ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an outline of the most important developments of Seljuk political structures in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia in the time between Maliksh-üh's predominance and the eve of the First Crusade. This 11-year period witnessed a rapid sequence of upheavals and changes in the political setting of the wider region, during which the antagonism between local centrifugal and supra-regional centralizing forces entered its most decisive stage. The Turkish penetration of central and western Anatolia advanced rapidly during the years 1086–98. Tendencies of fragmentation were curbed, and concepts of Seljuk dynastic legitimacy supporting Sultan Malikshāh's suzerainty over all potentates in Syria began to gain broader acceptance. Most areas of the old Byzantine-Muslim borderland were transformed into a disparate and highly fragmented patchwork of tiny local lordships consisting of one or two main towns and a number of smaller strongpoints.
