History of the Sultanate of Rum

The Sultanate of Rum was a Seljuk-ruled state in Anatolia, the peninsula between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. Rum means the lands of the Romans: it was the name used for territories that had belonged to the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire. The sultanate grew from the upheavals of the 1070s, when Byzantine civil wars and Turkish military settlement opened several routes to power. It was a branch of the Seljuk family, but it developed its own court and political interests, often in tension with the Great Seljuk rulers of Iran and Iraq. Mongol rulers later became the decisive authority over its eastern territories.

Its history was not a single conquest following the Seljuk victory at Manzikert in 1071. Turkish forces had entered and settled parts of Anatolia over decades, while Byzantine commanders, local rulers and Turkish leaders negotiated, fought and changed sides. The sultanate’s boundaries consequently shifted: its rulers first held Nicaea in the northwest, then concentrated on inland Konya, and eventually governed much of Muslim Anatolia while Christian states remained on some frontiers.

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Suleiman and the first capital at Nicaea

Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, a Seljuk prince whose father had challenged the Great Seljuk line, established a base in northwestern Anatolia during the 1070s. He was in Nicaea, near the Sea of Marmara, by 1078. The city’s capture and the precise circumstances of his rule are disputed in the sources, so 1081 is commonly used as the date when Nicaea became the sultanate’s capital rather than a simple founding day. Suleiman also made an agreement with the Byzantine emperor Alexios I that set a frontier near the Drakon River and aimed to keep the approaches to Constantinople under Byzantine control.

Suleiman expanded eastward and southward as well. In 1084 he captured parts of eastern Cilicia and attacked Antioch, but he was killed in 1086 while campaigning against another Seljuk prince, Tutush. His death left the new state vulnerable: a relative, Abu’l-Qasim, held Nicaea briefly amid pressure from Byzantium and the Great Seljuk court. Suleiman’s son Kilij Arslan I returned from captivity in Iran after the death of the Great Seljuk sultan Malik Shah and recovered Nicaea in 1092.

The First Crusade brought a new force into this struggle. Byzantine troops and crusaders besieged Nicaea and took it in 1097; later that year crusading forces defeated Kilij Arslan near Dorylaeum, close to modern Eskişehir. Losing Nicaea pushed the sultanate’s centre farther east. The city remained Byzantine, and the sultans did not recover their old western territories. The shift was a practical one as well as a military setback: a ruler based inland had to secure routes across the plateau and bargain with other Anatolian powers instead of relying on a northwestern capital.

Konya and rivalry among Anatolian rulers

Konya became the dynasty’s principal centre in the early twelfth century. It lay on the central plateau, connected by roads to western Anatolia, the Black Sea approaches and the routes toward Syria. The sultans competed with the Danishmendids, another Turkish dynasty with strongholds across central and northern Anatolia, and with Byzantine emperors seeking to regain territory. For much of this period, the Seljuks of Rum were one important power among several rather than masters of the whole peninsula.

Masud I, who ruled from 1116 to 1156, strengthened the sultanate after a period when Danishmendid power had overshadowed it. A Byzantine campaign reached Konya in 1146 but failed to take the city. The following year, Seljuk forces helped defeat the German army of the Second Crusade near Dorylaeum. These conflicts did not end Byzantine influence, but they made it harder for an imperial army to restore control over the central plateau.

Kilij Arslan II, sultan from 1155 to 1192, widened Seljuk power through both warfare and shifting alliances. His rivals included the Danishmendids, who at different times received support from Byzantine and Syrian rulers. In 1176 he defeated the Byzantine emperor Manuel I at Myriokephalon, checking a major invasion into the plateau. The Byzantines retained some fortresses, and frontier fighting continued. Kilij Arslan later took Malatya in 1178, bringing the remaining Danishmendid principality under his authority.

Near the end of his reign, Kilij Arslan divided territories among his sons and other relatives, allowing each to rule a region with considerable independence. This arrangement gave princes their own bases and resources, but it also produced repeated contests over the throne. During the Third Crusade in 1190, the army of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa entered Konya and occupied it for several days. The sultanate survived, though its rulers still had to manage family rivalry alongside external war.

