MALEKŠĀH

 

MALEKŠĀH, JALĀL-AL-DAWLA MOʿEZZ-al-DONYĀ WA’L-DIN ABU’L-FATḤ b. Alp Arslān, the Great Saljuq sultan (r. 465-85/1072-92), during whose reign the Saljuq empire attained its maximum extension.

Malekšāh was born on 19 Jomadā I 447/16 August 1055 (Bondāri, p. 68; Rāvandi, p. 125, mentions year 445 as his date of birth) and was raised in the surroundings of Isfahan (Māfarruḵi, p. 105; Durand-Guédy, 2010, p. 83). He is described as having been fair skin, tall and slightly stout (Ẓahir-al-Din, p. 33, sec. 11; Rāvandi, p. 125).  His father Alp Arslān accustomed him very early to the exercise of power and warfare.  In 456/1064, he took part in Alp Arslān’s campaign in the Caucasus (Aḵbār, p. 35).  The same year, he was married to Torkān (Terken) Ḵātun, the daughter of the Qara-khanid (or Ilak-Khanid) khan.  In 458/1066, he was formally appointed by Alp Arslān (Arslan) as his successor (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, p. 50) and received Isfahan as eqṭāʿ (Māfarruḵi, p. 106). 

In 463/1071, Malekšāh took part in the Syrian campaign, and he remained in Aleppo when his father went to fight the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes at Mantzikert (Malāzgerd; Aḵbār, p. 47).  In 465/1072, he was again with his father when the latter was fatally wounded at the onset of the campaign against the Qara-khanids in Transoxiana.  Malekšāh succeeded him as head of the army, and, accompanied by the vizier Neẓām-al-Molk, he hastened to march westward against his uncle Qāvord (Qāvurt) b. Čaḡri (Čaḡrï) Beg, who disputed him the right to be sultan and to manage the interests of the Saljuq family.  The confrontation took place on 4 or 6 Šaʿbān 465/15 or 17 April 1073 near Karaj (near modern Arak).  Despite the desertion of his Türkmen troops, Malekšāh emerged victorious, and Qāvord was executed and his two sons blinded (Rāvandi, pp. 126-27).  The position of Malekšāh was thus firmly established among the emirs.  In 466/1074, the new caliph al-Moqtadi sent him the official recognition from Baghdad (Sebṭ b. Jawzi, p. 168).

The sultanate of Malekšāh, the second longest of the Saljuq dynasty, is characterized by territorial expansion as well as peace within the empire.  In 465/1073, the Ghaznavid sultan Ebrāhim (d. 492/1099) had tried to take advantage of the death of Alp Arslān to occupy parts of Khorasan north of the Hindu Kush.  Malekšāh launched a successful counterattack, but thereafter he kept the status quo and maintained with Ebrāhim (20 years his senior) good relations strengthened by matrimonial unions (Bosworth, 1973, pp. 52-55).  In contrast, on all the other fronts, Malekšāh completed the conquests of his father and extended the boundaries of the Saljuq empire.  In Transoxiana he made in person two campaigns.  In 466/1073-74 (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, p. 92), he drove the Qara-khanids onto the right bank of the Oxus and secured control of the strategic city of Termeḏ.  In 482/1089, with the support of some of the local ulama, he took Samarkand and imprisoned its ruler Aḥmad Khan b. Ḵeżr, who happened to be the nephew of his wife Torkān Ḵātun (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, pp. 171-73; Rāvandi, p. 128; Bosworth, 1968, pp. 92-93).  Then, he pushed on to Semirechye, where he received the formal recognition of the ruler of the Eastern Khanate, who controlled Kāšḡar (Bosworth, 1968, pp. 92-93). 

In eastern Arabia, Malekšāh sent an army against the Qarmatians of al-Aḥsāʾ in 469/1086-87.  In the Caucasus, he launched three campaigns against the Shaddadid ruler of Ganja, Fażl III, and he took part personally in two of them (471/1078-79 and 478/1086).  In Mesopotamia, he backed the plan of Ebn Jahir, the caliph’s vizier, to evict the Marwanid Kurds from Diārbakr (478/1085). Then, he focused his attention on the southern territories between Mosul and Aleppo, which were controlled by the Oqaylid Arabs.  During the winter campaign of 479/1086-87, Malekšāh left Isfahan and occupied in person Edessa, Aleppo, and Antioch.  At Latakia, “they gave to the horses water from the [Mediterranean] sea” (Ẓahir-al-Din, p. 28, sec. 5).  No other Saljuq sultan reigned over such a vast territory, which extended “from the borders of China to the limits of Syria” (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, p. 211; for the details of the conquests and reference to the sources, see Bosworth, 1968, pp. 87-102).

