Seljuk Legacy and Influence

Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Great Seljuk rulers in Iran and Iraq and the sultans of Rum in Anatolia established mosques, colleges and Sufi lodges, centers for a devotional tradition within Islam. After Seljuk political rule ended in the early fourteenth century, later rulers continued using these institutions and adapted them to new settings. Mongol Ilkhanid rulers in Iran patronized inherited crafts and foundations; in Anatolia, regional principalities known as beyliks continued to support buildings and Persian learning. These connections can be followed in particular mosques, objects, manuscripts and communities.

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Mosques that grew with their cities

The congregational mosque at Isfahan, in central Iran, was already an old building when Seljuk patrons enlarged it. Their work arranged four iwans around the courtyard. An iwan is a vaulted hall open on one side, and each hall faced the central court. Seljuk patrons also commissioned two important domes. The southern dome was built under vizier Nizam al-Mulk around 1086–87. It had two shells, an inner ceiling and an outer roof, and eight ribs on the interior. UNESCO describes it as an early double-shell ribbed dome whose engineering influenced later building. The courtyard plan also became influential, including across Central Asia.

Later patrons continued to build onto the mosque rather than replace the complex. Mongol Ilkhanid rulers of Iran and, in later centuries, other Iranian dynasties added or altered spaces and decoration. The mosque still serves for prayer and remains connected to Isfahan’s bazaar streets, so its religious and urban uses are part of its continuing history. The four-iwan courtyard is one element of a monument formed by this continuing work. The Jameh Mosque of Isfahan preserves Seljuk spaces within that larger sequence.

Builders in Anatolia adapted architectural ideas to different materials and communities. At the Gök Madrasa in Sivas, stone carving associated with Armenian building traditions appears alongside brick forms common in Iran and Central Asia. After Mongol invasions in the 1240s, a group of Anatolian mosques also shows the arrival of woodworkers from Central Asia. Built from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries, these mosques have stone outer walls and rows of wooden columns that support flat timber ceilings and roofs. Carpenters decorated columns, beams, doors and pulpits with carved and painted patterns. The Eşrefoğlu Mosque at Beyşehir, built in 1296–99, is one example. Its wooden structure has remained part of an active mosque for more than seven centuries.

Crafts adapted in successor courts

Seljuk-era Iranian potters made thin stonepaste vessels from a quartz-rich body. They shaped the stiff material in molds, then glazed and fired it. Luster decoration required a second firing with little air and heavy smoke; this low-oxygen heat fixed metallic pigments to the glaze and produced a reflective sheen. Iranian potters also developed mina’i, a multicolored overglaze technique sometimes finished with gilding. By the early fourteenth century, the ceramic-maker Abu’l-Qasim described stonepaste production in a technical treatise, but mina’i had already fallen out of use. The text preserved knowledge of a method even as workshops changed their production.

Ilkhanid patrons and craftspeople adapted metalworking after the Mongol conquest. In bronze and brass vessels, craftsmen cut shallow designs into the surface and hammered in thin gold or silver strips. Artists inlaid decoration within this technique while incorporating a visual language associated with the Mongol court. Skilled metalworkers from Mosul in northern Iraq and Shiraz in southern Iran probably moved to Tabriz to work for the court. Ilkhanid potters also developed lajvardina, an enamel-and-gold overglaze technique applied to dark-blue or turquoise surfaces. It was distinctive to their period and was abandoned after Ilkhanid rule, while other stonepaste traditions continued.

The bronze lion-shaped incense burner made by Jafar ibn Muhammad ibn Ali in 1181–82 shows metalwork in use as well as on display. Its head lifts off so charcoal and incense can be placed inside; pierced openings in its body release fragrant smoke. An inscription records its maker and patron, connecting a working object to an elite commission. The burner was found in Khorasan, an eastern Iranian region.

Persian books found new readers

Persian remained a language of teaching and writing in Anatolia after Seljuk political rule ended. Thirteenth-century scholars in cities such as Konya created and copied religious works, and students at some madrasas learned in Persian. In 1323, an Arabic commentary was explained in Persian for students in Antalya. Later in the fourteenth century, the scholar Jamal al-Din Muhammad Aqsara’i wrote his work As’ela wa ajweba in Persian rather than Arabic for the governor of Amasya, explaining that the city’s people understood Persian more easily. Together, the Antalya and Amasya examples show two ways teachers made learning accessible: explaining a text in another language and composing for readers in their own language.

Migration also carried books and learning across political borders. Scholars escaping Mongol conquests brought books into Anatolia, where they continued to teach and copy manuscripts. Najm al-Din Daya’s thirteenth-century Mirsad al-ibad, a guide to Sufi teachings, was copied in 1352 near Antalya, after the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum had ended. That dated copy shows a text composed in one century still being read and reproduced in a later political setting.

Rumi’s followers and continuing instruction

Jalal al-Din Rumi, the Persian poet and spiritual teacher who lived in Konya, died in 1273. His son Sultan Walad (1226–1312) carried his teaching into the next generation. After the death of Rumi’s close associate Husam al-Din in 1284, Sultan Walad led the Mawlawiyya, the community of Rumi’s followers. He organized its members, sent representatives to establish the group in Anatolia and elsewhere, and explained Rumi’s writings again for disciples who found them difficult. These acts joined reading and teaching to a network of people and lodges. Walad also composed teaching poems and discourses that clarified his father’s writings, so literary instruction developed alongside the community’s organization.

Endowed lodges and lasting communities

A waqf was an endowment that assigned property or its income to a religious or charitable purpose. The eleventh-century Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk supported madrasas, or schools, alongside khanaqahs, Sufi lodges where followers could live, study and pray. Their endowments paid for upkeep and service beyond an individual patron’s lifetime. The lodge and school developed as related institutions, supported by property and overseen by attendants responsible for the funds.

Later rulers reused this institutional model. The Ayyubids, a dynasty that ruled Egypt and parts of Syria, built madrasas and khanaqahs across those regions. Early Mamluk rulers, whose military-led dynasty also governed Egypt and Syria, made the Seljuk madrasa-lodge system a foundation of their patronage. In Mamluk cities, lodges were incorporated into larger complexes with mosques, schools, tombs and public services such as fountains or hospitals. Ilkhanid rulers and officials also founded lodges, including at Tabriz and Soltaniyeh. The buildings and the income attached to them gave teachers, students and Sufi followers a place to gather under successive dynasties.