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Toghrll (TuGHRIL) Beg (b. c. 990—d. Sept. 4, 1063, Rayy, Iran), founder of the Seljuq dynasty, which ruled in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia during the 1 lth-l4th centuries. Under his rule the Seljuqs assumed the leadership of the Islamic world by establishing political mastery over the ‘Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.
The grandson of Seljuq, chief of the Ouz tribes in the Jand region, Toghrfi, with his brother Chaghri, entered Muslim Transoxania shortly before 1016, and in 1025 they and their uncle Arslan entered the service of the Turkish Qarakhanid prince of Bukhara. Defeated by Mabmud of Ghazna in the same year, Toghril and ChaghrT. took refuge in Khw?rezm (around the estuary of the Amu Darya [river], southeast of the Aral Sea), while Arsian settled in Khor?san. Later, however, after their kinsmen in Khorasan had been driven by Mahmtid to western Iran, the two brothers themselves entered Khorasan, where, having established close ties with the orthodox Muslim groups in the large towns, they subdued Merv and NishapUr (1028-29). Finally, in 1040 at Dandanqan, the Seljuqs infficted a decisive defeat on Malmad’s son Mas ‘(Id. KhorAsan was then formed into a principality for Chaghri, while Toghril was left free to conquer the Iranian plateau.
A methodical ruler, Toghril succeeded in building an empire by careful planning. The first conquests were generally made by the Turkmen raiders led by his foster brother Ibrahjm Infll. He himself then followed to administer the conquered territories. In this way, between 1040 and 1044, he occupied the Caspian areas of Khorasan, Rayy, and Hamadan and established his suzerainty over Isfahan. In 1049 and 1054 he sent expeditions of Turkmens into the Byzantine lands of Anatolia, attempting to prevent Turkmen raids into the surrounding Muslim territories while at the same time increasing Seljuq power against the Byzantine Empire.
In 1055 Toghrll, after conquering the principalities to the east and north of Iraq, entered Baghdad, where since 945 the orthodox Sunni ‘Abbasid caliph had been under the protectorate of the Shi’ite dynasty of Bayids (or Buwayhids). Consequently Toghrfl was welcomed by the vizier Ibn al-Muslimah and by the caliph al-Qa’im, who bestowed on him the official title of sultan, and commissioned him to overthrow the Shi’ite Fatimid caliphs of Cairo in Egypt and to restore, under the ‘Abbasid caliph, the religious and political umty of the Islamic world.
Threatened by internal and external dangers, however, Toghnl was unable to fulfill this mission. The conversion of a Turkish tribal chieftainship into an Irano-Arabic sultanate led to great discontent among Toghril’s followers, the Turkmen tribesmen; and Seljuq princes like Ibrahim Inal felt insufficiently rewarded for their services. The former general of the BUyid troops in Baghdad, al-Basasjrt, was eager to recover his previous influence, and the Arabs in Mesopotamia and Syria were threatened by the Seljuq sultanate. The result was a general uprising against Toghril. Inal with his Turkmens revolted in Mesopotamia and Iran, while a coalition of Arab and Buyid forces, financed and controlled by the Fa;imids and led by Basasiri, entered Baghdad (1058). The ‘Abbasid caliph was imprisoned, and prayers were recited in the name of the Fflimid caliph. Toghril then crushed the rebellion (1060), regained Baghdad, and pacified the Arabs of Mesopotamia. During his last years he fought the petty princes in northwest Iran and forced the caliph to give him a daughter in marriage.
