The Nature and Causes of Sepahsalar Oner’s Uprising in Sultan Barkyaruq Era

Abstract Understanding the history of Iran during the Seljuk period is very important because of the presence and influence of a new role player called the Turkmen tribes. They have played an important role in the formation and fate of this government. Since the establishment of this government, the conflict between the two forms of policies about running the country led to challenges and conflicts between them. On the one hand, the Iranian bureaucrats demanded a centralized government, and on the other hand, the military and tribal chiefs and the pro-power clerics claimed the decentralization of power. The death of Nizam al-Mulk, the architect of the centralized sovereignty theory in the Seljuks, provided a good opportunity for the military to attempt to seek power, and the first victim of such an attempt was Amir Oner. The present study aimed to elucidate the nature and causes of Oner's revolt against Sultan Barkyaruq and to determine what factors influenced Oner’s action. The method of this research was descriptive-analytical based on library resources. The findings of the present study indicated that Amir Oner represented a group of military officials who sought to increase their power in factions formed after King Malik Shah and Khajeh Nizam al-Mulk’s death. Although Oner’s did not enjoy a good fortune and fate, his uprising began to bring about major changes in the structure of the Seljuk power and sovereignty. Introduction The arrival of Seljuk Turkmen to Iranian territory during early 5th AH exerted a great influence on the political structure of the Iranian society. The new invaders dominated a large territory, but from the very beginning, they found that they cannot govern such a large territory. Therefore, they appointed Iranian bureaucrats to govern the territories. But, the main concern for the Iranian bureaucrats was to persuade the Seljuk Sultans to use centralized methods of government. However, Seljuk Turkmen were inclined to exercise some other methods of government which they had tried before, such as the division of the country to different parts to be ruled by different persons from among dominating Turkmen. Gradually, there appeared a wide gap between the supporters of these two methods of government. Khajeh Nizam al-Mulk Toosi in his new system of government dismissed army top officials, which in turn, brought about reactions from the army top officials Nizam al-Mulk’s death and subsequently Malik Shah’s death and fights over the s