If the sky above did not collapse and if the earth below did not give way, oh Turk people, who can destroy your state and institutions. —ORKHON INSCRIPTIONS In the beginning of their recorded history Turks were nomads. Their original home was in Central Asia, in the vast grassland that spreads north of Afghanistan, the Himalayan Mountains, and China. The steppe grasses of their homeland best supported livestock and the Turks were primarily herdsmen. Because sheep devoured the grass in any one area fairly quickly, the Turks were forced to move from one pasturage to another in order to feed the flocks upon which they depended. Large groups would have quickly over-grazed the land and small groups could not defend themselves, so the earliest Turkish political units were tribes. Although the size of each tribe varied according to its environment and the success of its leadership, none could have been considered large or important. The Turkish tribes became great conquerors when they merged their forces in confederations and accepted the rule of powerful chiefs, (called hans or khans). The first recorded Turkish writings, the Orkhon Inscriptions of the eighth century, celebrated the rule of one of the hans, but Chinese chronicles mentioned Turkish confederations in the fourth century B.C.E. Successive Turkish confederations ruled over Central Asia, often battling the Chinese and extending their rule into Europe. The most well known of these were the Huns, called the Hsiung-nu by the Chinese. The Turks were among the major waves of invaders who attacked the Middle East. There was constant tension between the peoples of the steppes and deserts that surrounded the Middle East and the inhabitants of the settled areas. Nomads were viewed as a threat by both rulers and farmers. If they entered the Middle East, they could be expected to turn farm land into grass land to support their flocks. Nomad raids would disrupt trade, damage farming, and generally harm the tax base upon which rulers depended, while they themselves did not pay taxes. Nomad groups periodically succeeded in overwhelming the defenses of the Middle East. The Persians had been an early group of successful invaders, the Muslim Arabs another. After a period of upheaval, the nomads settled down and their rulers became the new guardians of the Middle East against the next group of nomads. The Arab Muslims who conquered the Sassanian Persian Empire in the seventh century extended their dominion into the borderlands of Central Asia, across the Oxus (Amu Darya) River into the region called Tran-soxania. There they came into contact with the Turks. Turks first came into the Middle East as traders and slaves. The latter were captured in Central Asian wars or by Middle Easterners. Because of their martial abilities, the slaves usually remained soldiers, now fighting in the armies of their new masters. Some rose to high position, occasionally revolting against their lords. In 868 one of the Caliphs Turkish generals, Ibn Tulun, took over Egypt, which his family ruled for the next forty years. But the Turks only came into the Middle East in great numbers when they were brought in by local rulers who used them as mercenaries. Unlike the earlier Turkish slave-soldiers, the new Turks arrived in the Middle East as military units under their own leaders. The tribes had previously been part of the Oguz Confederation north of the Oxus River. Now they rented their military services to Middle Eastern rulers. But these Turks also soon revolted and created their own empires. The Karahanids created an empire in Transoxania and Central Asia. The Ghaznavids ruled in Afghanistan and Northern India. Another group of the Oguz, the Seljuks, took Iran and Iraq in the eleventh century. They entered Baghdad, the capitol of the derelict Abbasid Empire, in 1055. The power of the Seljuks was founded on an army of nomadic Turkish warriors. The first Seljuk sultans can themselves be considered to have been traditional nomad leaders. However, the Seljuk sultans soon decided to create a more stable and regularized state. They built an army, a tax system, and a bureaucracy. Partially successful attempts were made to settle the nomads by awarding lands to their leaders — lands that could be used to support the leaders and men as the sultans soldiers. Most important for future history, the Seljuks expanded Turkish rule to the West. They encouraged the nomads to raid into the Byzantine Empire, which was on their western border. The benefits of directing the nomads westward were great: nomads who raided the Byzantine lands were not causing trouble in the Seljuk domains. Moreover, they were weakening the Byzantines, an enemy of the Seljuks. The Byzantine emperor, Romanus Diogenes, realized the nomad threat. He mobilized his army and moved east across Anatolia. The Seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, in turn mobilized his own forces and moved west. The two armies met at Man-zikert in 1071, where the Byzantines were completely defeated. The way into Anatolia and the Byzantine Empire was now open to the Turks. Since soon after the time of the Prophet Muhammad Muslims had attempted to defeat the Byzantines. After taking Syria and Egypt, the Muslim armies had been unable to conquer the remainder of the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia and the Balkans. For 400 years Anatolia had resisted Muslim incursion. All that was now ended. The Byzantine Empire remained alive. For long it retained land in Western and Northern Anatolia. The Turks had begun to move in, however, slowly turning Anatolia into Turkey. The Turkish nomad chiefs in Anatolia organized under their own leaders, families of proven lords who set up small capitols in various Anatolian cities. They loosely came under the overlordship of a branch of the Seljuk family known as the Rum Seljuks (The "Seljuks of Rome," called that because they ruled part of what been the Roman Empire.) There were many opportunities for war for the Turks in Anatolia. The Byzantines remained for centuries. Crusaders from Europe came, fought the Turks, and went. Tribes of nomads came from other parts of the Middle East and from Central Asia to fight for booty and the chance to expand the rule of Islam. These warriors, called gazis ("fighters for the Faith") attached themselves to the campaigns of the Rum Seljuks and other Turkish lords. Some were awarded lands where they themselves might rule. One of these, Osman, was by tradition given lands bordering the Byzantine Empire by the Rum Seljuk sultan. He and his successors were to create the great Ottoman Empire. |
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