ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 485/1092, after four decades of peace, war came to Jibal again. The deaths in quick succession of Nizam al-Mulk and Malik-Shah set off a dynastic crisis on a scale never before seen in the history of the Saljuq state. In the course of Malik-Shah’s reign, Isfahan had so succeeded in imposing itself as capital of the empire that it came to be seen as one of the attributes of the sultanate. As a result, when the succession crisis erupted it became a major prize. The civil war that shook Isfahan at the very end of the fifth/eleventh century was not a manifestation of irrational violence, yet another ‘mischance of war’ in a period that had already seen so many. It was the direct result of tensions at work inside Isfahani society since the beginning of Saljuq rule.
