Boyle J.A. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods
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INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
SALJUQ
EMPIRE
2IO
justice and equity; and the justice and equity of a
ruler
(Jahdnddr)
are
attainable
only through efficient governors of
good
conduct and officials
of praiseworthy beliefs and laudable ways of life, and only so
does
prosperity
reach the people of the world."
1
The first duty of the sultan
was to
rule,
and the justification both of his authority and of the political
and social order was that they enabled the
classes
to fulfil their different
functions. Thus a manshur for the offices of vali and shahna of Balkh
opens:
The stability of the empire
{daulat)
and the ordering of the affairs of the
kingdom
{mamlakat)
are among the fruits of the spreading of justice and the
dispensation of compassion
(ihsdn),
to which we are commanded by the
creator,
may He be exalted and sanctified... Justice
consists
in... keeping
every
one of the people of the world—the subjects (ra'dyd), servants
(mustakhdamin),
officials
(mutaqallidan-i
a
6
mdl),
and those charged with
religious or secular affairs
{mubdshirdn-i
umur-i
dim va dunyavJ)—in their proper
ranks
and due stations.
2
The interdependence of kingship and religion is emphasized. Kings
were
needed for the preservation of Islam, and temporal stability was
guaranteed by the protection of religion. An authorization
{tafvid)
to
teach in a number of
madrasas
in Balkh states. "The foundation
of kingship
{daulat)
and the basis of dominion consist in the observation
of the laws of God, glory and exaltation be to Him, and in giving
precedence to the raising of the banners of religion and the revivication
of the
signs
and practices of the shari'a, and in respecting and honouring
the
sayjids
and
6
ulamd
who are the heirs of the prophet... "
3
In return for
the favour conferred upon him by God, the sultan was not to neglect
in any way the ordering of the affairs of the world and the interests and
protection of the people, who were a trust from God. The righteous
were
to be rewarded and the unrighteous punished.
A similar theory to that contained in these documents and in the
Nasihat
al-muluk
is expressed more explicitly in terms of political
expediency by
Nizam
al-Mulk in the
Siydsat-Ndma.
"God most high",
he states, "
chooses
someone
from among the people in every age and
adorns
him with kingly virtues and relegates to him the affairs of the
world
and the peace of his servants."
4
The sultan was to order the world
so that the people might be secure in their various pursuits, and he was
to strive to make the world prosperous by
such
means as the improve-
1
Ibid.
p. 30.
2
Ibid.
p. 74.
8
Ibid.
p. 33. * Ed. Schefer, Persian text (Paris, 1891-3), p. 5.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
211
14-2
ment of irrigation and communications and the building of cities. The
object of temporal rule was to fill the earth with justice; this was to be
achieved by the maintenance of each man in his rightful place, which,
in
turn,
would assure stability.
Nizam
al-Mulk's view of religion was largely utilitarian. His ap-
parent
horror
of and opposition to Shi'ism in all forms was based on
political
rather
than religious grounds. He saw a
close
connexion
between stability and right religion.
What
a king needs most is right religion, because kingship and religion are
two brothers [he writes]. Whenever any disturbance appears in the kingdom,
disorder
also occurs in religion; and people of bad religion and malefactors
appear.
Whenever there is disorder in the affairs of religion the kingdom is
disturbed, and the power of malefactors increases; and they cause the kings
to lose their dignity and make them troubled at heart; innovations appear
and rebels
become
powerful.
1
Justice,
however,
rather
than right religion was the ultimate basis of
Nizam
al-Mulk's theory. "Kingship", he states, "remains with the
unbeliever but not with injustice."
2
But there were no sanctions except
moral
sanctions, and
Nizam
al-Mulk clearly believed that rights were
acquired and maintained by force. The power of the
ruler
was absolute,
it
required no authorization, and the administration was centralized in
his person. Against his
arbitrary
power the population had no rights
and no freedom. It was this theory of kingship which was ultimately to
prevail
in Persia. Under the Saljuqs, however, the rule of the sultans
still had a shar'i basis. This did not stop the
arbitrary
use of power
by the government and its officials, but on the whole it prevented it
from
reaching lengths which were intolerable to the people.
