Tribal Outlook of the Seljuk Turkmen and its Contrast with the Iranian Landowning Pattern

The tribal outlook of the Turkmen and the Iranian Governance and Landowning have been two rival discourses in the Seljuk period, each one of which tries to expel the rival from the scene or to dominate the outlook of the other one. In tribal outlook, the governance belonged to the entire tribe and the governing household represented them in ruling. This type of outlook, whose major representatives were the Turkmen emirs, would restrict the power of the chief of the tribe to the tribal traditions. However, in the Iranian landowning pattern that was at first unknown to the Turkmen, the power was centered in the hands of the ruler. He had a transhuman status and was considered as the God’s shadow on earth; therefore, he had in his disposal the people’s properties and life and enjoyed absolute authority. The Iranian bureaucrats were the main promoters of this thinking and the conflict between the Turkmen emirs and the Iranian viziers is examinable in terms of the contradiction of two outlooks about the governance. The present article has considered the contradiction of these two outlooks among the most important components effective on the Seljuk’s governance structure and is intended to examine the Seljuk’s tribal outlook, particularly the Turkmen emirs, and its contraction with the Iranian landowning pattern. According to the findings of this research, the Seljuk Ghuzzes in the beginning of their entering Iran had a thinking restricted to the tribal traditions paralleled with evasion from the [ruling] center. Despite the attempts made by the Iranian bureaucratic agents and the approval of the Seljuk Sultans, the Turkmen emirs’ tribal outlook became more conspicuously apparent after the Khwaja Niẓām al-Mulk’s period, which caused the weakening of the bureaucrats and continuous combat between the Seljuk princes and emirs.