Recovery and access to two seas

Kaykhusraw I lost the throne to his brother Suleiman II, spent time away from Anatolia, and returned to power in 1205. His period of exile included residence in Constantinople, evidence that dynastic rivals could seek support or refuge across religious boundaries. He captured Antalya on the Mediterranean in 1207. Its harbour gave the sultanate a direct outlet to seaborne trade and a base on the southern coast.

Kaykhusraw’s successor Kaykavus I took Sinop on the Black Sea coast in 1214 and recovered Antalya in 1216 after a rebellion there. With ports on both seas, the court could connect inland roads to maritime traffic and strengthen its position along routes between the Russian steppe, Anatolian towns and the eastern Mediterranean. The ports gave the sultanate maritime footholds, while neighbouring Christian states continued to hold territories along the coasts.

Kayqubad I ruled from 1220 to 1237 and presided over the sultanate’s strongest period. The Abbasid caliph, a religious and political figure based in Baghdad, confirmed his accession by sending a letter of appointment and ceremonial regalia, a public recognition of his claim. Kayqubad secured Alanya around 1221, fortified its harbour and established a shipyard there. The port strengthened the southern fleet and tied the ruler’s military presence to the Mediterranean coast.

Kayqubad also used alliances and campaigns to extend influence across the interior. At Yassıçemen in eastern Anatolia in 1230, he and the Ayyubid ruler al-Ashraf, whose dynasty ruled Egypt and parts of Syria, defeated Jalal al-Din, the Khwarazmian ruler, after a dispute over eastern Anatolian territories. The victory removed a powerful rival but brought the sultanate closer to Mongol pressure. Kayqubad’s government also maintained caravanserais, guarded roadside inns where travelling merchants and their animals could rest, as part of the infrastructure supporting movement across long inland routes. His reign expanded Seljuk authority without eliminating peripheral Christian states such as Nicaea, Trebizond and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia.

Köse Dağ and the Mongol order

Kaykhusraw II inherited the throne in 1237. In 1240, the preacher known as Baba Rasul inspired a major revolt among Turkmen (Turkic-speaking pastoral communities) in southeastern Anatolia and around Amasya. The uprising exposed tensions within the sultanate before it had answered repeated Mongol incursions in the east. The Mongols had already pressed the Seljuks to submit to their authority, but raiding continued along the frontier.

In 1243 the Mongol general Bayju defeated Kaykhusraw’s army at Köse Dağ in eastern Anatolia. The sultan fled, and several important cities, including Sivas and Kayseri, were devastated. Seljuk officials negotiated with the Mongols and accepted the sultanate’s subordinate status in return for the continuation of the dynasty. The settlement required tribute and cooperation with Mongol demands. The sultan still ruled from his court, but his choices now depended on Mongol approval and the ability of senior officials to negotiate with the imperial authorities.

The new arrangement became particularly visible after Kaykhusraw II died in 1246, leaving three young sons. Court officials first placed Kaykavus II on the throne, while Mongol rulers and their representatives intervened in the competing claims of his brothers. The princes at times ruled jointly, but their governments relied on ministers who directed state affairs and emirs, or senior military commanders, for administration and diplomacy. In 1256 a Mongol victory near Aksaray forced Kaykavus II to flee to Nicaea. The sultans remained in office, but Mongol forces and officials increasingly set the terms of rule.

Ministers, revolts and the last sultans

The later thirteenth century brought further changes rather than an immediate end to Seljuk government. Muin al-Din Suleiman, known by the title Pervane, became a leading minister and brokered political arrangements among sultans, Mongol authorities and regional commanders. In 1277 the Mamluk sultan Baybars, ruler of Egypt and Syria, entered Anatolia and defeated a Mongol force at Elbistan. Baybars withdrew, and Mongol reprisals followed; the Pervane was executed. The episode showed that an outside victory could briefly unsettle Mongol control without establishing a lasting Mamluk government in Anatolia.

By the late thirteenth century, Mongol authorities appointed or supported successive Seljuk sultans, who served as local rulers within the Ilkhanate, the Mongol state centred in Iran. Their power varied, and rival princes, officials and regional dynasties controlled much of political life. The sultanate is usually considered to have ended around 1308, when the last rulers disappear from the record. Anatolia then contained numerous principalities, or beyliks, rather than passing as a whole to one successor. The Ottoman state was one of these later powers. Seljuk-era cities and institutions continued to matter, but the end of the dynasty was a gradual political dissolution, not a single transfer of the peninsula.