Malekšāh made these conquests mainly by relying on the professional army he had inherited from his father.  This army was composed of slaves (ḡolām) and mercenaries (Bosworth, 1968, p. 80).  According to Ẓahir-al-Din (p. 29, sec. 5), Malekšāh always had 46,000 horsemen at his service.  His greatest emirs were Saw-Tegin (d. 477/1084), Bozan (d. 487/1094), Borsoq (d. 492/1099), Aq-Sonqor (d. 487/1094), Goharāyin (d. 493/1100), and Qomāj.  It appears that, following his victory over Qāvord, Malekšāh had the Türkmen evicted from the central parts of the Jebāl province, which was the heart of the sultanate (Durand-Guédy, 2012b).  It, however, does not mean that he was fundamentally hostile to them.  Indeed Malekšāh continued to rely on Türkmen emirs for military operations in the west, for instance, he sent Artuq first against Atsëz in Palestine, then against the Qarmatians of eastern Arabia; he also sent Aḥmad and then Yaʿqub and ʿIsā-Böri against the Georgians; Čabaq was dispatched to Yemen.  Besides the expansion of the Saljuq empire to the north and to the west provided the Türkmen with access to regions (esp. Arrān, Diārbakr) ideal for the type of pastoral nomadism they practiced.

When he was not campaigning, Malekšāh stayed mostly in the province of Isfahan, and Isfahan itself can be considered as the capital of the Saljuq empire at this time (Durand-Guédy, 2010, pp. 78-83). At the very end of his reign, he decided to make Baghdad his winter capital, and he launched there in 485/1092 a vast program of construction (Makdisi, 1958-59); however, he kept the treasure and the armory in the fortress of Šāhdez (royal fortress), also known as Dezkuh, at about 8 km south of Isfahan (Durand Guédy, 2010, pp. 91-92).

The control exerted by Malekšāh on the different parts of his empire was not uniform.  In the central and strategic regions (Baghdad, Isfahan, Nišāpur, Ḵᵛārazm), he appointed his great ḡolām emirs city commanders (šeḥna; e.g., Atsïz in Ḵᵛārazm, Goharāyin in Baghdad).  He proceeded the same way in the newly conquered territories of northern Syria and the Caucasus; he gave Ganja to Savtegin, Antioch to Yāḡi-Basan, Aleppo to Aqsonqur, Edessa to Bozan, and Mosul to Čokermiš.  The rest, he gave to his own family members, who often bore the title of malek: he gave Valvālej (modern Kunduz) to his uncle ʿOṯmān b. Čaḡri Beg, Ṭoḵarestān to his brothers Ayāz (d. 466/1073-4) and then Tekeš (d. 477/1084), and then the son of the latter, Aḥmad b. Tekeš;  Herat to his brother Böri-Bars; Kerman to the sons of Qāvord (Solṭānšāh and Turānšāh); Azarbaijan to his cousin Esmāʿil b. Yāquti b. Čaḡri; Syria to his brother Totoš (Tutuš). 

The case of Anatolia is more complex: the sons of Qotlomoš (Qutlumuš), who belonged to another branch of the Saljuq family, arrived there after the death of Alp Arslān.  They are presented in Persian historiography as having been invested by Malekšāh, but in reality they were rebellious against his authority (Cahen, 1948, pp. 35, 50-51). 

Another category of territories was comprised the vassal kingdoms, where the princes had to pay tribute and recognize Malekšāh as their overlord sovereign.  These were the Qara-khanids of Transoxiana after 482/1089, the Saffarids of Sistān (controlled de facto by the Saljuqs of Kerman), the Bavandids of Māzandarān, the Šarvānšāhs of eastern Caucasus, the Mazyadids of Lower Iraq, the Shaddadids of Āni, the Byzantines, and petty rulers in Syria, such as the lords of Šayzar.

