I've never seen the seljuk empire discussed here lads, can we discuss why the ottomans fought it which led to its downfall and the rise of the ottoman empire? seeing as both the seljuks and the ottomans were muslims and had more or less the same demographics
>>572161
>ottomans fought it
But they didn't; the Empire had fractured into several smaller dynastical successor states which were all competing for power and prestige. The Ottomans filled a vacume which came about from the collapse of the Seljuks.
The Ottomans only "fought" the Seljuks insofar they fought the Sultanate of Rum, which was a successor just like the Ottomans were.
>>572161
The other anon is right, the Seljuks had more or less vanished by the time the Ottomans rose to power. But to address your question about fellow Turkic Muslims fighting one another, one could say it's the Seljuks themselves that popularized the idea.
Before the Seljuk conquests, Muslim internecine violence was only justified against heterodox movements and rebels. In the 11th century the Seljuk court compiled a series of dynastic histories and political thought, drawing from 9th and 10th century Ghulam Turkic predecessors as well as the likes of Mahmud of Ghazni, to spread throughout the Middle East the cyclical destiny of Muslim Turkic dynasties. There is first the founding figure, the ascetic border warrior who experiences religious revival or rebirth and forges a kingdom through war against pagans or decadent Muslims. Then his son becomes the serious lawmaker who adopts the trappings of high court, turning the dynasty into a royal line in contrast with the humble origins of the father. Finally the grandson squanders the kingdom by living soft and impiously, wastefully even, and weakens the dynasty leaving it vulnerable to another poor warrior to forge a new dynasty over the crumbling remains of the last.
The Ottomans were only following this narrative trope when they fought and conquered other Anatolian Muslim princes.
i see, thanks lads
>>572161
Not OP but I have a question.
What led and what allowed the Seljuks to build such a large empire, when previous and later medieval turkic dynasties (except the Khwarazmian shahs and Timur) were only capable of building relatively small realms?
>>572161
an interesting tid-bit is that Tamerlane's Casus beli against the Ottomans was partially because he deemed them to be illegitimate usurpers to the Seljuk seat of power in Anatolia as it was the descendants of the Seljuk dynasty that had submitted to the Mongols.
>>572668
Seljuks came in rather rapidly when the Abbasid caliphate and Fatimids, had greatly splintered allowing them to take great swathes of land from Persia and Syria. Their victory over the Eastern Romans allowed them to consolidate their hold on Anatolia
>>572161
The Ottomans were one of many smaller Turkic Beyliks in Anatolia. another example would be pic related..
>>573451
The tarkan looks badass, is that armor really practical in the climate of the near east though?
>>574528
most battles wouldn't be fought in the desert. Timur's campaigns would have ranged from central Asia , Persia and Anatolia- many of these places having temperate climates
>>572161
Can anyone explain to me exactly how Turks came to dominate Middle Eastern politics?
Were they really just descendants of slaves who used politics to get to the top?
>>574528
The persians and other iranians pioneered that style of warrior in the same landscapes. The turks adopted and continued this tradition, also learning from the east asians. Middle easteners not using heavy armor due to the heat is a meme.
>>574656
Warrior slaves.
Nomadic (or semi-nomadic, or sometimes just hill people) people taking settled states and becoming their monarchs is a constant thing in the middle east. Sometimes they were foreigners, sometimes they were already inside the borders of the nation, but what matters is that their lifestyle made them hard to subject with pre-modern technology and better suited for taking the power by the force. It happened constantly.