More numerous than the Pechenegs and Cumans combined, and more savage and brutal than each separately, the Turkomans (Oghuz/Turkmenler) appeared in the highlands of Pamir around 700.

Text by Ilias Anagnostakis

As the main component of the Western Turks and pressured by upheavals in the Mongolian steppes, they had already reached the fringes of Central Asia (Tien Shan Mountains) around 775 AD. By 830, they had fully settled in their new homeland, violently pushing Pechenegs, Cumans, and Karluks northward and northwestward simultaneously.

The Turkoman settlements between the Oxus (Amu-Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) were so dense that by 902, the Arab chronicler and traveler Ibn-Faklan remarked that: “Transoxiana was teeming with Turkomans.” This situation remained stagnant until the early 1000s, when new upheavals in Manchuria (the rise of the Khitan-Liao) caused turmoil throughout the Mongolian highlands and, naturally, in Central Asia, which was already experiencing unprecedented developments.

Political unrest, combined with incredible overpopulation and climatic changes, drove a significant portion of the Oghuz (perhaps over 300,000 tents, according to Ibn-al Athir, al-Kamil, IX, 297) to move en masse and chaotically southward, particularly toward the southwest (Iran).

The conversion of a branch of the Oghuz, the Seljuks, to Islam (956) provided a moral pretext for the inherent tendency of Turkic tribes toward conquests and devastating raids. Under the brilliant leadership of the two grandsons of the now-elderly Seljuk, Togrul-Beg and Chagri-Beg, and leading hordes of their kin, the Seljuks swept through everything before them in an incredibly short time, leaving complete devastation in their wake.

The pivotal Battle of Dandanakan (1040), comparable in many ways to that of Manzikert (1071), where 16,000 Seljuks crushed 40,000 men of the heroic but unfortunate Masud of Ghazni, opened wide the gates to the vast Iranian plateau. From there, they accessed ideal grazing areas in Azerbaijan, Transcaucasia, and, naturally, Armenia.

The conquest of Iran was tumultuous (Nishapur 1038, Merv 1044, Rayy 1046, Isfahan 1051, Hamadan 1053, Kirman 1054). While the Seljuks swiftly obliterated every vestige of Ghaznavid authority in Iran, “their bloodthirsty dogs,” the Turkomans, had already entered Azerbaijan by 1029. At the same time, disorganized but numerous groups (30,000 strong) had entered Iraq, “devouring everything like locusts” (Ibn-al-Athir, al-Kamil, 580–602), forcing the Caliph al-Q’aim to implore Togrul-Beg: “Bring order to this chaos, and take whatever you want.”

Indeed, the now-victorious Turkish Sultan, Father of all Seljuks, entered Baghdad on December 7, 1055, promising order and security to the Iraq devastated by his fellow Oghuz. At the same time, he conveyed to the increasingly uncontrollable Turkoman tribal chiefs, who were arriving en masse from Central Asia (50,000 men under Ibrahim-Yinal): “I sympathize with you; you are my blood. However, I cannot offer you what you seek (plunder/pastures). The best thing you can do is to attack northward, against the Rum (Byzantine Empire). Fight in the path of God, slaughter, plunder, and I will come to support you.”

A question arises among modern historians about whether the Empire (Byzantine) was aware of these developments, and the conclusion is that it probably was—but far too late (after 1055/56).

A new phase in the history of the Middle East/Asia Minor was beginning, and the fate of the Eastern Roman Empire and many other smaller states was irreversibly sealed for the next thousand years due to the “Typhoon from the East” that permanently altered the region’s ethnographic landscape.

Sources:

Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān, “Mission to the Volga”, trans. by James E. Montgomery (New York: New York University Press, 2017).

Ibn al-Athir, “al-Kamil fi at-Tarikh” (The Complete History).