During the Saljuq period the ruling and orthodox institutions were
drawn
more closely together, although the functional division between
them was more sharply defined than heretofore.
3
All
affairs,
religious
and temporal, became the concern of the sultan. This was inevitable
when "right religion" was regarded as the basis of the stability of the
state. The caliph remained the supreme authority in matters relating to
the legal administration; but
once
he had authorized the sultan's
assumption of power, his main function concerned the performance of
prayers
and religious leadership. When Toghril Beg brought the caliph
back to Baghdad in
451/1059-60
after Basasirl had fled, his minister
1
Siydsat-Nama, p. 55.
2
Ibid. p. 8.
3
See Gibb, "An
Interpretation
of
Islamic
History",
in Studies on the Civilisation of
Islam,
p. 24.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
SALJUQ
EMPIRE
212
'Amid
al-Mulk
Kunduri
took charge of the administration of Baghdad,
and as compensation for this he gave an allowance to the caliph. From
this time onwards the caliph was no longer liable to
arbitrary
deposi-
tion, as he had been in Buyid times. He was allowed to enjoy his
allowance and the income of his personal estates without
fear
of any
demand
being
made on him or of his estates
being
confiscated. The
dignity and
good
name of his office were in
some
measure restored.
But
the respect the Saljuqs showed him, although considerable, was
limited; and whereas his residence in Buyid times had been the
refuge
for all who feared the Buyids, a like situation was not tolerated
by
the
Saljuqs.
Further,
they sought to control the caliph through
marriage
alliances and occasionally through appointments to his
vizierate.
In Muharram 448/1056
Arslan-Khatun,
Chaghri Beg Da'Qd's
daughter,
was betrothed to the Caliph al-Qa'im. Bundari states that
al-Qa'im intended by this marriage to strengthen the sultan's prestige
and cement his friendship with him.
1
In 453/1061 Toghril Beg sent
the qadi of Ray to Baghdad to ask for the hand of the caliph's daughter
in marriage. Ibn al-Jauzi states that Toghril
Beg's
former wife, who
had died in
452/1060-1, had recommended him to take this step.
2
The
demand caused the caliph great vexation: even the Buyids had never
forced
him to
such
an action. He tried to get it withdrawn and com-
manded his envoy to demand
300,000
dinars from Toghril Beg if he
insisted on the marriage.
Kunduri
told the caliph's envoy bluntly that
a
refusal was out of the question. Eventually,
after
a series of threats and
counter-threats,
the marriage contract was ratified outside Tabriz in
Sha'ban
454/1062. In the following
year
Toghril Beg came to Baghdad
and demanded the caliph's daughter. It was pointed out to him that the
object
of the marriage had been honour and not union, and that if the
caliph's daughter was to be
seen
by him it should be in Baghdad.
Eventually
she was taken to the sultan's residence in the city and he
paid her elaborate homage. When Toghril Beg left Baghdad in the
following
year,
the caliph unwillingly gave permission for his daughter
to accompany him.
In 464/1071-2 al-Qa'im asked the hand of
Alp-Arslan's
daughter on
behalf
of his
vali
'ahd (heir apparent), who was to become caliph
as al-Muqtadi. The
latter
also demanded the hand of Malik-Shah's
1
Daulat
al-Saljuq
(Cairo,
A.H.
1318),
p. 11.
2
Al-Munta^am
(Haidarabad,
A.H.
1357-59), vol. vin, p. 218.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
SALJUQ
EMPIRE
213
daughter
by his favourite wife Terken Khatun. This alliance caused the
relations
between the caliph and the sultan to become strained, because
after
being
taken to the caliph's residence in
480/1087,
Malik-Shah's
daughter
complained of the caliph's neglect of her, and returned to her
father
in
482/1089.
