70 CE Occupying Romans destroyed Jerusalem, burned Temple down, Jews banned from area. They were taken as slaves to Rome while some got away to Spain Thus was creation of Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Those that found refuge nearby became the Mizrachim.
624: Muhammad broke with his Jewish supporters because they refused to recognize him as a prophet and adopt Islam. He chose now to emphasize the Arabness of the new religion and has his followers face Mecca when praying instead of Jerusalem. Jews were either banished or executed.
634-644: Umar (c. 591-644) reigns as the second caliph. The Muslims subjugate Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. Garrisons established in the conquered lands
Fighting each other was the rule beyond the Middle East after Rome had appeared on the scene in Palestine. One reason was trading privileges. An influx of Turks added to the number of petty principalities. A stream of Turks started moving toward Baghdad in 830 and grew by the middle of the century, and some started kingdoms of their own. The Saljuqs were one of 2 important groups. The other was the Ghaznavids from 892 to 1186 whose king Mahmoud brought Islam to northern India. They were all spreading their religion with their swords.
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| Saljuqs started as nomadic horse people of Central Asia |
We Jews with this line make up 5% of the Jewish population. We are part of the Y2200 group reported about on familytreedna. ( Immediately above Q-Y2232 is Q-Y2200. It is unclear right now how and when those who are Q-Y2200 but not Q-Y2232 are related to their Ashkenazi Jewish cousins. ) Other people with Q, our very distant relatives, are found to be people like the Pashtuns, Saudis, etc, Muslims in the Middle East. Q's origins were Mongolia, Siberia AND PARTS OF TURKEY! That goes back 32,000 years ago when the line was in Mongolia and Siberia. "Approximately 2% (10/523: 9 Q*, 1 Q-M25) of males in Turkey belong to haplogroup Q. In a study (Gokcumen 2008), it was found that among Turks who belong to the Afshar tribe (one of Oghuz Turks) haplogroup Q-M242 is seen with a prevalence of 13%." Could this line of Turks who wound up in Syria be our relations? Q's have been found in a city now a part of Iraq, Ur, which was the homeland of Abraham and his father, Terah. My theory is that we were Saljuqs who teamed up with Jews in Ur along with Abraham back in c1948 BCE. I bet that my ancestor was the butcher of the group of men and showed Abraham a trick or two in treating the cow kindly. Or, my ancestor teamed up with the Jews as slaves in Egypt and knew Aaron. Egypt took in slaves for workers, and could have taken some soon to be called Saljuqs. Or, my ancestor could have been in Aleppo already, near Jerusalem and married into the family of Jews because of their beautiful daughter in about 1115.
Update: 4/25/19 After researching Q's in Turkey, it doesn't look feasable that we could have been from the Saljuqs. Q's just do not show up enough with this group. https://yhaplogroups.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/y-dna-haplogroups-in-turks/
As for the Saljuqs who have been moving westward, they had a leader who brought them as far as Baghdad by 1055, had become the commander in chief of the caliph in Baghdad. His people eventually separated into 3 kingdoms. One kingdom was headed by the Saljuqs of Iran from 1037 to 1194. They made Maragheh their capital in northern Iran. Another was headed by the Saljuqs of Syria from 1094 to 1117 and their capital was Aleppo in northern Syria. Aleppo also became a big business center later on, and was the home of many of the Jews living in Syria. The 3rd group was headed by the Saljuqs of Asia Minor from 1071 to 1209 with their capital being Konya in central Turkey. The Saljuqs of Syria and Turks in other Turkish kingdoms, became Arabized and used the Arabic language. The Asia Minor group kept the Turkish language and the Iranian group became Persianized and spoke Persian in their courts.
The Turks knew how to govern. A number of books were written to teach the princes the art of governing. They are referred to as "PRACTICAL PRECEPTS or MIRRORS TO PRINCES. One of the most important books was written for the Saljuqs in about 1092 and was Siyasatnameh. They were influential in teaching Muslim political philosophy which is NOT Greek nor Islamic.
The Saljuqs had become an orthodox Muslim group. They didn't abide by these practical precepts, feeling they went against their religious viewpoints. The secularization of Islam was started by Farabi and Avicenna on a philosophical level. Muslims thought philosophy was a FOREIGN SCIENCE. I don't believe that many of our rabbis thought much of it, either. Philosophy presented a challenge to Islamic theology. The problem was that many of these new Muslims back then were brought up with Greek philosophy. Orthodox Islam thought many of these ideas were heretical.
