ABSTRACT
The two decades before the First Crusade marked both the establishment and the turning-point of Seljukid rule in Syria. Originally the house of Seljuk had regarded their empire as pertaining to the family as a whole rather than to a single individual. In practice as time went on, the regime became increasingly monarchical in character as the Turkish clan-chief was transmuted into the Islamic sultan, and appropriated the despotic ideas and arbitrary methods of government which had developed under the Abbasid caliphs. The most powerful office which came to be held by Mamluks was that of atabeg. The function of the atabeg was to act as tutor and guardian of a young Seljukid prince, and where his ward was the holder of an appanage, the atabeg was in effect a regent with plenary powers. The mainspring of the military establishment was the ruler's court, which probably reproduced in miniature the dargah of the Great Seljuk sultans.