As a result of his daughter's unhappy marriage to
the caliph, Malik-Shah appears to have conceived a hatred of him. In
484/1091,
when he came to Baghdad, he ignored the caliph's presence
and insisted that the caliph should revoke the nomination of his eldest
son (who subsequently became caliph as al-Mustazhir) in
favour
of
Abu'l
Fadl
Ja'far,
the caliph's son by Malik-Shah's daughter and
retire
to Basra (or, according to
some
accounts, to Damascus or the Hijaz).
The caliph was loth to agree and asked for a delay to make plans for
his
departure.
Meanwhile Malik-Shah left Baghdad in Rabf I
485/1092
for
Isfahan, taking Abu'l Fadl
Ja'far
with him.
Shortly
afterwards
Malik-Shah
was assassinated and al-Muqtadi was relieved of the demand.
There
are several subsequent instances of marriages between the houses
of the sultan and the caliph.
In Baghdad, from the time when Toghril Beg took over the ad-
ministration
until the caliphate of al-Mustarshid
(512-29/1118-35),
administrative
authority in
Iraq
was under the sultan and his officials.
The chief of these, the
shahna,
was the sultan's ambassador to the
caliph,
and his duty was to watch over the power of the caliph and his
officials;
he was normally a Turkish amir and had certain military
functions also. In the city of Baghdad there was to
some
extent a
conflict of jurisdiction. The population tended to
refer
to the caliph,
who was always accessible to them, even though he could do little but
refer
back to the sultan or his representatives. Responsibility for local
order
and security
seems
to have been shared somewhat between the
shahna and the caliph's officials. The caliph's vizier also exercised
some
kind of judicial authority in Baghdad, and from time to time he held a
ma^alim
court. Certain taxes, including
jizya,
were levied by the caliph's
officials.
There are also instances of the caliph's making levies on the
population for the
repair
of the city walls.
During the reign of Malik-Shah various attempts were made by
Nizam
al-Mulk to establish his nominee in the caliph's vizierate. This
strained
the relationship between
Nizam
al-Mulk and the Caliph al-
Muqtadi,
but the vizier's hostility to the caliph was subsequently
trans-
formed
by al-Muqtadi's gracious reception of him on the occasion of
his
first
visit to Baghdad for the wedding of Malik-Shah's daughter. In
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
SALJUQ
EMPIRE
214
the enmity which later developed between
the
caliph
and
Malik-Shah.
Nizam
al-Mulk championed
the
caliphate.
After
the
death
of
Muhammad
b.
Malik-Shah
in
511/1117,
the
caliph, reaping
the
benefit
of
the
first
three sultans' policy
to
strengthen
the caliphate, began
to
play
an
important
part
in the
struggle
for
temporal
power;
and
ultimately
a
state
was
established
in
Iraq over
which
he
exercised full control, temporal
as
well
as
religious.
But as he
began
to
take
part
in the
struggle
for
temporal power,
the
religious
sanctity
of his
office declined
and he
became subject, like
any
other
temporal
ruler,
to
attack
and
capture.
The
first
caliph
to
assemble
an
army
and
lead
it in
person
in
Saljuq times
was
al-Mustarshid. Finally
after
the
death
of
Mas'iid
b.
Muhammad
in
547/1152,
al-Muqtafi
turned
the
shahna
and the
sultan's other officials
out of
Iraq
and
took
possession
of
their
iqtd's
(assignments) and allowances, appointing
his
own officials over
the
districts
of
Iraq,
and
sending
spies
and
sdhibdn-i
khabar
(official informants)
to all the
cities
of
Iraq.
1
In addition
to the
reaffirmation
of
the caliph's position
as
head
of
the
Islamic community,
an
important step towards strengthening
and
regimenting
the
religious institution
was the
development
of the
madrasas.
