History

The reign of Emperor Justinian and his Queen Theodora (527-565) inaugurated a period of great prosperity in Anatolia. Justinian reconquered the West, and eventually regained North Africa and Italy. His construction of the majestic Ayasofya (Church of Holy Wisdom) established Constantinople as the spiritual center of Christendom. Justinian commissioned new buildings and conducted restorations all across the empire -- an undertaking so vast that it thrust the empire into economic crisis after his death. His primary legacy was the Justinian Code -- his attempt to codify and organize the ancient system of Roman laws -- that ultimately became the foundation for many modern Western legal systems.

Around the end of the 9th century, a rivalry emerged between the Orthodox Church and the Papacy over the veneration of icons. The worship of idols was first condemned by Emperor Leo III in 726 and then reiterated by successive emperors. In 1054, over this and other theological disagreements, the pope severed any ties that had united Byzantium with the West.

Distracted by religious and bureaucratic disputes, the Byzantines were unprepared for the arrival of nomadic Turkish warriors raiding lands in the east. The Turks (from the Chinese "Tu-Kiu") had migrated south and west from Mongolia during the 7th or 8th century. They had assumed Islamic practices, influenced by encounters with Arab tribes centered around Baghdad, home of the caliphate. By the 10th century, the bulk of Turks -- still nomads and warriors by nature -- had accepted Islam as their religion, although some Turks, such as the Selçuks, subscribed to the orthodox Sunni form, while others, such as the Turkomans, accepted the splinter Shiite sect.

These gazi tribes, or "warriors of the faith," marched north from Baghdad, conquering lands in the name of Islam and penetrating deep into the heart of Anatolia. The Selçuks marched northwest in a campaign to expand their territory and a desire to control the Turkoman tribes. An accidental encounter with the Byzantine army resulted in a Selçuk victory in the Battle of Malazgirt in 1071, opening the door to a mass Turkish migration into Anatolia.

In response to the growing Turkish presence, Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus turned to the Christians of western Europe for aid against the increasing threat of the Turks. The first Crusade saw the recapturing of Jerusalem and the regaining of control of most of Anatolia.

The Selçuk Turks triumphed over the second Crusade in 1147, eventually setting up The Sultanate of Rum at Konya and achieving significant cultural growth and territorial expansion. The Selçuks revived the classical Islamic system of education, attracting philosophers, poets, and craftsmen to the court. One of the most influential arrivals was the scholar Celaleddin i-Rumi, who founded the Order of the Mevlevi (or "Whirling") Dervishes. The Selçuks laid the foundation for modern-day Middle Eastern government with the implementation of a bureaucratic hierarchical system. They are also credited with the development of a system of way stations called kervansarays (caravansaries), designed to meet the need of merchants traveling on behalf of the state, and established insurance for the loss of tradesmen.

But the Crusades were by no means a cure-all. Tensions arose because the Crusaders had no specific mandate from the pope, little sympathy toward the Greek Orthodox religion, and no agreement on the nature of their association with the Byzantine Empire. Allied with Venetian merchants who had an eye on the riches of the East, the Crusaders sacked and plundered Constantinople in 1204 in the fourth Crusade, creating the Latin Empire of Constantinople and widening the schism between the churches of the East and West. Driven from Constantinople, the Byzantines established a small empire in exile at Nicaea, creating a balance of power with the flourishing Selçuk Sultanate of Rum.

Michael VIII Palaeologus, ruler of the empire in exile, succeeded in reclaiming the city of Constantinople in 1261. Though their territory was drastically reduced, subsequent Byzantine emperors repeatedly tried to reunite the Orthodox and Catholic churches against the threat of invading Turks. This proved futile, and in 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered what little remained of the Byzantine Empire and made Constantinople their capital.