Fars: the Salghurid atabegs

Who rules

Name

Abu Shuja' Sa'd ibn Zangi (in Shiraz), challenged in arms by his cousin Qutb al-Din Tughril ibn Sunqur

Title

Atabeg of Fars

Since

594 AH (1198), at the death of his brother Tekele (Mercil); 591 AH (1195) in other modern lists

Born

Not pinned

Family

Salghurid Turkmen house; son of the atabeg Muzaffar al-Din Zangi ibn Mawdud (d. 570/1174-75 or 574/1178-79); brother and heir of Tekele (Takla, Degele) ibn Zangi

Confidence

medium

Mercil (TDV 'Salgurlular'); German Wikipedia after Bosworth (EI2) and Spuler (EIr); Shahbazi (EIr 'Shiraz'). The sources disagree on Tughril (see notes_discrepancy).

Overlord

No sultan since the last Seljuk of Iraq fell in 590/1194; the caliph al-Nasir is named in the prayer. The Khwarazmshah Tekish, heir to the Seljuk claims in the west, has not made Fars submit (the Salghurids own Khwarazmian overlordship only from 614/1217).

What the realm holds

• Shiraz and its plain (capital, mint)
• The castles of Istakhr and Ishkanwan by the Marvdasht plain, with the neighbouring castles of Shikasta and Shahrak: treasury and state prison
• Kazerun and the Shapur valley
• Firuzabad (Gur) and the Ardashir Khurra district
• Fasa and Jahrom
• Sarvestan, Kavar and Qir and Karzin
• The northern districts towards Isfahan: Beyza, Kamfiruz, Mayin, Pasargadae, Eqlid, Abadeh and Surmaq
• The border districts of Yazdikhwast and Sumayram (Semirom), which the geographers count in Fars (hold in 1200 not pinned)
• The coast of the Sif from Ganaveh to Siraf, with Rishahr, Najiram and Siraf (hold loose; the island lords of Kish dominate the sea)
• Arrajan and its coast (Mahruban) towards Khuzistan (not pinned: the atabeg or the caliph's governor of Khuzistan)
• Overlordship, contested, over the Shabankara Kurds of Ij and Darabgird

How it was acquired

Sunqur ibn Mawdud took Fars in 543/1148 during Sultan Mas'ud's troubles; his brother Zangi was confirmed by Sultan Arslan ibn Tughril; Zangi's son Tekele ruled from 1175 or 1178 to 594/1198; Sa'd succeeded his brother.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: Tughril ibn Sunqur and his party inside Fars; the Hazaraspid atabeg of Greater Lur, whose father Hazarasp invaded Shulistan in Tekele's reign and forced a settlement; the Shabankara chiefs. Neighbours: the caliph, master of Khuzistan since 591/1195; the atabeg Langar of Yazd, who once governed Shiraz for the Seljuks; the Khwarazmian governor in Kerman; the island lords of Kish. Sa'd's later wars in Kerman (from 600/1203-04) and his march on Isfahan (600/1204) lie ahead.

The realm that morning

Sa'd holds Shiraz and, as far as the sources show, the central plains and the castles; Tughril is in arms in Fars, where exactly is not pinned. Fars is suffering famine and the wasting of the civil war. The khutba in Shiraz names the caliph al-Nasir; no sultan is named. The atabeg's vizier in 1199-1200 is not pinned (Amin al-Dawla Kazeruni had served Tekele). The Salghurids strike coins at Shiraz; no dated coin of 1199-1200 was seen.

Religious life: Shafi'i Sunni townsmen and ulama, strong Sufi circles (Ruzbihan Baqli at Shiraz, the Kazeruni order at Kazerun), Jews in the towns and Zoroastrians in the countryside; none of them is a party to the war as far as the sources show.

Wealth

The irrigated plains of Shiraz and Marvdasht (grain, fruit, vines), the rosewater of Firuzabad and Jur, the linen and cotton cloth of Kazerun, Jahrom and Fasa, the roads from Isfahan and Yazd to the Gulf and to Kerman, the tolls of the coast and of the Kazerun road to the sea, the endowed bazaars of Shiraz (Sunqur's madrasa held four bazaars and several underground canals (qanat) in endowment). Famine has cut the yield in the late 1190s.