The
initiator
of
this movement
was
Nizam
al-Mulk, whose
purposes were presumably
to
provide government officials trained
in
the tenets
of
orthodoxy
who
would replace
the
former secretarial class
and implement
his
political policies;
and
secondly,
by
using
the
c
ulama
educated
in the
madrasas,
he
hoped
to
control
the
masses
and
combat
the spread
of the
Isma'IlI sect, which
had
begun
to
threaten
the
exist-
ence
of the
state.
2
One of the
results
of the
development
of the
madrasas
was to
bring about
the
integration
of the
members
of the
bureaucracy
with
the
religious classes. Under
the
early 'Abbasids
there
had been
a
separation between
the
c
ulama
on the one
hand and
the
secretarial
class
and
literary
men on the
other. Converts
to
Islam from
the secretarial class,
such
as Ibn
al-Muqaffa
c
,
had
played
an
immensely
important
part
in the
intellectual life
of
the community.
On the
whole,
however,
they
had
failed
to
resolve fully
the
tension between Islamic
1
Bundari, p. 215.
2
Cf. Asad
Talas,
La
Madrasa
N?\amiyya
et son
histoire
(Paris, 1939), p. 1; and G. Makdisi,
"Muslim
institutions of learning in eleventh-century Baghdad", in
B.S.O.A.S.
pp. 51 ff.
In the device of forming an administrative class belonging to the religious institution, Sir
Hamilton
Gibb
also
sees
an attempt "to preserve the spiritual independence of
the
orthodox
institution against the increasing power and absolutism of the temporal princes, and at the
same time to maintain (or to re-create) the unity of
the
Community",
"An Interpretation of
Islamic History", in
Studies
on the
Civilisation
of
Islam,
p. 24.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
215
teaching and the traditions and ideals inherited from the old Persian
theory
of state. Even
Nizam
al-Mulk for all his orthodoxy failed to
create
an acceptable synthesis of the two. With the growth of the mad-
rasas
the secretarial class and the
literary
men on the one hand, and the
'ulamä on the other, moved closer together because they shared a
common training in the madrasas, which became in effect Sunni
strongholds. The former became more fully Islamicized, and the latter
perhaps more Persianized. The dichotomy between the two traditions,
the old Persian and the Islamic, remained, but under the Saljuqs more
integration was achieved than ever before.
1
The madrasas were not, as is sometimes alleged, founded by
Nizäm
al-Mulk,
nor were they the only centres of higher learning in the Saljuq
period.
2
But he was responsible for the new era of brilliance which
began under the Saljuqs and which caused his
schools
to eclipse all
other
contemporary institutions of learning. He was also responsible
for
turning them into seminaries of Sunni orthodoxy, in the same way
the
dar
al-hikma
in Egypt, founded in
395/1005,
had
been
a centre of
Shi'i
propaganda. Already in the fourth/tenth century there had
been
madrasas in Nishâpùr, which, in
size
of population and development of
culture
and industry, was able to compete with the Fätimid capital and
with Baghdad. The madrasas in Khurasan were possibly influenced by
the convents or
hospices
belonging to the Karrämiyya—an Islamic
sect
founded by Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad b.
Karrâm
al-Sagzi (d. 255/
869), which flourished in Khurasan in the early fifth/eleventh century
3
—
and perhaps they were also influenced by the Buddhist
vihära.
They were
a
powerful means of propagating Islam independently of the Islamic
government.
4
Their transformation into Sunni strongholds under the
Saljuqs
was due to the necessity for combating both Shfi propaganda,
whether Ismä'ili or Ithna 'Ashari, and the dissident Sunni s of the
Karrämiyya
convents.
5
Numerous madrasas were built by the Saljuq
rulers,
by their ministers
and others. Näsir-i Khusrau relates that a madrasa was
being
built in
Shawwäl
437/1046
by order of Toghrïl Beg in Nishâpùr; Chaghrï Beg
1
Cf.
also
Gibb,
loc.
cit. pp. 24-5.