The Saljuqs being orthodox believed that Prophecy was a gift from G-d brought on by revelation. The Salijgs were leaders of Muslims against the "heretical ideas. The Shafi'is started schools like those of the Ismailis. Nizam al-Mulk, the grand vazir of the Saljuqs and most effective champion of orthodox theologians, put orthodox civil administrators in all departments of the government. These Muslim bureaucrats were in a great position to use the Muslim Shari'a to every aspect of the parts of government and society. It was for his activities in the cause of Sunni orthodoxy that Nizam al-Mulk was murdered by an agent of the ASSASSINS, WHO BELONGED TO THE ISMAILI SECT.
The orthodox had their hands tied by their belief system. They could not get rid of the influence of the philosophers or the realities of the situation they were in. Nizam al Mulk had even used a non-Muslim Persian traditions and ethics in his book. Ghazah was teaching in the Nizamiya college in Baghdad at the time of the Saljuqas. He tried to keep the unity of the ummah intact and had said that piety was the only qualification for the office of the caliphate. As a result, power could legitimately be put in the hands of the sultan (governor), who ruled for the caliph (religious successor of Mohammad) . The caliph's name is mentioned in Friday prayers and is engraved on coins and has insured the unity of the ummah (the world community of Muslims).
The new Muslims were designing prayer buildings and copied some ideas from the Jews for their architectural needs. They needed a high place so the muezzin could call people to prayer. They built a tall circular or square column that was attached to their mosque. These were called minarets, from the Hebrew word, Minorah.
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| Baghdad, perfect location: On the Silk Road |
The Saljuqs and the other Turkish tribes who had the power over the Arabs, came as devout Muslims and helped to strengthen orthodoxy and the unit of the ummah under the caliph of Allah. Every time they had a victory in fighting, they thought that Allah was with them and they felt more and more invincible. They never gave up trying to take control over Asia Minor.
On August 26, 1071 the Saljuqs defeated the Byzantine army in the battle of Manzikert in today's Turkey and created their kingdom in Asia Minor. They held high hopes. Because that Muhammad had proclaimed Islam as the last religion, the Islamic Empire under the Caliph would be the 1st to bring the whole world under the aegis of Allah and his Prophet, they thought. "This led to the mass movement of Turks into central Anatolia—by 1080, an area of 78,000 square kilometres (30,000 sq mi) had been gained by the Seljuk Turks. It took three decades of internal strife before Alexius I(1081 to 1118) restored stability to Byzantium. Historian Thomas Asbridge says: "In 1071, the Saljuqs crushed an imperial army at the Battle of Manzikert (in eastern Asia Minor), and though historians no longer consider this to have been an utterly cataclysmic reversal for the Greeks, it still was a stinging setback." It was the first time in history a Byzantine Emperor had become the prisoner of a Muslim commander."
Muslims do not see things with a Western mind. To them, empire, religion and culture are one. This is where Israel has problems. Muslims must see Israel, as little as it is, as an expanding Western empire with a different religion and culture invading their own. The wars of expansion were ordered for Allah; and the soldiers were fighting for His cause according to the Muslim viewpoint.
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| Saladin 1137 – 4 March 1193), was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and was Kurdish |
In the days of the Crusaders, the continuous battle between the Sunni Saljuqs of Syria and the Shi'a Fatimids of Egypt had made it very dangerous for Christian pilgrims to visit the holy places in Palestine. Saladin came on the scene by capturing Cairo, Egypt and put an end to the Fatimid rule there. He was a good Sunni and stopped mentioning the Fatimid caliph's name in prayers and substituted the name of the Abbasid caliph, instead, who probably didn't know Saladin even existed and cared even less.
During the fighting against the Crusaders of Europe, the Saljuqs of Syria kept asking for the aid of their kinsmen, the Saljuqs of Iran, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. So, when both the Iranians and the Turks in the east were attacked by the Mongols, the powers in the Fertile Crescent would not come to their aid.
It shows that though both groups were Muslims, this makes no more difference in the Muslim world than it does elsewhere among different nations that have the same religion.
I see it happening with the Jews of Israel and the Jews of the USA. The American President Trump is showing more concern for Israel than a goodly majority of the Democratic Jews who belong to a group called "J Street" which says it backs Israel but it truth is not. The Republicans have shown backing Israel more than the Democrats, who walked out on Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at the UN during the Obama administration.