Military

The atabeg's Turkish household and slave soldiers, the holders of iqta' grants, a body of Oghuz who, by Mercil's account, came to Fars after the Khwarazmian prince Sultan Shah took Merv and Sarakhs (about 1180) and probably merged with the Salghurid following (the same migration, about 5,000 horsemen with their families according to Bosworth, overran Kerman), Kurdish and Lur levies. Strongholds: the Istakhr castles, Ishkanwan, the citadel of Shiraz (the Buyid wall was in ruins in the early twelfth century, Ibn al-Balkhi via Le Strange; Sa'd's new wall is later). No figures for 1200.

Threats

• Tughril's rebellion and the split of the Turkish emirs
• Famine and the flight of peasants
• The Hazaraspids on the Shulistan border
• The Shabankara chiefs in the east
• A Khwarazmian advance from Kerman or the Jibal

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 596-599 AH (1200-1203)The civil war between Sa'd and Tughril goes on, with famine and plague in Fars.Depends on: Neither cousin able to destroy the other Stopped by: A decisive battle or a settlement dividing Fars

Later, on the likely course

1. 599 AH (1202-03)Sa'd captures Tughril and has him executed; his rule is undisputed from then on.Depends on: Sa'd winning the war Stopped by: Tughril's victory, or Sa'd's death
2. 600 AH (1203-04)The Ghuzz who hold Bardasir surrender it to Sa'd's army: the start of Salghurid rule in Kerman. The same year Sa'd takes Isfahan without a fight (Mercil).Depends on: The end of the civil war in Fars and the collapse of order in Kerman after Tekish's death Stopped by: A renewed Khwarazmian grip on Kerman; a strong lord in Isfahan
3. 1 Rajab 605 AH (9 January 1209)Sa'd enters Bardasir and sits on the throne of Qavurt (Mercil).Depends on: Continued success in Kerman Stopped by: Ghuzz or Shabankara resistance

Places of note

• Castle of Istakhr: The atabegs' treasury and prison on the crag above the ruins of Istakhr, one of the castles of the Marvdasht plain (with Ishkanwan, Shikasta and Shahrak)

Where the sources disagree

• The GM's dossier says the succession is contested between Tughril ibn Sunqur and Sa'd ibn Zangi. That is the account of Bosworth (EI2, after Zarkub and Wassaf) as summarised in the German Wikipedia: Tughril rebelled against Tekele in 1182-83, rose again after Tekele's death, and was executed by Sa'd in 1202-03 after eight devastating years of war. But Mercil (TDV 'Salgurlular') says Tekele captured Tughril and had him killed in 577/1181-82, and that Sa'd succeeded unchallenged on Tekele's death in 594/1198. If Mercil is right, there is no Tughril in 1200 and Sa'd holds Fars alone. The map follows the majority account (Sa'd in Shiraz, Tughril in revolt) and marks the point low confidence.
• Tekele's death: 594/1198 at Bidek near Fasa (Mercil); 1197-98 (German Wikipedia); 591/1194-95 in some modern king lists, which also start Sa'd's reign in 1195 (Shahbazi, EIr 'Shiraz'). Either way Sa'd is in Shiraz by 1 January 1200 on the majority reading.
• English Wikipedia's Salghurid list omits Tughril altogether (Tekele 1178-1198, Sa'd 1198-1226).

Evidence: The dynasty is well attested (Zarkub, Wassaf, Mustawfi, Muhammad b. Ibrahim, Ibn al-Athir), but the succession of 1194-1203 is told differently by the modern authorities, and the year-by-year course of the civil war could not be read in the sources reached.

On the map: A rough outline of the atabeg's core; the edges towards the Lurs, the Shabankara and the coast are uncertain, and Tughril's holdings inside it are not pinned.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Comfort of Hearts and Sign of Joy: a History of the Seljuks, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Rawandi (Ravandi) (1203 to 1204, dedicated to Kaykhusraw I of Rum). A history of the Great Seljuks from their origins to the death of the last sultan Toghril III in 1194, begun at Hamadan and finished for Kaykhusraw of Rum when the author moved to Anatolia. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online