2
See G. Makdisi, "Muslim
Institutions",
op. cit. pp. 4 ff.
3
See Ribera y Tarrago, "Origen del Colegio Nidami de Baghdad", in
Disertaciones
y
opúsculos,
i
(1928),
pp.
361-83.
4
See V. V. Bartold, Zwölf
Vorlesungen
über
die
Geschichte
der Türken Mittelasiens, tr.
into
German by Theodor Menzel
(Berlin,
1935), p. 60.
5
L.
Massignon,
"Les
Medresehs
de Baghdad", in
'bulletin
de
P
Institut
français
d'archéologie
orientale
(1909),
pp. 77-8.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
SALJUQ
EMPIRE
2l6
Da'ud founded a madrasa in
Marv;
Alp-Arslan in Baghdad, Muhammad
b.
Malik-Shah in Isfahan, and Toghril b. Muhammad in Hamadan.
The most famous madrasas, however, were those founded by
Nizam
al-Mulk,
and they were known as Nizamiyya. The best known was in
Baghdad, which was
opened
in Dhu'l Qa'da
459/1067.
1
There were also
Nizamiyya in Nishapur, in Amul, Mosul, Herat, Damascus,
Jazirat
Ibn
'Umar,
Balkh, Ghazna,
Marv,
and Basra.
These
were probably not
all
founded by
Nizam
al-Mulk as a private individual, but were at
least partly paid for and endowed by the royal revenue of which he
had control (see below, pp. 249 ff.). Others emulated him in the
building of
such
schools. For example, Sharaf al-Mulk, Malik-Shah's
mustauft^
built a madrasa in Baghdad in
459/1066-7.
Its construction
began after work on the Nizamiyya had started, though it appears to
have
been
inaugurated before the Nizamiyya.
2
Sharaf al-Mulk also built
a
madrasa in
Marv.
Taj al-Mulk Abu'l Ghana'im (d. Muharram 486/
1066),
Nizam
al-Mulk's
rival
who
succeeded
him in the vizierate,
founded the Tajiyya madrasa in Baghdad. The building began in
480/1087-8
and the inauguration took place two years later. Many of
the amirs also built madrasas. Thus Khumar-Tegin, who was in the
service of Tutush b. Alp-Arslan, built a madrasa in Baghdad and called
it
after his master. Muhammad b. Yaghi'-Siyan (d.
5
01/1107-8)
built a
number of madrasas in his iqta' in Azarbaijan. Several
existed
in Fars,
including the one built by
c
Ala al-Daula in Yazd in
513/1119-20.
Jamal
al-Din Iqbal, the
jdnddr,
founded one in Hamadan. There were
also madrasas founded by women. For example, Zahida Khatun, wife
of the amir Boz-Aba, built and endowed one in Shiraz.
Many of the madrasas were founded for the followers of a particular
rite;
sometimes
for a particular scholar.
Nizam
al-Mulk, who was
himself a
Shafi'i, laid down that the
mudarris,
vd'i^ and librarian of the
Nizamiyya in Baghdad should be Shafi'is. The teaching programme of
the Baghdad Nizamiyya comprised the Qur'an,
hadith
(traditions),
usul
al-fiqh
(jurisprudence) according to the Shafi'l
rite,
kaldm (scholastic
theology) according to Ash'ari doctrine,
'arabiyya
(Arabic language and
literature),
adab
(belles lettres),
riyddiyya
(mathematics), and
fard'id
(laws
of inheritance). It is possible that
Nizam
al-Mulk first made general the
1
The building was begun in Dhu'l Hijja 457/1065. Tuturshi in the
Sirdj al-muluk
relates
the story of its construction and the embezzlement of part of the funds allocated for this
(Alexandria,
A.H.
