Maintaining good relations with the Abbasid caliph and continuing to win the caliph's support for the Seljuks was a basic national policy of the Seljuk sultan.
The Seljuks came to the political scene during the most difficult period for the Abbasid caliphate.
By freeing the caliph from the control of the Buwehi, the Seljuks showed the caliph that they could be a formidable pillar for the caliph to maintain Sunni dominance against the Fatimid dynasty and Shia threats within the empire.
Although the Abbasid caliph had lost the power to manage secular affairs at this time, as a spiritual leader, he still had great influence and appeal.
Thus, the Seljuks could maintain their status as defenders of the orthodox sect and the legitimacy of their rule depended to a large extent on the patronage of the caliphate's authority.
In 1058, the caliph granted Togril the honorifics of "King of the East and West" and "Pillar of the State", and the two sides formed a mutually supportive and interdependent relationship.
However, if this two-power, mutually supportive structure, with the Caliph as the spiritual leader and the Seljuk Sultan as the supreme secular ruler, is to be fixed and sustained, a number of other policies and measures to strengthen the ties between the two sides are to be adopted and sustained.
To this end, the sultan, on the one hand, used the religious authority of the caliph to retain this titular suzerain; On the other hand, it was a marriage with the Abbasid royal family.
The Seljuks adopted political marriages and established in-laws between the Abbasid and Seljuk families.
Caliph Gayimu married Togril's niece and sister of Alp Arslan in March 1056;
In December 1062, Togril married the daughter of Caliph Gayim;
In 1071, Arslan married his daughter to al-Muqtadi, son of Gayimu and later succeeded to the throne.
In order to gain the favor of the caliph, Arslan asked the widowed Togril's wife, the daughter of the caliph Gayim, to return to her father
Side.
The practice of political marriages both strengthened the ties between the Seljuk sultan and the caliph, and gave the Seljuk sultan some control over the caliphate.
In addition to this, the Seljuk Sultan took other measures to win the favor of the caliph.
The Seljuk sultan's capital was in Isfahan, and his contacts with the caliph were mainly maintained through the sultan's representative in Baghdad, for which the Seljuk sultan deliberately chose someone the caliph liked to be his representative.
On the economic front, Sultan Seljuk abolished all kinds of illegal taxes in Iraq;
By providing financial subsidies to the emir who guarded the holy place, in exchange for him canceling the pilgrimage tax levied on pilgrims and increasing the allocation to the caliph ikta (i.e. fiefdom).
These measures led to a certain improvement in the caliph's financial situation, which won the caliph's favor and strengthened the Seljuk sultan's rule.
The Seljuk Sultan also sent his own agents to Baghdad as "shahena" (military overseers), responsible for maintaining law and order in Baghdad and, if necessary, suppressing the rebellion of the city's citizens.
During the reign of Maliksha, the Seljuk Empire's policy towards the caliph changed, especially in the later period of Maliksha's reign.
Maliksha wanted his grandson (born to his daughter to the caliph) to serve as both caliph and sultan, but this plan did not materialize.
In the winter of 1091, Malikshuh moved the Seljuk government to Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate, which came directly under the sultan's control and became a puppet, and in prayer, the sultan's name was juxtaposed with the caliph's name.
The Seljuks were originally a nomadic herdsman who used their military superiority to seize the world from horseback.
The regions they conquered, namely Central Asia, Iran, and the Two River Valley, were all regions with a long history of culture and multiple religious beliefs.
The Seljuks ruled in these regions in the same way as the Ghaznavid and Karakhanid dynasties.
Like the Ghaznavid dynasty, the Seljuks had no common national base within the areas under their rule.
20 When the Ghaznavid dynasty conquered a place, it imposed a Persian bureaucracy based on the Samanid model.
It can maintain its rule due to constant conquest and a steady stream of loot.
The Seljuk Empire, like the Karakhanid dynasty, had a broad national base, that is, the Turkic peoples; At the same time, it was also implemented to divide the territory into small pieces for members of the royal family to rule.
Thus, the rule of the Seljuks both inherited the Persian rule model of the Ghaznavid dynasty, and retained the divided fiefdom system of the Turkic state like the Karakhanid dynasty.
Like both, the Seljuk Empire used Islam to rule the country, seeking the caliphate's endorsement of the regime and legitimizing its own.
The Seljuk Empire initially adopted a dualistic approach to rule, like the Karakhanid dynasty.
The territory of the empire was divided between the two brothers, with the western part being the center of the empire and ruled by the brother Togril; The eastern part was ruled by Chakir, Togril's brother.
However, this form of rule existed only during the transition of the Seljuks from primitive tribes to feudalism.
After Chakyr's death (1059), this duality seems to have ceased to exist, at least not in the Seljuk Empire.
