Alp Arslan was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. He greatly expanded the Seljuk territory and consolidated his power, defeating rivals to the south and northwest, and his victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, in 1071, ushered in the Turkoman settlement of Anatolia. For his military prowess and fighting skills, he obtained the name Alp Arslan, which means "Heroic Lion" in Turkish.
Abu Talib Muhammad Tughril ibn Mika'il, better known as Tughril, was a Turkoman chieftain, who founded the Seljuk Empire, ruling from 1037 to 1063.
The Anushtegin dynasty or Anushteginids, also known as the Khwarazmian dynasty was a Persianate Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin from the Bekdili clan of the Oghuz Turks. The Anushteginid dynasty ruled the Khwarazmian Empire, consisting in large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuks and the Qara Khitai, and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire in the 13th century.
Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn al-Hassan al-Mustadi' better known by his laqab Al-Nasir li-Din Allah or simply as Al-Nasir was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 1180 until his death. His laqab literally can mean The One who Gives Victory to the Religion of God. He continued the efforts of his grandfather Al-Muqtafi in restoring the caliphate to its ancient dominant role and achieved a surprising amount of success as his army even conquered parts of Iran. According to the historian, Angelika Hartmann, Al-Nasir was the last effective Abbasid Caliph.
Khwarazmshah was an ancient title used regularly by the rulers of the Central Asian region of Khwarazm starting from the Late Antiquity until the advent of the Mongols in the early 13th-century, after which it was used infrequently. There were a total of four families who ruled as Khwarazmshahs—the Afrighids (305–995), Ma'munids (995–1017), the line of Altuntash (1017–1041), and the most prominent ones, the Anushteginids (1097–1231). Like other contemporary Central Asian titles, such as Afshin and Ikhshid, the title of Khwarazmshah is of Iranian origin.
Ala al-Din wa-l-Dawla Abu'l-Muzaffar Atsiz ibn Muhammad ibn Anushtegin, better known as Atsiz (اتسز) was the second Khwarazmshah from 1127/8 to 1156. He was the son and successor of Muhammad I.
Jalal-ud-Din Sultan-Shah, known as Sultan-Shah was a claimant to the title of Khwarazmshah from 1172 until his death. He was the son of Il-Arslan.
Il-Arslan was the Shah of Khwarezm from 1156 until 1172. He was the son of Atsïz.
Anushtegin Gharchai was a Turkic slave commander of the Seljuks and the governor of Khwarazm from approximately 1077 until 1097. He was the first member of his family to play a role in the history of Khwarazm, and the namesake for the dynasty that would rule the province in the 12th and early 13th centuries.
Ala al-Din Tekish or Tekesh or Takesh was the Shah of Khwarazmian Empire from 1172 to 1200. He was the son of Il-Arslan. His rule was contested by his brother, Sultan Shah, who held a principality in Khorasan. Tekish inherited Sultan Shah's state after he died in 1193. In Turkic the name Tekish means he who strikes in battle.
Mu'ayyid al-Din Ai-Aba was the amir of Nishapur from c. 1154 until his death. Although nominally subservient to the Seljuks of Khurasan, he acted as an independent ruler. Due to his control of much of Khurasan, the historian Ibn Funduq called him "Emperor of Khurasan, King of the East."
This article concerns the city of Ray, Iran as a military objective, not the large territory of which it was once capital. Ray, in an area of fertile lowland between the Zagros Mountains, the Elburz Mountains, and the great Dasht-e Kavir desert, commanded vital routes across and around the mountains, and was a key to power over the whole of Persia (Iran). The vast majority of ancient Persian literature has been lost, so little is known about the history of Ray before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century CE.
The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia took place between 1219 and 1221, as troops of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan invaded the lands of the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia. The campaign, which followed the annexation of the Qara Khitai khanate, saw widespread devastation and atrocities, and marked the completion of the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, and began the Mongol conquest of Persia.
Toghrul III was the last sultan of the Great Seljuk Empire and the last Seljuk Sultan of Iraq. His great uncle Sultan Ghiyath ad-Din Mas'ud (c.1134–1152) had appointed Shams ad-Din Eldiguz (c.1135/36–1175) as atabeg of his nephew Arslan-Shah, the son of his brother Toghrul II, and transferred Arran to his nephew's possession as iqta in 1136. Eldiguz eventually married Mu’mina Khatun, the widow of Toghril II, and his sons Nusrat al-Din Muhammad Pahlavan and Qizil Arslan Uthman were thus half-brothers of Arslan Shah, but despite close ties with the Royal Seljuk house, Eldiguz had remain aloof of the royal politics, concentrating on repelling the Georgians and consolidating his power. In 1160, Sultan Suleiman-Shah named Arslan Shah his heir and gave him governorship of Arran and Azerbaijan, fearful of the power of Eldiguz.
The Khwarazmian or Khwarezmian Empire was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim empire of Turkic mamluk origin, that ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuk Empire and the Qara Khitai, and from circa 1190 as independent rulers, up until the Mongol conquest in 1219-1221. The Khwarazmian Empire eventually became "the most powerful and aggressively expansionist empire in the Persian lands", defeating the Seljuk Empire and the Ghurid Empire, even threatening the Abbasid caliphate, making it in the beginning of the 13th century the greatest power in the Muslim world. It is estimated that the empire spanned an area of 2.3 million square kilometers to 3.6 million square kilometers effectively making it one of the largest land empires in history. The empire, which was modelled on the preceding Seljuk Empire, was defended by a huge cavalry army composed largely of Kipchak Turks.
Ardashir I, was the ruler of the Bavand dynasty from 1173 to 1205. He was the son and successor of Hasan I.
Terken Khatun, also spelled Turkan Hatun, was the Empress of the Khwarazmian Empire by marriage to Shah Ala ad-Din Tekish, and the mother and de facto co-ruler of Muhammad II of the Khwarazmian Empire.
Ghiyath ad-Dunya wa ad-Din ibn Muhammad, better known by his regnal name of Suleiman-Shah, was sultan of the Seljuq Empire from 1159 to 1160.
Yelü Pusuwan was regent of the Western Liao dynasty during the minority of her nephew Yelü Zhilugu from 1163 to 1177. She was the younger sister of the Western Liao emperor Yelü Yilie.
Yelü Zhilugu was the third emperor of the Western Liao dynasty, ruling from 1177 to 1211. As the final ruler from the House of Yelü, he is considered by traditional Chinese sources to be the last monarch of the Western Liao dynasty.
