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Article: From steppe to empire: the Turkmens in Iraq.
- Article from:
- International Journal of Kurdish Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Kurdish Library. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Fire and Water: The First Five Hundred Years
The first experience of the country now known as Iraq with the nomadic Turkmens or Turkomans (also called Ghuzz or Oghuz) occurred in the early 1040s. It was at this time that massive Turkmen migrations from Central Asia produced the dynasty of the Seljuk Turks who, under their early sultans--Toghrul Beg, Alp Arslan, and Malik Shah--came to dominate the Islamic heartland--Iran, Iraq, and Syria--by the last quarter of the eleventh century. The Seljuk Turks advanced south out of the Central Asian steppes, then westward across northern Iran in two successive groups, the first referred to by Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir ...