0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

98 C. Edmund Bosworth
tribal contingents as well as what became a core of standing, professional, largely
slave, troops. In his Early Seljuq history, a new interpretation, London 2010, 94–8,
Andrew C.S. Peacock suggests that the recruitment of slave troops began under
Toghrïl Beg around 447/1055, at a time when, so the Arabic sources imply, relations
between the Seljuq chief and his original Türkmen backing were already
starting to cool. Certainly, given the common Oghuz background of the sultans
and maliks and of much of their tribal backing, the Seljuq rulers had to stay attuned
to the needs and aspirations of this free tribal element; the tensions resultant
from this were a constant feature of Great Seljuq history, culminating in the
great Oghuz revolt in Khurasan of 548–51/1153–6, which directly brought about
the end of Great Seljuq rule in the East. The sources are often not explicit, but
Saw-tegin (see below, Names, no. 25) is specifically described in the sources as an
eunuch; and whilst the commander Khass Beg, who flourished in the mid-sixth/
twelfth century, bears the exalted title of Beg, characteristic at this time of rulers,
princes and great leaders (see Peter Jackson, EI, art. „Beg and Begom“), his father
or grandfather B.l.n.k.r.y (see below, Names, no. 6) could well have been a slave.
The title of the present article specifically evokes Seljuq military history, and
Names dealt with here are thus all those of military men, even though as trusty
servants and intimates of the rulers they often fulfilled at the Seljuq courts functions
that one might think were civilian rather than military, such as chamberlain
or door-keeper (hajib, parda-dar), treasurer (khazin, khazna-dar), cupbearer
(saqi), superintendent of the kitchens and food preparation (chashni-gir), keeper
of the royal washing bowls (tasht-dar), keeper of the royal wardrobe (jama-dar),
etc. 2
What is not clear is whether the Turkish names of these soldiers were bestowed
on them by their parents or kindred at birth, hence within the Inner Asian
environment, or acquired when they were brought, as captured or purchased,
slaves, to the markets of Transoxania or Caucasia. Similarly, it is rarely possible
exactly to identify their local or tribal origins with any degree of exactitude, since
the doctrine that „Islam cancels the past“ came into operation when, as normally
happened, a slave became a Muslim on entering the Islamic lands; the case of Sebüktegin,
founder of the Ghaznavid sultanate, who according to his Pand-nama,
an alleged epistle of his containing advice to his son Ma1mud, came from the
Barskhan region along the southern shores of the Issik Köl in the Semirechye
(hence possibly from a group associated with the Qarluq such as the Chigil), and
2 Cf. Ismail Hakkı Uzunçar ¸silı, Osmanlı devleti te ¸skilâtına medhal. Büyük Selçukîler, Anadolu
Selçukîleri, Anadolu Beylikleri, Ilhânîler, Karakoyunlu ve Akkoyunlularla memlûklerdeki devlet
te ¸skilâtına bir bakı ¸s, Istanbul 194I, 31–47.