ABSTRACT
In the time span between Sulayman's death in June 1086 and the beginning of the intra-dynastic civil strife in the Seljuk empire in early 1093, the situation in western Asia Minor was marked by the gradual crystallization of Turkish local lordships centered in provincial capitals and coastal towns along the shores of the Propontis and the Aegean Sea. The Armenian provinces in the East and the Anti-Taurus region, which since the 1060s and 1070s were transit zones for Turkmen warrior groups or passed under the rule of local emirs, had a fate unlike that of the southwestern section of the borderland stretching from Cilicia to the Diyār Muḍar province. The key points in the Byzantine borderlands, such as Antioch, Edessa, and Melitene, after a brief interlude of semi-independent local rule, fell into the hands of supra-regional Muslim powers or became centers of newly founded crusader principalities.
