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Seljuk (Arabic: السلاجقة, Turkish: Selçuk; also Seldjuk, Seldjuq, Seljuq) was the eponymous hero of the Seljuks. He was the son of a certain Dukak surnamed Timuryaligh -"of the iron bow"- and either the chief or an eminent member of the Oghuz tribe of the Kiniks. In about 960 the Seljuk clan split off from the bulk of the Tokuz-Oghuz, a confederacy of nine clans long settled between the Aral and Caspian Seas, and set up camp on the right bank of the lower Syr Darya(Jaxartes), in the direction of Jend, near Kzyl Orda where they were converted to Islam.

Seljuk died approximately in 1038 and was sacrified in a tomb.^{[citation needed]}

Tradition says Seljuk had four sons: Mikaīl, Yonus, Mūsā and Israil (Arslan). Seljuk's grandson Toghrül, son of Mikaīl conquered Khorasan in the mid-11th century, and later advanced into the western parts of Persian.

According to some sources, Seljuk began his career as an officer in the Khazar army.^[1]

The Seljuks expanded from Aegean Sea to Central Asia and the Caucassus. Under Alp Arslan they took over the control of the Islamic world from the Abbasids. In the year 1071 Sultan Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes and the Seljuks began to conquer Anatolia.

Preceded by -

Seljuk Founder c1000–1038

Succeeded by Toghrül

[edit] References

•Rene Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, 1970, Rutgers University Press •J.J. Sanders, The History of the Mongol Conquests, 1971, University of Pennsylvania Press

[edit] Notes