The Turkish Seljuks, Slave Soldiers and the Jihad

The Seljuks were Turks who converted to the Muhammandan cult in the 10^th century.  They were not the first group within the Muhammadan cult(s) to use slave soldiers, enabling and implementing the idea of chattel-soldiery during the 10^th and 11^th centuries.  Arab Muslims ruling in Syria and Anatolia had used slave soldiers to great effect as early as the 9^th century (in for example, the complete destruction of Christian Amorium).  Later during the 14^th century and beyond the Ottomans became the most successful with the idea of using chattel as military, until their slaves became the masters, or the arbiters of power during the 17^th century and beyond.  Scanderbeg the great 15^th century Albanian-Christian leader who resisted Ottoman depredations for 25 years, was formerly a ransomed child slave and forced lover of a depraved Ottoman Sultan who enjoyed young boys, along with the unlimited numbers of White Christian and other sex concubines categorised meekly and inoffensively as a ‘harem’.  As if being a sex slave was enriching and a path to better things in life. 

The Turks were used in the 9^th century and perhaps earlier as slave soldiers for the Arab-Muslim rulers or Caliphs in the Near East.  They were chosen for their bravery, loyalty and savagery in battle.  As with other nomadic people, the cult of Muhammadan resonated with them, and the Turkic tribes converted en masse during the 9^th century.  Ibn Khaldun always referenced as a Muslim polymath and genius descried the Arabs as stupid and wild, and the Turks as ravenous wolves who loved Jihad and the destruction of Infidels.  The allure of Jihad, the plunder, the rape, the women as sex slaves, the squatting on higher civilisations such as Christian Byzantium magnetised and obsessed the Muslim Turk.  In the Turkish Book of Dede Korkut, the Turks combined their pagan practices with Muhammadanism including a particular love for Jihad, “I shall raid the bloody infidels’ land, I shall cut off heads and spill blood, I shall make the infidel vomit blood, I shall bring back slaves and slave-girls.”  Not much nuance or misunderstanding here.

By the early 11^th century, the Muslim Seljuk Turkish tribe was the key power in the Muslim Near East.  The Seljuks seized power and the torch of Jihad.  The 11^th century was the era of Holy War, with the Muslim zeal for the complete destruction of Christianity at a zenith, matching that of the early 7^th century Arab Muslim Jihad invasions of Christian territory.  The bloodthirsty ‘beasts’ of Islam, the Turks, made their baleful, evil presence felt first in Christian Armenia.  Byzantium had sent much of the wealth and manpower out of Armenia back to Constantinople.  By 1049 the Seljuks were running amok in Armenia, putting the large Christian city of Arzden to the torch, slaughtering over a 100.000 and enslaving the remainder. 

Over 800 churches were burnt down.  Priests were burnt in churches and nuns raped on altars, a particular Muslim enjoyment.  A camel train stretching to almost 1000 was needed to cart out the plunder.  In 1065 the Muslim Turks laid siege to the Armenian capital of Ani.  The earth apparently trembled with the usage of the Muslims huge siege weapons.  Once inside the entire city was put to the sword or enslaved.  These are just some examples of what transpired in Armenia during the 11^th century and beyond.  Hundreds of thousands of Christians killed, raped and hundreds of thousands more enslaved by the Muslim Turk, just in one area (Armenia and eastern Byzantium) and just within one generation.  No need for Turks to bend knees to Christians today.

The apogee of Muslim rapine and carnage was actualised in 1071 at the battle of Manzikert.  The Muslim Turks had tried unsuccessfully to invest the Anatolian city in 1054.  Manzikert was a key stronghold in eastern Anatolia and nearby Armenia, an extremely large, prosperous and well-fortified city.  Constantinople did little to help the eastern borders of their empire, the raids became deeper, more savage and destructive by the year.  The peasant Anatolian farmer who supplied not only food, but much of the Byzantine army, was being killed, wounded, exiled or forced off his estate.  The army and economy thus suffered terribly.  In 1070 the new Byzantine emperor Romanus lead an assault to turn back the Jihad.  He expelled the Muslims from Cappadocia, and near Lake Van in Armenia wiped out a Muslim army.  Due to an internal revolt in the West, Romanus withdrew, and the Muslims took advantage finally conquering Manzikert just north of Lake Van.  Romanus responded by assembling a mammoth mostly-mercenary army and marched forth from Constantinople to confront the Muslim Turks at Manzikert.

Romanus recaptured Manzikert and divided his considerable forces into 3 parts.  One large force under the Norman leader Bailleul, was charged with taking Khilat to the south of Manzikert.  A large Muslim army of some 40.000 calvary confronted Bailleul who withdrew not to Manzikert but to the north west and safety.  The Muslim Turks then rode onto Manzikert.  Romanus had begun marching to Khilat to link up with Bailleul when he was surrounded by the Muslim legions under their commander Muhammad.  On August 26 1071 the two armies met near Manzikert.  The Turkish horse used light calvary tactics of hit and run, shooting volumes of arrows at the Byzantine infantry and disappearing.  The terrain was to the Muslim advantage.  They could gallop forward, fire their arrows, and disappear, while the heavily armoured Byzantine infantry plodded forward.  The Muslims had unlimited land to work with, there were no natural barriers to obstruct their tactics.

It was treachery that doomed the Byzantine Christians.  Intrigues had formed groups opposed to Romanus.  During the battle the general leading the rear of the army, fled the scene, apparently citing the reversed standards of Romanus as proof he had been killed, when in fact he was alive and fighting with the standards displayed as they should be during battle.  Once the rear army fled, the remainder panicked.  Romanus and his remaining loyal rump were surrounded and cut down by the Turks.  The Byzantine emperor was taken prisoner and most of the soldiers who stood with him were put to the sword either during or after the battle.

The outcome of Manzikert was as decisive as that of Yarmuk for the Arabs in 636 A.D.  The Turks conquered Anatolia, Asia minor, Nicaea not far from Constantinople and Ephesus.  The Byzantine empire was near death.  Hundreds of thousands if not more Christians were killed, enslaved, or forced to convert to Muhammadanism in once Christian lands.  The Byzantines lost their most fertile and productive areas and their largest sources of manpower.  It was a disaster that would take until 1453 to formally play itself out.