Until the very end of his sultanate, Malekšāh kept Neẓām-al-Molk as his grand vizier.  The latter enjoyed a unique power, due to his former position at the service of Alp Arslān, to the very close relationship that he had with Malekšāh since he was a child (the sultan was 36 years his junior), and also to his crucial role for securing the sultanate to Malekšāh, although it is difficult to assess the sultan’s exact degree of responsibility behind the killing of Qāvord and, the following year, of Gowhar Ḵātun b. Alp Arslān, who had opposed this execution.  Some sources say that Malekšāh appointed Neẓām-al-Molk as his atabeg (see ATĀBAK), which amounted to making him the effective ruler of the empire in the name of the sultan (Ebn al-Aṯīr, X, pp. 79-80).  Neẓām-al-Molk has been presented as having more power than Malekšāh (Sebṭ b. Jawzi, IX, p. 62; Makdisi, 1963, pp. 129-30; Bosworth, 1968, p. 68; Safi, p. 63) and as the real kingpin of the Saljuq empire; but political stability inside the empire depended on the conquests, and therefore, on Malekšāh’s role as chief commander.  Indeed it was the continued expansion that occupied the military (the ḡolām as well as the Türkmen emirs) on the frontiers and provided them with rewards (lands, allowances, booty) that ensured their loyalty.  As a result, Malekšāh’s treasure was full (probably less than the 215 millions Abbasid dinars reported by Mostawfī, p. 27, tr., pp. 33-34; Lambton, p. 255), and his authority was stronger than it had ever been and, compared to the following reigns, little challenged.  After the executions of Qāvord and Gowhar Ḵātun, the only notable revolts were those of his brother Tekeš (in 473/1080-81 and in 478/1085, the latter forcing Malekšāh to hurry back from Syria to Khorasan; see Bosworth, 1968, pp. 90-91) and of his cousin Solṭānšāh b. Qāvord in 472 or 473/1079-81 (Lambton, p. 22). 

Besides, Malekšāh and Neẓām-al-Molk cannot be put on the same level, since they were concerned with two different domains.  Neẓām-al-Molk’s networks (his family and his clients) were based inside the cities, and their actions primarily concerned the control of the urban society (see Makdisi, 1961, p. 55; Bulliet, pp. 51-64; Durand-Guédy, 2010, pp. 121-29).  The sultan stayed mainly at the military camp with his great emirs (e.g., the chamberlain Qomāč [Qumač]), his harem, his courtiers (e.g., the court poet Amir Moʿezzi), and the occasional visitors (e.g., the Syrian lord Osāma; see Osāma b. Monqeḏ, pp. 49 and 212). The military camp could be located close to the city (to this end Malekšāh had built four walled gardens outside the walls of Isfahan), but also far away (Durand-Guédy, 2012a).  Leading figures, such as the religious personality and author Abu’l-Wafā ʿAli b. ʿAqil, could write to Malekšāh as the head of the state (Makdisi, 2002, p. 191), but he does not seem to have been very interested in what was going on within the cities themselves.  The military camp was a place of political intrigues and where several people complained against Neẓām-al-Molk to Malekšāh (Ḵomār-Tegin in 472/1079-80, Ebn Bahmanyār in 474/1081-2, Abu’l-Maḥāsen in 476/1083-4; see Makdisi, 1963, pp. 134-38), but until the very end, it did not jeopardize the special relationship between Malekšāh and his vizier.

In 483/1090, the Ismaʿili missionary (dāʿi) Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ took control of the fortress of Alamut northeast of Qazvin and turned it into a base against Saljuq authority.  He resisted successfully the emirs Arslāntāš and then Ḡezelsāreḡ (Qïzïl-sarïḡ) sent by Malekšāh (Jovayni, ed. Qazvini, III, pp. 199-203).  However, with the sultan’s power at his height, no one could imagine the future extent of the threat represented by the Nezāri Ismaʿilis (see ISMAʿILISM iii. History).  At the moment, the most salient problem was the fierce opposition between the sultan’s wife Torkān Ḵātun and the vizier Neẓām-al-Molk.  The heart of the problem was the succession of Malekšāh, and thus the control of the empire.  Torkān Ḵātun, who occupied a prominent position in the harem, had always played a great political role in Saljuq politics; but two sons had died prematurely, each after being designated as crown prince (Dāwud in 474/1082, Abu Šojāʿ Aḥmad in 481/1088-89), and the last son, Maḥmud (b. 480/1087), was still a young child.  Neẓām-al-Molk, anxious to ensure the soundness of the sultanate (and by the same token his own network) in case of death of the sultan, inclined towards the nomination of Barkiāroq (Berk-yaruq, b. 474/1081-82), the son of the Saljuq princess Zobayda Ḵātun b. Amir Yāquti.  The conflict grew bitter (the second part of Neẓām-al-Molk’s Siār al-moluk, pp. 189-330, tr., pp. 139-244, is a thinly veiled denunciation of Torkān Ḵātun and her personal vizier Tāj-al-Molk), and eventually on 10 Ramaḍān 485/14 October 1092, Neẓām-al-Molk was assassinated during the return journey from Isfahan to Baghdad.  The responsibility of Malekšāh in his death is possible (Bondārī, p. 63; Rāvandi, pp. 133-35; Hillenbrand, 1995, pp. 286-87).  He appointed Tāj-al-Molk as his vizier, making Torkān Ḵātun’s victory complete. 

