World History › Section K · The medieval West and the Crusades › Topic K.2
The Seljuk migration and the call from the East
By the eleventh century the Islamic world had three rival caliphs, and real power in Baghdad lay with soldiers and dynasts. Into this divided world came the Seljuk Turks, steppe migrants who rebuilt Sunni rule, broke Byzantine power in Anatolia and set off the appeal that led to the Crusades.
In this topic
- A caliphate that came apart
- Slave soldiers and a weakened caliph
- Three caliphs at once
- The Oghuz and the house of Seljuk
- Sultans, scholars and Sunni revival
- Worked example: why keep the caliph?
- Byzantium after its peak
- Manzikert, 1071
- Worked example: was Manzikert a catastrophe?
- The call from the East
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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