1289), pp. 216-18. See
also
Hindu-Shah b. Sanjar,
Tajdrib
al-Salaf,
ed.
'Abbas
Iqbal (Tehran,
A.H.
1313),
pp. 270 ff.
2
G. Makdisi, "Muslim Institutions", pp. 19-20.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
217
practice
of establishing allowances for the students (tullab) of the
madrasas,
and stipends for those teaching there.
1
Endowments were
administered by a
mutavallt (an administrator or trustee), appointed
usually
by the founder, and
after
his death, if no other arrangements
had been laid down, he was succeeded by the qadi.
The head of the madrasa, the
mudarris^
was in charge of its
affairs
and
responsible for the general conduct of the students, some of whom,
like some of the teachers, appear to have been organized in guilds. Both
students and teachers lived in the madrasas. Frequently, the mudarris
held some other office also, such as that of qadi or
khatib (preacher).
His tenure of office varied; it was normally for life except in the
Nizamiyyas. The office of mudarris in the large madrasas was one of
importance,
and if the holder had a reputation as a scholar, students
would come from great distances to study under him. Exceptionally
there
were women students and teachers.
2
The Nizamiyya madrasas, the one founded by
Sharaf
al-Mulk, the
mustauf i, and various others had libraries attached to them. There were
also a number of independent libraries, some dating from before the
Saljuq
period, and also libraries in some of the Sufi ribdfs (hospices).
A
few madrasas had hospitals attached to them. Presumably the hospital
founded by
Nizam
al-Mulk in Nishapur was connected with his
madrasa
there.
The power of the sultan was in theory limited by the shari'a, to which
he, like all Muslims, was subject. But the sanction of the shari'a in this
case was simply moral because no means was devised to enforce his
subjection to it. Under the Saljuqs there was, besides the Islamic and
old Persian elements, a third element in the theory of the sultanate
which, though not formally expressed in any written exposition, had
some influence on practice. This was
tribal
custom. The Saljuqs had
come to power with the support of the Ghuzz tribes, and their claim to
the leadership of these tribes rested in the
first
instance on military
prowess.
Originally they were the hereditary leaders of a small group;
gradually,
as
success
attended their activities, the majority of the Ghuzz
became associated with them. Their leadership, once established, was
maintained by military might coupled with conciliation and consulta-
tion, though they never succeeded in establishing full control and unity
1
Taj al-DIn al-Subki, Tabaqat
al-Shafi'iyya,
vol. in, p. 137,
quoted
by De
Slane
in his
introduction
to Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt al-ctyan (Paris, London, 1842-71), p. xxviii.
See
also
Makdisi, op. cit. pp. 50 ff.
2
Cf. Ibn Khallikan, vol. 1, pp. 625, 551.
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
over
the Ghuzz. The outlying groups, although nominally acknow-
ledging
the overlordship of the sultan, acted independently or semi-
independently. Politically the Saljuq empire was a
loose
confederation
of semi-independent kingdoms over which the sultan exercised nominal
authority.
Saljuq princes were known as
maliks
in contradistinction to
the paramount
ruler,
the sultan.
1
Only for a brief period towards the
end of Malik-Shah's reign was any degree of unity achieved.
Originally
the Saljuqs
seem
to have held that their leadership was
vested in the family as a whole; and that the various
sections
of their
loose
confederation were each led by a member of the family. They were
thus in the beginning the leaders of their people but not
territorial
sovereigns, and they probably thought that their rule extended wher-
ever
their people roamed in search of pasture, and not, in any case at
first,
that
it was tied to a given area. During the early period of expan-
sion
the khutba was read in
some
cities in Khurasan in the name of
To
ghril Beg, and in others in the name of Chaghri Beg Da'ud, although
Chaghri
Beg never disputed the primacy of his brother.