Upon his arrival in Baghdad, Malekšāh asked the caliph al-Moqtader to abdicate in favor of Jaʿfar, who happened to be also the little son (or the nephew) of Malekšāh (the marriage of al-Moqtadi with the Saljuq princess Māhmalek Ḵātun was celebrated in 480/1087).  Behind this move was Malekšāh’s ambition to unite the lines of the Saljuqs and the Qoraysh, thereby getting rid of the main source of authority that had hampered the Saljuqs since the establishment of their sultanate (Makdisi, 1975; Ocak, pp. 370-83).  It is in this context that Malekšāh, on 16 Šawwal 485/19 November 485, died at the age of thirty-seven during a hunting excursion around Baghdad.  He obviously did not die of natural causes, but was probably poisoned by the caliph (Houtsma; Hillenbrand, p. 294) or the partisans of Neẓām-al-Molk (Eqbāl, p. 66).  His body was brought back to Isfahan by Torkān Ḵātun and buried in a madrasa.

The unexpected death of Malekšāh without clear succession plan and with antagonist networks at the head of the state plunged the Saljuq empire in a dynastic crisis without precedent, which weakened it irreversibly.  The brutal contrast led the Iranian secretary Anušeravān b. Ḵāled to reconstruct the previous period as a golden age, a view which would be influential in the historiography (Durand-Guédy, 2006, pp. 194-200).  In later literature, Malekšāh is unanimously remembered as a just king, whether in the Arab world (e.g., Ebn Ḵallekān, V, pp. 283-89, tr., III, 440-46), Iran (e.g., Rāvandi, pp. 125-26, 131), or India (Juzjāni, tr. pp. 141-42).

None of the constructions of Malekšāh has survived, but his name appears on numerous inscriptions commemorating constructions made in his name (e.g., at Isfahan or Nišāpur; cf. Blair, pp. 160-63, 170-71).  However, his most lasting legacy was without doubt the “Jalāli” calendar (see CALENDARS ii. In the Islamic period) that was named after his laqab and based on astronomical observations made in the capital Isfahan (Sayili, pp. 161-66).

 

Bibliography:

The key sources on Malekšāh are: Sebṭ b. Jawzi; Aḵbār al-dawla al-Saljuqiya; ʿEmād al-Din al-Iṣfahāni; Ebn Ḵallekān; and Ẓahir-al-Din Nišāpuri;  Of all the authors of sources on Malekšāh, only Neẓām-al-Molk, Māfarruḵi (see Durand-Guédy, 2006) and Amir-al-Šoʿarāʾ Mo‘ezzi witnessed his court (cf. Tetley, pp. 108-22).  Many documents supposedly written by or for Malekšāh, such as his correspondence with Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ or Neẓām-al-Molk (Moʾayyed Ṯābeti, pp. 27-30?), are forgeries, written in later period when the reign of Malekšāh would appear as a model of kingship (Kafesoğlu, pp. 134-35).

The most overall comprehensive presentations of Malekšāh’s sultanate is Bosworth, 1968.

Aḵbār al-dawla al-saljuqiya, (attributed to Ṣadr-al-Din ʿAli Ḥosayni), ed. Moḥammad Eqbāl, Lahore, 1933, pp. 54-74; tr. Clifford E. Bosworth, as The History of the Seljuq State: A Translation with Commentary, Abingdon and New York, 2011, pp. 41-53.

Sadid-al-Din Moḥammad ʿAwfi, Jawāmeʿ al-ḥekāyāt wa lawāmeʿ al-rewāyāt, ed. Moḥammad Neẓām-al-Din, Hayderabad, Deccan, 1929.

Sheila Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana, Leiden and New York, 1992.

