Religion in the Seljuk World

The Seljuk states ruled from the eleventh into the early fourteenth century across Iran, Iraq and Anatolia, regions where Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims lived alongside Christians, Jews and other communities. Their sultans backed Sunni scholars and institutions, yet religious life also depended on local teachers, congregations and political alliances. A college patronized in Isfahan, a Sufi lodge in Tus, and a revolt in Christian Antalya show how these relationships worked in particular settings.

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Sunni rulers and the Abbasid caliphate

Sunni Islam was the branch of Islam followed by the Seljuk sultans; its scholars interpreted religious law through several schools. The Abbasid caliph, based in Baghdad, held a separate position as a source of religious and political recognition. When Tughril entered Baghdad in 1055, Seljuk military power became closely tied to the caliphate, though rulers and caliphs still negotiated their respective authority.

That relationship remained useful in the Sultanate of Rum. At the start of Kayqubad I’s reign in 1220, Caliph al-Nasir sent the scholar and Sufi teacher Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi to Konya with a manshur, a letter formally recognizing the sultan’s rule over Anatolia. The caliph’s appointment gave Kayqubad a public confirmation of his authority, while the sultan’s own army and administration secured his control on the ground.

Hanafi and Shafi‘i were two Sunni schools of Islamic law. Their scholars taught, issued legal opinions and served as community leaders, while patrons decided which learned families and institutions received support. In Isfahan, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk brought the Shafi‘i scholar Abu Bakr al-Khojandi from Marv and placed him in charge of the Nizamiyya college. Its endowment drew on nearby agricultural lands, turning rural income into support for a city institution.

That appointment strengthened one local scholarly family. Nizam al-Mulk also sponsored the Hanafi Sa‘edi family, and both became leaders of their respective communities. Their rise altered Isfahan’s local balance of influence and contributed to factional disputes. Patronage redistributed posts and resources among legal schools and established urban families.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s career shows what such patronage could mean for an individual scholar. A Shafi‘i jurist from Tus in Khorasan, he was appointed in 1091 to teach Shafi‘i law at the Baghdad Nizamiyya. Four years later, after illness and a crisis of confidence, he left his post and sought a more disciplined spiritual life. In his own writing he described the change as a search for certainty; his later work joined legal scholarship with Sufi devotion.

Sufi teachers, lodges and followers

Sufism is a Muslim devotional tradition that emphasizes spiritual discipline and drawing closer to God. A khanqah was a lodge where Sufi followers could live, study, gather for prayer and learn from a master. Under the Seljuks, patronage helped these lodges become established institutions in Iran and Iraq. Al-Ghazali eventually founded a lodge in Tus for the lodging and instruction of his disciples.

In thirteenth-century Konya, the poet and teacher Rumi gathered a circle of students and followers. Rumi’s followers continued after his death in 1273, initially under Ḥosām-al-Dīn Čalabī. Sultan Walad, Rumi’s son, accepted leadership after Čalabī died in 1284. Walad cultivated relations with Seljuk and Mongol rulers, wrote accessible explanations of Rumi’s teachings, and sent representatives to establish affiliated groups across Anatolia. By Walad’s death in 1312, the Mawlawiyya, later known as the Mevlevi order, had an organized network.

Shi‘i Muslims and the Nizari Ismailis

Shi‘i Muslims, another major branch of Islam, formed several communities. Nizari Ismailis were one Shi‘i tradition, distinct from other Shi‘i groups. In 1090, Hasan Sabbah seized the mountain fortress of Alamut in the Alborz range north of Qazvin and made it the center of a Persian Nizari movement. His followers also took strongholds in Rudbar and towns in Quhistan, in southeastern Khorasan, creating a network within Seljuk territory.

The Seljuk response included military campaigns. In 1092, expeditions targeted Ismaili strongholds in Rudbar and Quhistan, but the campaigns stopped amid the deaths of Nizam al-Mulk and Sultan Malik Shah and the resulting succession crisis. In 1094, a succession dispute over the Fatimid caliphate split the Ismaili community: Hasan’s followers in Persia and Iraq backed Nizar, while other Ismailis recognized al-Musta‘li. Nizari forces killed prominent opponents and faced massacres of Ismailis in return. This conflict combined political control of fortresses and towns with a dispute over religious leadership.

Christian and Jewish communities

Christian life involved communities under Seljuk rule as well as neighboring Christian states. The Byzantine Empire of Nicaea held the west of Anatolia, Trebizond the eastern Black Sea coast, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia the southeast. Seljuk rulers fought these states, negotiated with them and employed Greeks at court; Byzantine nobles who had fallen from favor sometimes sought refuge with Seljuk rulers. In Baghdad, an eleventh-century appointment letter for the Church of the East, an East Syriac Christian church, assigned its leader, the katholikos, responsibility for religious life, communal funds and the community’s court.

A local case shows the tensions of conquest. Antalya’s population was predominantly Christian when the city rebelled with help from Cyprus during a Seljuk succession struggle. Kaykavus I regained the port in 1215–16 and marked his victory in an inscription. These episodes show Christian communities shaping local politics through revolt and alliances, while Greek officials and Byzantine princes could also work with Seljuk courts.

Jewish communities also lived in the major cities of Iran and Iraq. In Baghdad, the exilarch, a leading Jewish communal authority, appointed judges, maintained a court and distributed aid to people in need; the office continued into the thirteenth century, though its power was contested by scholars and wealthy merchants. The twelfth-century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela also records communities in Isfahan and Shiraz. His population figures are estimates rather than verified counts, but his itinerary documents Jewish presence in cities where Seljuk courts and scholars operated.

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