ABSTRACT
After the death of Muhammad b. Malik-Shah, his brother Sanjar, who reigned in Khurasan, became head of the Saljuq family. In western Iran, Muhammad’s decendants continued to reign, but with ever-dwindling power. They have been called the Lesser Saljuqs, in contrast to the Great Saljuqs, of whom Sanjar was the last. This chapter sets out to define the new context in which the elites of Isfahan evolved. The greatest problems that Isfahanis faced on a day-to-day basis were heavy taxation and the tyranny of the local authorities. Pressure for tax revenues took various forms. In the chronicles, it only appears anecdotally, in the form of fines and mulcting (musadara) that were unjustified as well as illegal. The changed context of the sixth/twelfth century compared with the previous period was palpable. The local populations bore the full brunt of the state of endemic warfare that the Turkish emirs visited on Jibal.