This conception of the Saljuq family as the guardian of a tribal
confederation had already
been
considerably modified before the death
of Toghril Beg in
455/1063,
and under Alp-Arslan the Persian ideal
of an autocratic sovereign was to
some
extent adopted. It was almost
inevitable that
once
the Saljuqs were no longer merely the leaders of a
tribal
migration but were the rulers of a
territorial
empire, they would be
forced to seek
some
more stable basis of power than the Ghuzz, or the
"Turkmen", as the Islamicized Ghuzz within the Saljuq empire were
called. This change of basis began to take place under Alp-Arslan,
perhaps even under To
ghril Beg, and it was finally completed under
Malik-Shah.
From then the ultimate guarantee of the sultan's rule was
the standing army
composed
of slaves and freedmen. This change was
gradual:
any sudden rupture with the past would have alienated the
Turkmen tribes, who continued to be an important element in the
Saljuq
forces.
Nizam
al-Mulk recognized this danger. In his
Siydsat-
Ndma
he stated that the Saljuq dynasty was under an obligation to the
Turkmen, owing to blood ties and to the
part
they played in the
foundation of the empire. For this reason the disorders they created
could not be suppressed by severe measures. He recommended there-
fore
that a thousand young Turkmen should be enrolled in the service
of the sultan and trained as
ghuldms
(slaves) of the court, the number to
1
After the Saljuq
period
the
title
malik was
debased
and
applied
to
prominent
amirs.
218
INTERNAL
STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
be increased if necessary to five or even ten thousand. Many Turkmen
were
enrolled in the sultan's service in this way.
As
the sultan's basis of power changed, so the custom of the steppe
and of government by consultation and conciliation were replaced by
the absolutism and
arbitrary
power of the old Persian ruling tradition,
and also by a distrust of all to whom power was delegated. In spite
of this, the original conceptions—of the leadership of the group
being
inherent in the Saljuq family, and of the empire as a
loose
confederation
whose different parts were led by members of the family—never entirely
disappeared; and they are discernible in the atabegate as well as the
iqta
c
(see p. 231 below).
1
It was perhaps natural that the conception of the sultan as
arbitrary
ruler
should first be challenged by members of the Saljuq family
itself;
and the fact that there was no stable system of
succession
encouraged
them to dispute when a weak prince or a child
succeeded
to the throne.
The normal practice was for the sultan to nominate his vail
c
ahd. No
regulations governing his
choice
were laid down, and sometimes the
wives of the sultan exerted influence in the matter. If a prince's mother
was free-born and a Saljuq, for example, this was probably favourable
for
his chance of
succession.
Berk-Yaruq's mother was free-born and a
Saljuq,
and this was allegedly one of the reasons that led to his
becoming
sultan.
The fact that the sultan proclaimed one of his
sons
as his vail 'ahd
did not always ensure his
succession,
however. Toghril Beg, who had
no children
himself,
married one of Chaghri Beg Da'ud's wives after
Chaghri
Beg's
death, and proclaimed her son Sulaiman as his vali
'ahd. On the death of Toghril Beg, his vizier, "Amid al-Mulk Kunduri
put Sulaiman on the throne; but
seeing
that the amirs opposed that
accession
he proclaimed Alp-Arslan, an older son of Chaghri Beg by
another
wife, as sultan in Qazvin, and he had the khutba read in Ray
in the names of both. Yabghu b. Mlka'il, governor of Herat, and
Qutlumush each rebelled in
456/1063-4.
Alp-Arslan defeated them and
was later reconciled to both. Qara-Arslan in Kirman also rebelled
some
three
years later
(459/1066-7).
He too was reinstated after
being
defeated. It may well be that the opposition which Alp-Arslan en-
countered from Yabghu and Qutlumish marked a turning-point in the
relations between the sultan and his family. As the conception of
autocratic
ruler
replaced that of ruling khan, the moral basis of Saljuq
1
Various
tribal
influences
are
also
to be
seen
in the
royal
insignia
of the Saljuqs.
219