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The Mengüjekids

Before 512 to mid-seventh century/before 1118 to mid-thirteenth century

Northern Anatolia, with centres at Erzincan, Divriği and Kemakh

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Mengüjek Aḥmad, in Kemakh

before 512/before 1118

Isḥāq b. Mengüjek

c. 536/c. 1142

Division of the Mengüjekid territories

1. The line in Erzincan and Kemakh

c. 536/c. 1142

Dāwūd I b. Isḥāq

⊘ 560/1165

Bahrām Shāh b. Dāwūd, al-Malik al-Sa‘īd Fakhr al-Dīn

622–5/1225–8

Dāwūd II b. Bahrām Shāh, ‘Alā’ al-Dīn

625/1228

Assumption of control by the Seljuqs of Rūm

2. The line in Divriği

c. 536/c. 1142

Sulaymān I b. Isḥāq

⊘ by 570/by 1175

Shāhānshāh b. Sulaymān, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Sayf al-Dīn

c. 593/c.l197

Sulaymān II b. Shāhānshāh

c. 626/c. 1229

Aḥmad b. Sulaymān II, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Ḥusām al-Dīn

after 640/after 1242

Malik Shāh b. Aḥmad, ruling in 650/1252

Conquest by the Seljuqs of Rūm

This obscure ghāzī dynasty is not heard of until 512/1118, when Isḥāq b. Mengüjek, a relative by marriage of the Dānishmendids (see above, no. 108), menaced Malatya from his fortress at Kemakh near Erzincan. The Mengüjekid principality came to lie between those of the Dānishmendids on the west and of the Saltuqids (see below, no. 110) on the east, and included besides Kemakh and Erzincan the towns of Divriği and Kughūniya or Seben Karahisar. After Isḥāq’s death in 536/1142 his possessions were divided, in accordance with the old Turkish patrimonial concepts, between his sons, so that there were thenceforth two branches of the family. Bahrām Shāh of the Erzincan branch made his court there something of a cultural centre, and he was the mamdūḥ or dedicatee of works by the great Persian poets Niẓāmī and Khāqānī, while the rulers in Divriği have left behind there a remarkable mosque. The Mengüjekids clashed with the Rūm Seljuqs, and sought allies in such powers as the Byzantine rulers of Trebizond, but the power of the Konya sultans prevailed, and the last ruler in Erzincan, Dāwūd II, yielded up Erzincan and Kemakh to Kay Qubādh I in 625/128, exchanging them for lands at Akşehir and İlgin. The Divriği branch lasted rather longer and apparently persisted until the middle of the thirteenth century, their end being probably linked with the appearance in eastern Anatolia of the Mongols.

Sachau, 14 no. 25; Khalīl Ed’hem, 224–6; Zambaur, 145–6; Bosworth–Merçil–İpşirli, 279–82.

EI2 ‘Mengüček’ (Cl. Cahen); İA ‘Mengücükler’ (F. Sümer), with a genealogical table.

O. Turan, Doğu Anadolu Türk devletleri tarihi, 55–79, 242 (list), 278 (genealogical table).

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