As Kılıç Arslan sits in prison in Esfahan, Emperor Alexios Komnenos attempts to restore imperial authority on the coasts of Anatolia, even if the plateau itself remains lost to him.  Constantinople tangles with the Black Sea beylik of Karategin and the Marmara beylik of İlhan.  In İzmir, the rebel Turkish Roman General Çaka Bey creates the first Turkish navy and establishes an Aegean beylik - becoming the supreme Turkish potentate in Western Anatolia.  This situation is upended as Kılıç Arslan returns to claim the Sultanate.  And Emperor Alexis begins to contemplate from where he could possible raise the troops to oppose Turkish rule in Anatolia...

After the death of Sulayman, his sons Kılıç Arslan and Daud are imprisoned in Esfahan by Melik Shah.  In their absence, the Sultanate of Rum is ruled under a quasi-regency by the man Sulayman left in charge of İznik - Ebu'l Kasım.   Ebu'l Kasım fights and negotiates with the Roman Emperor and the Great Seljuk Sultan, maintaining the independence of the Sultanate - until Kılıç Arslan and Daud manage to return as Al-Dawla Al-Nizamiyya comes crashing down.  

In 1081, Sulayman reigns in İznik as the Sultan of Rum.  But his sultanate is aspirational - really, he is a mere border lord.  A bey among beys.  And so Sulayman begins to lay the foundations for the Sultanate of Rum, expanding his power across Western Anatolia.  Burning with ambition and desire to reclaim the birthright of the line of Kutalmish, Sulayman then invades Antioch and even Aleppo.  And the very audacity that allowed him to found the Sultanate of Rum destroys him.  

Following Manzikert, the civil war in Byzantium and the failure of the Roman Empire to retake Anatolia, the first Turkish beyliks emerge in Anatolia.  In the anarchy caused by the collapse of the Roman military apparatus, bands of Turks begin making alliances with the settled elites of Anatolia, offering them protection for a price.   Soon the Turks are invited into the cities of Anatolia, replacing the now-vanished Roman military to become the lords of new principalities - beyliks.  In the east of Anatolia, numerous beyliks emerge - the Mengucekids, the Danishmands, the Saltukids and the Artukids.  But in the West, on the very doorstep of Constantinople, another political entity is born as the sons of Kutalmish, and in particular his son Sulayman, dive deep into Byzantine politics.  Through canny political maneuvering, Sulayman founds the next great Turkish state - the Sultanate of Rum.  

We resume the narrative, and begin by introducing the land that will come to be the homeland of the Turks.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Manzikert, the Roman state falls into chaos.  As a result of civil war, invasion and rebellion, Imperial authority collapses over much of Anatolia.  And the Turks begin to enter Anatolia, and the seeds of the coming Beyliks, and even a Sultanate, are sown.  

This is the fifth and last episode in a short series of non-narrative episodes.  In this episode we cover the court culture of the Great Seljuk Empire and the greatest cultural achievements of the Empire.  How the Sultan and his court lived, and the life and times of two of the most important cultural figures of the Great Seljuk Empire: Al-Ghazali and Omar Khayyam.  

This a standalone episode on the history of the Ismaili Nizaris and their Order of Assassins.  

The minority sect of Ismailism first arises as the Abbasid Caliphs keep the Shi'a Imams in confinement in Samarra - a hidden religion, secretive and rigidly hierarchical, and professing a unique system of beliefs drawing heavily from Greek philosophy and Gnosticism.  The Ismailis ultimately go on to establish the Fatimid Caliphate, which takes up the mantle of the greatest Muslim state in the world.  But after the coming of the Seljuks and their imposition of Sunni orthodoxy in Iran, the Shi'a are put on the back foot.  And there comes to be founded in the remote mountain fortress of Alamut in northern Iran the Nizari sect of Ismailism - and the famed and fearsome Order of Assassins. 

This is the fourth episode in a short series of non-narrative episodes.  In this episode we cover religion in the Seljuk Empire.  How reality differed from the picture of strident Sunnism presented by pro-Seljuk propaganda, and the relationship between the Seljuk and Abbasid dynasties, the treatment of the Shia, the conflict among the Sunni Madhhabs, Sufism, and the treatment of minority religions. 

This is the third episode in a short series of non-narrative episodes.  In this episode we cover the economy of the Great Seljuk Empire.  The collision of two different economic systems - that of the nomads and that of the settled world - and how this led to an economic transformation.

This is the second in a short series of non-narrative episodes.  In this episode, we cover the Seljuk Military.  The composition of the armies, how the armies fought, and the armies relationship to the broader political world.