A STUDY ON CHILDHOOD OF SELJUK RULERS

Abstract

Do we have enough information about childhood of Seljuk rulers? Do historical sources about Seljuk rulers’childhood help us to understand them better? What can determinations about childhood of rulers contribute to historiansfor enlightening the era?The purpose of the study is to find answers for the questions above. Fort his we classified various informationsfrom historical sources about Seljuk Rulers. Most of the Seljuk Rulers were subjects for Turkish academicians, but they were studied separetly. We also used these important studies. We picked examples from various states that Seljuk rulers were at power such as Great Seljuks, Sultanate of Rum, Iraq, Syria, Palastine and Kerman Seljuks The first thing that we noticed after classfying is that birth dates of some Seljuk Rulers were not certain. For a historian, that is a serious problem for sure. While including reasons of this issue in our study, we also argued that if thisspecific problem makes it harder to understand Seljuk Rulers or not. Informations about childhood of Seljuk Rulers are few but various. Childhood diseases they had, raising by their dynasty members after losing their father while they were still an infant or others trying to rise them to the throne during their early ages are informations we know because of that variety. Most of things we know about their childhood is actually about the throne itself. That is why power and related subjects determined the outline of this study. In our study, we tried to make a determination about childhood of Seljuk Rulers from various examples we chose.