110

The Saltuqids

Late fifth century to 598/late eleventh century to 1202

Eastern Anatolia, with their capital at Erzurum

The origins of this family are obscure, but Saltuq was apparently one of the Turkmen commanders operating in Anatolia in the last decades of the eleventh century. His son ‘Alī appears in history controlling a principality based on Erzurum and other towns in the district, including at times Kars (Qarṣ); the Saltuqids were to embellish Erzurum, a flourishing centre of the transit trade across northern Anatolia, with fine buildings. From ‘Alī onwards, these begs enjoyed the title of Malik. The Saltuqids’ main role in the political and military affairs of the time was in warfare with the Georgians, expanding southwards from the time of their king David the Restorer (1089–1125), often as allies of the Shāh-i Armanids (see above, no. 97); but in a curious episode, Muḥammad b. Saltuq II’s son offered to convert to Christianity in order to marry the celebrated Queen T‘amar of Georgia. The last years of the family are unclear, but in 598/1102 the Rūm Seljuq Sulaymān II, while en route for a campaign against the Georgians, put an end to the Saltuqids; and for some thirty years after this, Erzurum was to be ruled by two Seljuq princes as an appanage before Kay Qubādh I in 627/1230 incorporated it into his sultanate.

Khalīl Ed’hem, 227–8; Zambaur, 145; Bosworth–Merçil–İpşirli, 283–4.

EI² ‘Saltuḳ Oghullari’ (G. Leiser).

Cl. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 106–8.

Faruk Sümer, ‘Saltuklular’, SAD, 3 (1971), 391–433, with a genealogical table at p. 394.

O. Turan, Selçuklular zamanında Türkiye, 251–4.

idem, Doğu Anadolu Türk devletleri tarihi, Istanbul 1973, 3–52, 241 (list), 277 (genealogical table).