ABSTRACT
The arrival o f the Saljuq Turks marks a new era in Persian history. There had been Turks in the Islamic world before the eleventh century - the caliph’s mamluks in Baghdad, such dynasties as the Ghaznawids - but these were all, in origin, slaves who had been recruited as indi viduals. In so far as they had held power, they had acquired it by taking over a going concern from the inside. The Saljuqs were different. They conquered Persia, and other lands, from the borders o f the Dar al-Islam; they were still nomads, and they were still organized tribally. Their conquest marked the beginning o f Persia’s period o f Turkish rule, a period which lasted until the early sixteenth century and even, in some sense, until 1925.
