The Eclipse of Khurasan in the Twelfth Century

The Eclipse of Khurasan in the Twelfth Century

Author: 
Tor, D.G.
Publisher: 
Cambridge University Press
Date published: 
2018
Record type: 
Journal Title: 
Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African studies
Source: 
Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 81, N0. 2, February 2018 pp. 251-276
Abstract: 

The province of Khurasan constituted the centre of political, cultural, and religious life in the Sunni Islamic world from the ninth until the mid-twelfth century, after which Khurasan was completely eclipsed. The question of how this occurred has remained almost completely unstudied; and the one study that there is does not consult the key primary literary sources for the time. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to re-examine what the primary sources reveal about the catastrophic cultural and political eclipse of Khurasan in the mid-twelfth century, in order to demonstrate that this catastrophe was not due to "climate, cotton and camels" - in fact, Khurasan was doing very well until the 1150s - but to concrete human agency and action: namely, the province's destruction by the rampaging Oghuz Turkmens after Sultan Sanjar had been taken captive by them in 1153, thus leading directly to the downfall of the Great Seljuq Sultanate.

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CITATION: Tor, D.G.. The Eclipse of Khurasan in the Twelfth Century . : Cambridge University Press , 2018. Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 81, N0. 2, February 2018 pp. 251-276 - Available at: https://library.au.int/eclipse-khurasan-twelfth-century