edebiyat Fakültesi
Mecmuasi* 2 (1922). Still in ''Ottoman" Turkish, that is, in Arabic
script, it has been virtually lost to modern scholarship. I have recently
translated this work and shall publish it shortly.