Abu’l-Fatḥ Bondāri, Zobdat al-noṣra wa noḵbat al-ʿoṣra, ed. Martijin Th. Houtsma, in Recueil de textes relatifs à l’histoire des Seljoucides, 4 vols., Leiden, 1886-1902, II, pp. 48-80.

Clifford E. Bosworth, “Malik-Shāh,” in EI2 V, pp. 272-74.

Idem, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994-1040, 2nd ed., Edinburg, 1973.

Idem, “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (1000-1217),” in Cambridge History of Iran V, ed. John A. Boyle, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 1-202.

Richard Bulliet, “Local Politics in Eastern Iran under the Ghaznavids and Seljuks,” Iranian Studies 11, 1978, pp. 35-56.

Claude Cahen, “La première pénétration turque en Asie Mineure (seconde moitié du XIe s.),” Byzantion 18, 1948, pp. 5-67.

Idem, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History, c. 1071-1330, New York, 1968.

David Durand-Guédy, “Un fragment inédit de la chronique des Salğūqides de ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī: le chapitre sur Tāğ al-Mulk,”, Annales Islamologiques 39, 2005, pp. 205-22.

Idem, “Mémoires d’exilés: Lecture de la chronique des Salğūqides de ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī,” Studia Iranica 35, 2006, pp. 181-202.

Idem, “The Political Agenda of an Iranian adīb at the Time of the Great Saljuqs: Māfarrūkhī’s K. Maḥāsin Iṣfahān Put into Context,” Nouvelle Revue des Etudes Iraniennes 1 (Tehran), 2008, pp. 67-106.

Idem, Iranian Elites and Turkish Rulers: A History of Iṣfahān in the Saljūq Period, London and New-York, 2010, esp. pp. 75-101.

Idem, “Ruling from the Outside: A New Perspective on Early Turkish Kingship in Iran” in L. Mitchell and C. Melville, eds., Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies in Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds, Leiden, forthcoming 2012a.

Idem, “Goodbye to the Turkmens? An Analysis of the Military Role Played by Nomads in Saljūq Iran after Conquest (11th-12th c.),” in K. Franz and W. Holzwarth, Nomadic Military Power: Iran and Adjacent Areas in the Islamic Period, Wiesbaden, forthcoming 2012b.

Ebn al-Aṯir, al-Kāmel fi’al-taʾriḵ, ed. C. J. Tornberg, 13 vols, Beirut, 1965-68, X, years 465-85, pp. 73-218; tr. Donald S. Richards, The Annals of the Saljuq Turks: Selections from al-Kamil fi’l-Taʾrikh of ʿIzz al-Din Ibn al-Athir, London, 2002.

Ebn Ḵallekān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, ed, Eḥsān ʿAbbās, 8 vols., Beirut, 1968-77, V, pp. 283-89; tr. MacGuckin de Slane, as Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary 4 vols., Paris, 1842-71, III, pp. 440-46. 

ʿEmād al-Din al-Eṣfahāni, Noṣrat al-fatra, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Arab no. 2145, fols. 45-71 (partial edition of the part on Malekšāh’s reign in Durand-Guédy, 2006); abridged in Bondāri.

ʿAbbās Eqbāl, “Wafāt-e Solṭān Malekšāh Saljuqi,” Yādgār 1/3, 1944, pp. 62-66.

Naṣr-Allāh  Falsafi, ed., “Čahār nāma-ye tāriḵi az seh mard-e bozorg-e tāriḵ,” in idem, Hašt maqāla-ye tāriḵi wa adabi, Tehran, 1951, pp. 199-222.

  Carole Hillenbrand, “1092: A Murderous Year,” in Fodor Alexander, ed., Proceedings of the 14th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants II, Budapest, 1995, pp. 281-96.

Martijin Thomas Houtsma, “The Death of Niẓām al-Mulk and Its Consequences,” Journal of Indian History, series 3/2, 1924, pp. 147-60.

Menhāj-al-Din ʿOṯmān Juzjāni, Ṭabaqāt-e nāṣeri, ed. ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy Ḥabibi, Kandahar, 1963, pp. 254-56; tr. Henry George Raverty, as T̤abakāt-i-Nāṣirī: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustan; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.), 2 vols., New Delhi, 1970, I, pp. 137-142.

İ. Kafesoğlu, Sultan Melikşah devrinde Büyük Selçuklu İmparatorluğu, Istanbul, 1953.

A. K. S. Lambton, “The Internal Structure of the Saljuq Empire,” in Cambridge History of Iran V: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, ed. John A. Boyle, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 203-82.

