The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13 ...

The establishment of Turkish political overlordshlp
over an overwhelmingly Armenian Honophysite Christian
population in eastern Asia Minor, and over Graeco-Armenian
populations in central Asia Minor did not immediately
lead to widespread conversions to Islam. This was to
occur in the 12th and early 13th centuries, and to resume
after a hiatus, in the early 14th century. But during the
time of the Saljuq invasions, Armenian Islamization seems
to have been limited, restricted mostly to those obliged
to convert to save their lives, and to the tens of
thousands of Armenian women and children forcibly removed
from their homes and sold on the Middle Eastern slave
marts entering Muslim harems and households *
. In
this
early period too, several influential Armenian naxarar
women were sought after as brides by Saljuq rulers .
1
On Saljuqid slave-trading in Asia Minor see DMH pp. 174-
79, and also my article, "The Slave Trade in Armenians
in the ll-14th Centuries"in a forthcoming Issue of the
quarterly Ararat during 1980.
2
The daughter of Kiwrike, king of the semi-autonomous
northeastern Armenian state of TaSir-Joraget is one example.
With great reluctance her father surrendered her to sultan
Alp Arslan (in 1064/65) CPataut'iwa Mattfeosi Ufhavec 'woy
(The History of Matthew of EdessaT Uerusalec, 1869) pp.
174-75 [Hereafter MEd], See also Juanser, p. 113; Another
example say be Oohar fchgtun
(d. 1118/19), wife of sultan
Malik Shah's son, Isma'il (MEd, p. 427). It is clear
from tEe testimony of Abu'l Pida that already by the
mid-llth century, Armenian women (most probably Muslim
Armenians, or Islamized slave-women) were being taken
as brides by the now Turkicizlng Caliphs of Baghdad, supreme
chiefs of orthodox Muslims: 1. Kat*r an-Nada (d . 1057/58),
mother of Caliph al-Kayim (Nalbandyan trans, of Abu '
l
Pida, Arabakan atbyurner. Erevan, 1965) P. 215 and n.20;
2 . Arjivan, mother of Caliph Moktadi bi-Amr Allah Abu'l
Kasim (d. 1094/95) p. 217 and n.26; 3. the mother of Caliph
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