Alp Arslan

Alp Arslan was the second sultan of the Seljuk Empire, reigning from 1063 until his assassination in 1072, and the victor of Manzikert, the battle that opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement. His name means Heroic Lion, and he was the great-grandson of Seljuk, the founder of the dynasty. He succeeded his uncle Tughril and spent his early reign securing the empire's eastern and northern frontiers, campaigning in Armenia and Georgia and taking the fortified city of Ani in 1064. Much of the empire's administration he left to his Persian vizier Nizam al-Mulk, one of the ablest statesmen of the medieval Islamic world, whose Book of Government set out the principles by which the Seljuks ruled. Alp Arslan's ambitions pointed south towards Fatimid Egypt rather than west, and the campaign of 1071 was intended to secure Syria. The Byzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes marched east with a large but poorly cohesive army to recover the Armenian frontier, and the two forces met near Manzikert in August. Seljuk horse archers broke the Byzantine formation, part of the Byzantine army withdrew without engaging, and Romanos was captured — the first Byzantine emperor taken alive by a Muslim ruler. Alp Arslan treated him with courtesy and released him for a ransom and a treaty. The peace was worth little: Romanos was deposed and blinded on his return, the Byzantine state fell into civil war, and Turkish groups moved into Anatolia against no organised resistance. Alp Arslan was stabbed by a captive commander the following year while campaigning on the Oxus.

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