Māfarruḵi, Ketāb maḥāsen Eṣfahān, ed. Jalāl-al-Din Ṭehrāni, Tehran, 1933; tr. Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad Ḥosayni, as Tarjama-ye Maḥāsen-e Eṣfahān, ed. ʿAbbās Eqbāl, Tehran, 1949.

George Makdisi, “The Topography of Eleventh Century Baġdād: Materials and Notes”, Arabica 6/2, 1958, pp. 178-97; 6/3, 1959, pp. 281-309.

Idem, “Muslim Institutions of Learning in Eleventh-Century Baghdad,” BSOAS 24/1, 1961, pp. 1-56.

Idem, Ibn ʿAqīl et la résurgence de l’Islam traditionaliste au XIe siècle, Damascus, 1963.

Idem, “Les rapports entre le calife et le sulṭân à l’époque saljûqide,” IJMES 6/1, 1975, pp. 228-36.

Idem, Ibn ʿAqil: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam, Edinburgh, 1997.

ʿAli Moʾayyed Ṯābeti, Asnād wa nāmahā-ye tāriḵi, az awāyel-e dawrahā-ye eslāmi tā awāḵer-e ʿahd-e Šāh Esmāʿil  Ṣafawi, Tehran, 1967.

Amir-al-Šoʿarāʾ Moʿezzi Nišāburi, Divān-e Amir Moʿezzi, ed. ʿAbbās Eqbāl, Tehran, 1939.

Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfi, Nozhat al-qolub, ed. Guy Le Strange, Leiden, 1915; tr. Guy Le Strange, as The Geographical Part of Nuzhat-al-qulub, Leiden, 1919.

Neẓām-al-Molk, Siar al-moluk: siāsat-nāma, ed. Hubert Darke, Tehran, 1961; tr. Hubert Darke, as The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, 2nd ed., London, 1978.

Ahmed Ocak, Selçukluların dinî siyaseti (1040-1092), Istanbul, 2002.

Osāma b. Monqeḏ, Ketāb al-eʿtebār, ed. Philip Hitti, Princeton, 1930; tr. Philip Hitti, as An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usâma Ibn Munqidh, New-York, 1929.

Moḥammad b. ʿAli Rāvandi, Rāḥat al-ṣodur wa āyat at al-sorur dar tāriḵ-e Āl-e Saljuq, ed. Moḥammad Eqbāl, rev. with comments by Mojtabā Minavi, Tehran, 1975, pp. 125-36.

Rašid-al-Din Fażl-Allāh, Jāmeʿ al-tawāriḵ, ed. A. Ateş, Ankara, 1960; tr. Kenneth A. Luther and Clifford E. Bosworth, as The History of the Seljuq Turks: An Ilkhanid Adaptation of the Saljūq-nāma of Ẓahīr al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī, Richmond, 2001, pp. 57-64.

Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negociating Ideology and Religious Inquiry, Chapel Hill, 2006.

Aydin Sayili, The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory, Ankara, 1960.

Sebṭ b. Jawzi, Merʾāt al-zamān fi taʾriḵ al-aʿyān: al-ḥawādeṯ al-ḵāṣṣa be-taʾriḵ al-Salājeqa bayna al-sanawāt 1056-1086, ed. Ali Sevim, Ankara, 1968, pp. 159, 247; ed. Mosfer Ḡāmedi, Mekka, 1407/1987, pp. 118-97.

Ali Sevim, “İlginç yönleriyle Sultan Melikşah,” Belleten 69, 2005, pp. 517-37.

Idem, “Sıbt İbnü’l-Cevzî’nin Mir’âtü’z-zaman fî Tarihi’l-âyan Adlı Eserindeki Selçuklularda İlgili Bilgiler, III. Sultan Melikşah Dönemi,” in E. Semih Yalçın, Süleyman Özbek, and Berikan Yayınevi, eds., Makaleler II, Ankara, pp. 287-435.

Aydin, Sayili, The Observatory in Islam, Ankara, 1960.

Gillies E. Tetley, The Ghaznavid and Seljuq Turks: Poetry As A Source for Iranian History, London and New York, 2009.

Ẓahir al-Din Nišāpuri, Saljuq-nāma, ed. A. Morton, as The Saljūqnāma of Ẓāhir al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī, Antony Rowe, 2006, pp. 26-34.

(David Durand-Guédy)

Originally Published: January 1, 2000

Last Updated: October 19, 2012