Sultanate of Rum - Culture and Society

Culture and Society

The Seljuk dynasty of Rum, as successors to the Great Seljuqs, based their political, religious and cultural heritage off the Perso-Islamic tradition. Though of Turkic origin, Rum Seljuks patronized Persian art, architecture, literature, while they used Persian as a language of administration. Moreover, Byzantine influence in the Sultanate was also significant, since Greek aristocracy remained part of the Seljuk nobility, and the local Greek population was numerous in the region.

In their construction of caravanserais, medreses and mosques, the Rum Seljuks translated the Iranian Seljuk architecture of bricks and plaster into the use of stone. Among these, the caravanserais (or hans), used as stops, trading posts and defense for caravans, and of which about a hundred structures were built during the Anatolian Seljuqs period, are particularly remarkable. Along with Persian influences, which had an indisputable effect, Seljuk architecture was inspired by Christian and Muslim Armenians. As such, Anatolian architecture represents some of the most distinctive and impressive constructions in the entire history of Islamic architecture.

The largest caravanserai is the 1229-built Sultan Han on the road between the cities of Konya and Aksaray, in the township of Sultanhanı depending the latter city, enclosing 3,900 square meters. There are two caravanserais that carry the name "Sultan Han", the other one being between Kayseri and Sivas. Furthermore, apart from Sultanhanı, five other towns across Turkey owe their names to caravanserais built there. These are Alacahan in Kangal, Durağan, Hekimhan and Kadınhanı, as well as the township of Akhan within Denizli metropolitan area. The caravanserai of Hekimhan is unique in having, underneath the usual inscription in Arabic with information relating to the edifice, two further inscriptions in Armenian and Syriac, since it was constructed by the sultan Kayqubad I's doctor (hekim) who is thought to have been a Christian by his origins, and to have converted to Islam. There are other particular cases like the settlement in Kalehisar site (contiguous to an ancient Hittite site) near Alaca, founded by the Seljuq commander Hüsameddin Temurlu who had taken refuge in the region after the defeat in the Battle of Köse Dağ, and had founded a township comprising a castle, a medrese, a habitation zone and a caravanserai, which were later abandoned apparently around the 16th century. All but the caravanserai, which remains undiscovered, was explored in the 1960s by the art historian Oktay Aslanapa, and the finds as well as a number of documents attest to the existence of a vivid settlement in the site, such as a 1463-dated Ottoman firman which instructs the headmaster of the medrese to lodge not in the school but in the caravanserai.

The Seljuk palaces, as well as their armies, were staffed with ghulams, youths taken from non-Muslim communities, mainly Greeks from former Byzantine territories, although such a practice violated the Muslim law. The Ghulam practice may had offered a model for the latter Devshirme during the times of the Ottoman Empire.