Sultanate of Rum

The Sultanate of Rum, also called the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, was a Turco-Persian, Sunni Muslim state. It was founded on conquered Byzantine lands and peoples in Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks after their victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The term "Rum" served as a name for the medieval Roman Empire and its people, a usage that continues in modern Turkish. This word came into Turkish through Aramaic and Parthian, which had borrowed it from the Greek "Romaioi." The Seljuk Turks applied the name to Anatolia itself. This sultanate marks the start of Turkish history in the region.

The state broke away from the larger Seljuk Empire in 1077 under Suleiman ibn Qutalmish. Its first capital was Nicaea, later moved to Iconium (Konya). It peaked in power during the late 1100s and early 1200s, capturing key Byzantine ports on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. To the east, its territory reached Lake Van. The sultanate developed trade from Iran and Central Asia through a network of caravanserais, forming especially strong commercial ties with the Genoese. This wealth allowed it to absorb other Turkish states that had arisen after the Byzantine conquest, such as the Danishmendids, House of Mengüjek, Saltukids, and Artuqids.

The Seljuk sultans bore the main force of the Crusades but ultimately fell to the Mongol invasion at the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243. For the rest of the 1200s, they were vassals of the Ilkhanate. Their power crumbled in the latter half of that century. The last Seljuk vassal sultan, Mesud II, was killed in 1308. The state’s collapse left behind many small Anatolian beyliks, or Turkish principalities. One of these, the Ottoman dynasty, eventually conquered the others, reuniting Anatolia and forming the Ottoman Empire.

**History**

**Establishment** Starting in the 1030s, nomadic Turkish groups seeking pastureland had crossed Byzantine borders into Anatolia. After the Battle of Manzikert in the 1070s, the Seljuk commander Suleiman ibn Qutulmish—a distant cousin of Alp Arslan and a former claimant to the Seljuk throne—rose to power in western Anatolia. Between 1075 and 1081, he seized the Byzantine cities of Nicaea and, briefly, Nicomedia. About two years later, he founded a sultanate that was nominally a Byzantine vassal but grew more independent after six to ten years. In 1084, the Seljuk ruler Malikshah officially recognized it as a vassal state. Yet as late as 1085, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos tasked Suleiman with recapturing Antioch; Suleiman traveled there by a secret route, likely guided by the Byzantines.

Suleiman failed to take Aleppo in 1086 and died at the Battle of Ain Salm, either in combat or by suicide. His son, Kilij Arslan I, was imprisoned, and a general named Abu'l-Qasim took control of Nicaea. After Malik Shah died in 1092, Kilij Arslan was freed and reestablished himself in his father’s lands between 1092 and 1094, possibly with the approval of Malik Shah’s son and successor, Berkyaruq.

**Crusades** Kilij Arslan defeated the People’s Crusade in 1096 but was then beaten by the knights of the First Crusade and pushed back into south-central Anatolia, where he made Konya his capital. He overcame three crusader contingents during the Crusade of 1101. In 1107, he moved east and captured Mosul, but died that same year fighting Malik Shah’s son, Mehmed Tapar. He was the first Muslim commander to oppose the crusades.

Meanwhile, another Rum Seljuk named Malik Shah (not the same as the earlier sultan) took Konya. In 1116, Kilij Arslan’s son, Mesud I, recaptured the city with help from the Danishmends. By Mesud’s death in 1156, the sultanate controlled nearly all of central Anatolia.

The Second Crusade was called by Pope Eugene III and was the first led by European kings—Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany—along with other nobles. The two kings marched separately across Europe. After entering Anatolia from Byzantine territory, both armies were defeated by the Seljuk Turks. The main Western Christian source, Odo of Deuil, and Syriac Christian sources claimed that Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos secretly hindered the crusaders, especially in Anatolia, by ordering Turks to attack them. However, this allegation was likely fabricated by Odo, who saw the empire as an obstacle, and Manuel had no political reason to do so. Louis, Conrad, and the remnants of their armies reached Jerusalem and joined an ill-fated attack on Damascus in 1148, ending in retreat. The crusade in the east was a Muslim victory.

Mesud’s son, Kilij Arslan II, was the first known Seljuk ruler to use the title of sultan. He captured the remaining territories around Sivas and Malatya from the last of the Danishmends. At the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, he defeated a Byzantine army led by Manuel I Komnenos. Although forces of the Holy Roman Empire’s Third Crusade temporarily occupied Konya in 1190, the sultanate quickly recovered and consolidated power. In Kilij Arslan II’s final years, a civil war broke out: Kaykhusraw I fought to retain control but lost to his brother Suleiman II in 1196.

After Kilij Arslan II’s death, the sultanate was divided among his sons. Elbistan went to Tughril ibn Kılıç Arslan II, and when Erzurum was taken from the Sa...