regional principality centered on Damascus. He was, however, ousted by a son of Alp
Arslan, Tutush I, in 1078.
Atsiz was born a generation too soon; later, men like him were more successful.
After the death of Malik Shah I in 1092, the Seljuks could no longer maintain
centralized rule over the Islamic world, even though they still were valued, if only to
confer titles like “emir” on local rulers who craved legitimacy. Nor could the Fatimids
prevent their own territories from splintering into tiny emirates, each centered on one
or a few cities. Some emirs were from the Seljuk family; others were military men
who originally served under them. We shall see that the tiny states set up by the
crusaders who conquered the Levant in 1099 were, in size, not so very different
from their neighboring Islamic emirates.
In the western part of North Africa, the Maghreb, Berber tribesmen forged a state
similar to that of the Seljuks. Fired (as the Seljuks had been) with religious fervor on
behalf of Sunni orthodoxy, the Berber Almoravids took over northwest Africa in the
1070s and 1080s. In 1086, invited by the ruler of Seville to help fight Christian
armies from the north, they sent troops into al-Andalus. This military “aid” soon
turned into conquest. By 1094 all of al-Andalus not yet conquered by the Christians
was under Almoravid control. Almoravid hegemony over the western Islamic world
ended only in 1147, with the triumph of the Almohads, a rival Berber group.
Together, the Seljuks and Almoravids rolled back the Shi‘ite wave. They kept it
back through a new system of higher education, the madrasas. As we have seen (see
Chapter 4), the Islamic world had always supported elementary schools. The
madrasas, normally attached to mosques, went beyond this by serving as centers of
advanced scholarship. There young men attended lessons in religion, law, and
literature. Sometimes visiting scholars arrived to debate at lively public displays of
intellectual brilliance. More regularly, teachers and students carried on a quiet regimen
of classes on the Qur’an and other texts. In the face of Sunni retrenchment, some
Shi‘ite scholars modified their teachings to be more palatable to the mainstream. The
conflicts between the two sects receded as Muslims drew together to counter the
crusaders.
BYZANTIUM: BLOODIED BUT UNBOWED
There would have been no crusaders if Byzantium had remained strong. But the
once triumphant empire of Basil II was unable to sustain its successes in the face of
Turks and Normans. We have already discussed the triumph of the Turks in Anatolia;
