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Battle of Manzikert and the Capture of the Roman King

وقعة ملاذكرد وأسر ملك الروم

c. 1071 CE · 463 AH

In 463 came the great battle between Islam and Byzantium — the Muslims victorious under sultan Alp Arslan; the Roman king was captured, then released for a vast ransom and a fifty-year truce. Freed, he asked 'where is the caliph's quarter?' — it was pointed out, and he uncovered his head and gestured service in its direction 1.

Depth

At a glance

Era
Abbasid Fragmentation
Region
Anatolia
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review
Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

In time

106010701080 c.
The Buyid, Fatimid and Seljuk Era

Overview

al-Suyuti reports that in 463 AH there was a great battle between the Muslims and the Byzantines, in which the Muslims were given victory under the leadership of Sultan Alp Arslan. The king of the Byzantines was captured and then released for a great sum, and the sultan made a truce with him for fifty years. 1

Before the battle

Ibn al-Jawzi relates that the sultan remained with some four thousand slave-soldiers after the armies had gone back to Khurasan because of the dearth. He charged them to obey his son Malikshah if he were killed. The king of the Byzantines had gathered a great army, and he rejected a truce that the caliph had mediated. 2

The battle and the ransom

The sultan led the army in prayer on Friday, and he supplicated and wept. Then he marched on the Byzantines, and they were killed that day and night. The king of the Byzantines was captured, and the ransom was settled at a great sum of money, the release of Muslim captives, and the return of some cities. 2

al-Suyuti says that when the king was released he asked in which direction the caliph lay, and he uncovered his head and gestured toward it in service. 1

Connections

Explore the connections

Had participant
ألب أرسلان عضد الدولة بن جغري بك

People and things also explored

The killing of Sultan Alp Arslan and the accession of Malikshah· Atsiz ibn Uwaq's campaign against Syria· The Khutba at Mecca for the Abbasid Caliph and the Seljuk Sultan· أرسلان أرغون بن ألب أرسلان· تاج الدولة تتش· ألب أرسلان عضد الدولة بن جغري بك

Sources

  1. Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 647
  2. al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa'l-Umam — Ibn al-Jawzi , j.8 p.260-264
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Battle of Manzikert and the Capture of the Roman King”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/battle-of-manzikert-463/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.

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The killing of Sultan Alp Arslan and the accession of Malikshah

Crossing the Oxus toward Bukhara with more than two hundred thousand horse, Alp Arslan had the captured fortress-commander Yusuf al-Khwarizmi brought before him and ordered him staked; Yusuf sneered 'shall the likes of me die such a death?', the sultan seized bow and arrows, shot and missed, stumbled rising from his dais — and Yusuf was on him with a knife in his side. The attendants killed Yusuf; the sultan's wound was bound and he died back at the Oxus on Saturday 10 Rabi' I 465, aged forty years and five months, after nine years and six months of rule. On his dais his son Malikshah spoke his first command — 'the eldest of you is my father, the middle my uncle, the youngest my son, and I shall do for you what has not been done before' — and the army gave bay'a through Nizam al-Mulk and Abu Sa'd the mustawfi.