A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

chapter six
Seljukids and Ghaznavids
The turn of the millennium inaugurated in the originally Iranian part
of Central Asia, as we have said, the rule of dynasties that issued from
among Inner Asian nomads, primarily Turkic but soon also Mongol.A
similar process began farther southwest and southeast, thus in the
central lands of Islam and on the Indian subcontinent, where Seljukid
and Ghaznavid dynasties came to power.Whereas, however, in Central
Asia this process led to a permanent change and large-scale
Turkicization of the populations, this did not happen elsewhere – with
a few exceptions, the most notable being Turkey itself.In Iraq, Iran, and
Afghanistan, to name just the core lands affected by this change, native
dynasties or governments soon or eventually reassumed power, and the
process of Turkicization, if at all noticeable, gave ground to a
reaffirmation of Iranian or Arab demographic, cultural, and political
realities.
The subject is relevant to our topic for several reasons.Both the dynasties
mentioned originated in Central Asia, and their scions spoke Turkic;
the staging area for their push into the heartlands of Islam and India was
the province of Khurasan; and they had protracted and complex relations
with the Qarakhanids.The Seljukids never relinquished
Khurasan: they won it by 1040 in the historic battle of Dandanqan with
the Ghaznavids; and the last monarch of its senior branch, Sanjar, who
ruled from 1118 to 1157, chose it a century later as his home province,
with Merv as his capital and final resting place.
Like the Qarakhanids, the Seljukids appeared in Central Asia during
the tenth century, but farther west on the lower course of the Syr Darya,
near the Aral Sea, and as members of a different group of Turkic tribes
called Oghuz.The Oghuz moved westward into the steppes of western
Eurasia after the collapse of the Kök Turkic qaghanate, and became the
dominant nomadic element there.Unlike other Turks who had at times
created great though ephemeral empires and impressive civilizations,
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