The Turkish History Podcast The Turkish History Podcast

The People's Crusade invades Anatolia, and the chaotic army of undisciplined peasants is easily destroyed by the forces of the Sultanate of Rum under Ilhan Bey as Kılıç Arslan besieges Malatya.  But the chaos and ineptitude of the People's Crusade proves to be a boon to both the Byzantine Emperor and even the now-assembling First Crusade.  In Constantinople, Emperor Alexios uses the chaos and the ineptitude of the People's Crusade to bind the arriving First Crusaders to him.  And supremely overconfident and unconcerned, Kılıç Arslan ignores the approaching threat and instead stays in Central Anatolia.

As Turkish power is entrenched across Anatolia and Kılıç Arslan consolidates the power of the Sultanate of Rum, in Constantinople Emperor Alexios Komnenos calls for aid from the West.  The Emperor envisions a relatively large, but still manageable, army of experienced Latin knights of the type that have fought for Byzantium in the past in order to retake Anatolia.  But his call for aid coincides with a papal reform movement in Rome seeking to entrench the power of the Papacy, and Pope Urban II uses the opportunity to raise a great host of holy warriors.  The Pandora's box is opened, and the crusading era is launched, as the unruly "People's Crusade" makes its way to Constantinople and ultimately comes to the gates of the Turkish world. 

As Kılıç Arslan sits in prison in Esfahan, Emperor Alexios Komnenos attempts to restore imperial authority on the coasts of Anatolia, even if the plateau itself remains lost to him.  Constantinople tangles with the Black Sea beylik of Karategin and the Marmara beylik of İlhan.  In İzmir, the rebel Turkish Roman General Çaka Bey creates the first Turkish navy and establishes an Aegean beylik - becoming the supreme Turkish potentate in Western Anatolia.  This situation is upended as Kılıç Arslan returns to claim the Sultanate.  And Emperor Alexis begins to contemplate from where he could possible raise the troops to oppose Turkish rule in Anatolia...

After the death of Sulayman, his sons Kılıç Arslan and Daud are imprisoned in Esfahan by Melik Shah.  In their absence, the Sultanate of Rum is ruled under a quasi-regency by the man Sulayman left in charge of İznik - Ebu'l Kasım.   Ebu'l Kasım fights and negotiates with the Roman Emperor and the Great Seljuk Sultan, maintaining the independence of the Sultanate - until Kılıç Arslan and Daud manage to return as Al-Dawla Al-Nizamiyya comes crashing down.  

In 1081, Sulayman reigns in İznik as the Sultan of Rum.  But his sultanate is aspirational - really, he is a mere border lord.  A bey among beys.  And so Sulayman begins to lay the foundations for the Sultanate of Rum, expanding his power across Western Anatolia.  Burning with ambition and desire to reclaim the birthright of the line of Kutalmish, Sulayman then invades Antioch and even Aleppo.  And the very audacity that allowed him to found the Sultanate of Rum destroys him.  

Following Manzikert, the civil war in Byzantium and the failure of the Roman Empire to retake Anatolia, the first Turkish beyliks emerge in Anatolia.  In the anarchy caused by the collapse of the Roman military apparatus, bands of Turks begin making alliances with the settled elites of Anatolia, offering them protection for a price.   Soon the Turks are invited into the cities of Anatolia, replacing the now-vanished Roman military to become the lords of new principalities - beyliks.  In the east of Anatolia, numerous beyliks emerge - the Mengucekids, the Danishmands, the Saltukids and the Artukids.  But in the West, on the very doorstep of Constantinople, another political entity is born as the sons of Kutalmish, and in particular his son Sulayman, dive deep into Byzantine politics.  Through canny political maneuvering, Sulayman founds the next great Turkish state - the Sultanate of Rum.