µþ´¡¸é°ÄªÄ€¸é°¿²Ï, ROKN-AL-DĪN ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR B. MALEKŠÄ€H, Great Saljuq sultan (r. 485-98/1092-1105). BarkÄ«Äroq (properly, Berk-yaruq, Tk. “firm, strong brightness,” see Clauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth Century Turkish, pp. 361-62, 761-63) was the eldest of MalekšÄh’s sons, but still only thirteen on his father’s death. The fact that MalekšÄh left no adult sons goes a considerable way toward explaining why the mighty edifice of his empire now began to crumble, so that BarkÄ«Äroq’s reign conventionally marks the opening stages of the decline of Great Saljuq unity in Iran and the Fertile Crescent. Moreover, the older Turkish tribal traditions of a patrimonial share-out of territories, in the absence of a single, mature, dominant, and experienced leader, reasserted themselves now, just as they had done twenty years previously around the time of MalekšÄh’s father Alp ArslÄn.
When MalekšÄh died, his widow Terken (TorkÄn) ḴÄtÅ«n attempted to place her four-year-old son MaḥmÅ«d on the throne in Isfahan. BarkÄ«Äroq was proclaimed ruler at Ray by the rival party of the NeẓÄmÄ«ya, the sons and partisans of the great vizier NeẓÄm-al-Molk (q.v.), as the candidate most likely to be able to hold his father’s heritage together. Terken ḴÄtÅ«n and MaḥmÅ«d conveniently died in 487/1094, and BarkÄ«Äroq was able through military force to dispose of the claims to power of other ambitious members of the Saljuq family, namely his uncle, ArslÄn Arḡūn in Khorasan and, more seriously, another uncle, Tutuš (Totaš) b. Alp ArslÄn (q.v.) of Damascus (487-88/1094-95). BarkÄ«Äroq was now reasonably firmly established in Iraq and JebÄl, i.e., western Iran, but he had to leave the sons of Tutuš in Syria and his half-brother Moḥammad Tapar (q.v.) in Azerbaijan and ArrÄn, the latter now receiving the support of his (Moḥammad’s) full brother Sanjar and of BarkÄ«Äroq’s former vizier Moʾayyed-al-Molk b. NeẓÄm-al-Molk.
The remaining years of BarkÄ«Äroq’s reign were filled with continuous warfare and campaigns against Moḥammad, with the allegiance of the great Turkish amirs constantly changing, their underlying aim being that no one ruler should be able to secure complete domination. The sultan was driven to desperate expedients to raise money for his armies, including, reportedly, the confiscation of private property for ±ð±çá¹ÄÊ¿sand, when his fortunes were especially low, the employment of IsmaÊ¿ili troops in his forces, leading to accusations that BarkÄ«Äroq personally favored them. By 497/1104, war-weary and already ill, BarkÄ«Äroq, although in control of western and central Iran and Iraq, agreed to a division of power with Moḥammad, who was to have northwestern Iran, JazÄ«ra, and Syria, while Sanjar was to remain in Khorasan acknowledging only Moḥammad as his overlord. Whether these arrangements would have lasted is unknown, since BarkÄ«Äroq died only a few months later at the age of 25, and Moḥammad was able to succeed to thirteen years of uninterrupted sultanate, BarkÄ«Äroq has inevitably suffered in comparison with his father, and the sources are lukewarm about him while being enthusiastic about Moḥammad. Yet the problems which he had faced had been formidable. The seeds of the trend toward decentralization and loosening of the fabric of the Great Saljuq empire had already been sown in his father’s time; and BarkÄ«Äroq’s sultanate is indeed notable for the beginnings of the Turkman atabegates and principalities which later were a feature of the lands from KermÄn to Anatolia and Syria.
Bibliography:
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C. L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate. A Study of Civil Administration 1055-1194, Cambridge, Mass., 1973, passim. C. E. Bosworth, in Camb. Hist. Iran V, pp. 102-13.
C. Cahen, in EI2 &±ô»å±ç³Ü´Ç;µþ²¹°ù°ì²âÄå°ù³Üḳ.&°ù»å±ç³Ü´Ç;
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(C. E. Bosworth)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: December 15, 1988
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 8, pp. 800-801
