ABSTRACT
Modern Turkish historiography presents Sulayman b. Qutlumush as a central figure in the creation of a Turkish nation and its collective historical memory in Anatolia. As raiders, military commanders, and valuable allies of Byzantine rebels and emperors, such as Nikephoros III Botaneiates and Alexios I, Sulayman b. Qutlumush and his companions laid the foundations for the formation of a new political entity that soon acquired distinct Muslim-Turkish characteristics. The situation in which the sons of Qutlumush made their appearance in the political setting of Syria and the Byzantine borderland in the early 1070s was characterized. Syria was the first region within the Byzantine sphere of influence in which the Turks proceeded to establish permanent political entities and played a pioneering role for similar developments in Anatolia. The fading influence of supra-regional powers, such as Byzantium and the Fatimid caliphate, was additional feature favoring the intrusion of Turkish warrior groups into enfeebled and disintegrating structures of the political landscape in Syria.
