Abu Talib Muhammad Tughril ibn Mika’il (Persian), commonly known as Sultan Tughril Beg or Tughril, was a Turkoman chieftain who formed the Seljuk Empire and reigned from 1037 until 1063. Tughril was born about the year 993, most likely in the Central Asian steppes, when nomadic Oghuz Turks roamed in search of grass for their animals. Tughril and his brother Chaghri were supposedly nurtured in Jand by their grandpa Seljuk (the eponymous founder of the Seljuks) after their father Mikail died. The wife of Sultan Tughril Beg was Altun Jan Khatun.
She was a Turkic woman, probably from Khwarazm. The Seljuk family appears to have converted to Islam, at least formally, around this time. In return for grazing for their herds, the Seljuks were hired as mercenaries by the warring groups of Transoxiana and Khwarazm in the ensuing decades.
He gathered numerous Turkmen soldiers from the Central Asian steppes into a c onfederacy of clans descended from a common ancestor named Seljuk and led them in the conquest of eastern Iran. After invading Iran and capturing the Abbasid capital of Baghdad from the Buyids in 1055, he established the Seljuk Sultanate. In order to extend his empire’s frontiers and unite the Islamic world, Tughril reduced the Abbasid Caliphs to state figureheads and assumed command of the caliphate’s forces in military offensives against the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimids.
Sultan Tughril was a military genius without a doubt. Despite the fact that his military efforts wreaked havoc on the creative powers of many conquered kingdoms, they opened the way for the Turks to construct the first major medieval empire that connected “the East and the West.” The establishment of a massive empire brought about significant changes in socio-economic, political, and cultural life. The landowning aristocracy’s influence grew significantly. Gradually, a new state administrative infrastructure and an imperial civil and military administration system emerged.
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Tughril’s conquests had an influence on the lives of not just the citizens of the annexed territories, but also the nomads who helped build the new state. As the Oghuz-Turkmen tribes settled in Khorasan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Transcaucasia, and Asia Minor, significant changes in their lives happened. The shift from nomadic life to semi-settled and sedentary life, as well as agriculture, took occurred. The ancient tribal links disintegrated, giving feudal relations a fresh impetus to grow, while relics of archaic institutions lingered for a long time. The Seljuk nobility progressively merged with the conquered kingdoms’ feudal aristocracy.
Tughril died on 4 October 1063 in Ray, at the age of seventy. After his death, his brother Chaghri made the Empire of the Seljuk dynasty.
