ABSTRACT
Warfare between Muslims and Byzantines was for the most part restricted to raids and campaigns in the march-lands between northern Syria and Anatolia. The transformation of bilad al-Rum into Muslim Turkey was a process in which the Arabs played no part, and the newly settled territories drew at first on the Persian Islamic culture of the Seljukid heartlands. Antioch was recaptured after over three centuries of Muslim rule in 358/969, and in 364/975 the Emperor John I Tzimisces invaded Syria, apparently with the intention of reconquering Jerusalem. The force which was in the end to overthrow Byzantine rule in Anatolia manifested itself in the fifth/eleventh century as the Turcoman tribesmen led by the house of Seljuk migrated into the western provinces of Muslim Asia. With Byzantine power virtually extinct in Anatolia, Suleyman began to extend his dominions eastwards in the direction of the heartlands of the Great Seljuk sultanate.
