Mas'ud I.

Mas'ud I. , with full name Abu 'l-Fath as-Sultānü'l-Muazzam İzzüddünya ve' d-din Mas'ud b. Kılıcarslan es-Selcūlkī (ركن الدين مسعود, Turkish I. Rükneddin Mesud ; * before 1107; † 1156 ), was the Seljuk Sultan of Rum . He was the only one to rule the Sultanate of Rum for 40 years.

When his father Kilij Arslan I died in an accident in 1107 after the defeat by Radwan of Aleppo , the throne was vacant for years. The Byzantines took the opportunity to push the sultanate far back into Anatolia. Kilij Arslan's eldest son, Malik Shah , went as a prisoner of war and hostage to Isfahan at the court of the Greater Seljuks; his other sons were scattered over Anatolia. It is not known where Mas'ud spent the next few years. When Malik Shah I returned in 1110 , he made himself the new sultan and had his brothers Mas'ud and Arab imprisoned. The new ruler could not stop the Byzantine expansion.

This weakness gave Mas'ud the chance to claim the throne himself. He allied himself with the Danish rulers and his own father-in-law, Emir Ghazi, and besieged his brother in his capital Iconium in 1116 , had him captured and strangled in 1117. Mas'ud was able to conquer most of the empire, but ruled as a kind of vassal of his father-in-law. When he died in 1134, there were soon conflicts with his son Malik Mehmet Ghazi, which the Byzantine emperor John II wanted to use to play the two rulers off against each other. Years later, in 1142, Mas'ud conquered the empire of the Danischmenden. In 1146 Mas'ud fended off a Byzantine army at the gates of Iconium. In 1147 he defeated a crusader army of the second crusade at Dorylaion just 50 years after his father lost another battle at the exact same point . After that, trains began against the Crusader State of Edessa . In 1149 he took the city of Maraş from Joscelin II and besieged Tilbeşar together with his son-in-law Nur ad-Din in 1150 without success . When the county went under a short time later, Mas'ud I absorbed a large part. Mas'ud I undertook his last campaign in 1154 against Thorus II of Cilicia . On the way back from Cilicia, Mas'ud I fell ill and declared his son and prince of Elbistan Kilij Arslan II to be his successor. In 1156 Mas'ud I died and his body was buried in the Alâeddin Mosque in Konya . Mas'ud I had three sons (Kilij Arslan II, Malik Shah and Dolat) and four daughters.

aftermath

Under his rule, the Turkish character of Anatolia was consolidated, so that the term Turchia for Anatolia was established in western sources . Despite the long reign, his construction activities were modest. In his capital he had the inner fortress with the palace and the Alâeddin mosque built on the Alâeddin hill. The mosque, however, should be less than only 1,219 I. Ala ad-Din Kai Kobad be completed. In addition, Mas'ud I had a mosque built in Aksaray and a settlement built near Amasya . The oldest surviving coin of the Rum Seljuks comes from his reign.

source

• Mas'ud I. in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Turkish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Malik Shah I.	Sultan of Rum 1116–1156	Kılıç Arslan II.