Timokhin D.M. The Death of the Seljuk Sultan Rukn al-Din Togrul III (1176–1194) in the Muslim Historiography of the XII–XIII centuries. [Digital Resource] // Vox medii aevi. 2025. Vol. 1 (12).
P. 37–59. URL: https://voxmediiaevi.com/2025-1-timokhin/
DOI: 10.24412/2587-6619-2025-12-37-59
Dmitry Timokhin
Candidate of Sciences in History, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow)
horezm83@mail.ru
The Death of the Seljuk Sultan Rukn al-Din Togrul III (1176–1194) in the Muslim Historiography of the XII–XIII Centuries
The death of the last Seljuk ruler of Khorasan, Mu’izz al-Din Abu-l-Haris Ahmad Sanjar (1118–1157), marked the beginning of a struggle among local rulers for the «Seljuk inheritance» within the region. One of the centers of power, given the situation, was located in Khorezm, where the rulers from the Anugshteginid dynasty not only strengthened their army at the expense of people from the nomadic Turkic environment of eastern Desht-i Qipchak, but also engaged in a sophisticated diplomatic strategy, exploiting the divisions among their opponents and turning them against each other. During the reign of Khorezm Shah ‘Ala’ ad-Din Tekish (1172–1200), the Khorezm power actually seized the lands of Khorasan and claimed the territories of Central Iran, where its interests clashed with the political ambitions of the Seljuk ruler of Iraq, Rukn ad-Din Togrul III (1176–1194). Khorezmshah Tekish began the struggle for Iranian lands, enlisting the support of the Baghdad Caliph an-Nasir (1180–1225), who was also interested in eliminating the Seljukid power in Iraq and Iran. The ruler of Khorezm managed to defeat the troops of Rukn al-Din Togrul III in the Battle of Ray in 1194, in which this Seljuk sultan himself was killed. In itself, this event in political history has long been well known to researchers, but this article examines the specifics of describing the death of this Seljuk sultan in the monuments of Muslim historiography. Despite the defeat in the war with Khorezm, numerous Muslim authors of the XII and XIII centuries. They returned again and again to the description of the Battle of Ray and the death of the Seljuk ruler of Iraq. In this article, we will not only analyze and compare various descriptions of this historical event but also try to answer the question of why this particular Seljuk sultan and his death were honored with such close attention by Muslim historians for more than a century.
Keywords: ‘Ala’ ad-Din Tekish; Khorezm; Muslim historiography; Rukn ad-Din Togrul III; Seljukids; the Battle of Ray.