However, whenever ALL the Muslim nations get the opportunity to attack Israel, they have done so since the battle of Israel's inception, their war of Independence 1947-49; The Sinai War of 29 October-5 November 1956; The Six-Day War from 5 to 11 June 1967, War of Attrition from 1968-7-8 August 1970; The Yom Kippur War of 1973, , etc. 1982 . They've come from near and far to fight against Israel. They back a Palestinian State even though they are the ones shelling out the money to the Palestinians constantly.
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| From the looks of this map, Christianity was also trying to make inroads into Asia Minor. "Asian Christians endured the greatest persecutions. They mounted global ventures in missionary expansion the West could not match until after the thirteenth century." On the right is Syria and below it lies Palestine who did not suffer this name until after 135 when the Jewish general, Aluf Bar Kokhba, lost his 3 year holding of Jerusalem, having had angered the Romans terribly by fending them off for 3 whole years. |
Turks have been the best fighters of the Middle East. They've been an advance guard for Islam. They won the battle of Manzikert north of Lake Van in Armenia and took the Emperor Diogenes prisoner in 1071. This opened Asia Minor to Muslim settlement and allowed Turkish tribesmen to ride further west as far as to Smyrna. The Salijuq Turks who had done this were eventually separated from their kinsmen in Iran and organized the Saljuqs of Asia Minor. By warring, the Saljiuqs occupied most of Asia Minor and ruled in reality or in name until 1302. Their capital was in Konya (Iconeum)." After its conquest by Turkish tribes, Konya became the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (Anatolia) (1077–1308) and the Karamanids (13th century–1487)." The most important change during 300 years of Saljuq rule was the Turkification of a large segment of Asia Minor.
The Ottoman Empire lasted for 400 years ending in 1917 as they had chosen the German side, the Axis, to fight with against the Allies. The empire had started in 1517. The Seljuks of Asia Minor were the only Turks that continued to speak Turkish
and became the forerunners of the Ottoman Turks. Jews were already living there as a synagogue was authorized in Brusa, the old capital, in 1326. When Salonica was captured in 1430 by the Turks, it was populated by many Jews. Jews were living in Constantinople also in 1453. After the fateful date of 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue and the Spanish Inquisition was full blown, the Ottoman Empire generously offered the refugees from Spain refuge. Portugal followed suit. The Jews were favored as valuable trading and artisan assets. They were also a counterbalance to the potentially disloyal Christian minorities. Flourishing were the communities of Istanbul : Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna (Izmir) and especially Salonica where the intellectual traditions of Sephardi Jewry were centered.
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| Joseph Nasi |
Palestine was from 1517, part of the Turkish Empire, as were Egypt, the Yemen, Iraq, etc. The sultans applied the normal Moslem code against the Jews but not strictly. They were 2nd class citizens, Dhimmis. So, persons such as Joseph NASI and Solomon ASHKENAZI were able to influence the state greatly. Dom Joseph Nasi was a Portuguese Sephardi diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes/Benveniste, nephew of Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, and an influential figure in the Ottoman Empire during the rules of both Sultan Suleiman I and his son...
After the 16th century, circumstances were not so good. Anti-Jewish restrictions were applied more rigidly, but there was no general reaction Even the false messiah of SHABBETAI TZEVI, a man that could have brought on charges of disloyalty, didn't undermine the position of Turkish Jewry, but the outcome weakened it spiritually. Down to the 19th century, the community's position remained unchanged, but its treatment no longer seemed enlightened as compared with other countries.
It was the 3rd largest Jewish community in the world after Russia and Austro-Hungary, numbering 350,000 in 1900. The gradual disintegration of the Turkish Empire brought numbers of its Jewish population living in the Balkans, etc, under other authorities with changes generally being worse.
This came to a head with the 1st Balkan War and WWI when the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire destroyed itself. It's now just Turkey. Turkey had to re-organize itself along nationalistic lines. Exchanges of populations were made with Greece. The position of Jewish Turks were no longer the favored minority with some discrimination happening to them. 37,000 Jews emigrated to Israel after 1948. There were 20,000 Jews in Turkey in 1990 with 18,000 living in Istanbul, 1,500 in Izmir, and smaller communities in the cities of Edime, Brusa, and Ankara. The spiritual, cultural distinctions for former days has come to an end.
Fighting in Turkey continued as in 2016 in Istanbul, the Turkish military attempted a coup against the president Erdogen, who has also become very Orthodox in his religious viewpoints, causing him to be quite nasty to Israel.
Reference: Textbook, MIDDLE EAST Past & Present, by Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/jewish-q/about/background
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konya
https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/asian-christianity-11629575.html
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/islamchron.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_Q-M242
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-jews-of-turkey.html
