It was not until the 10^th century that the Turks reverted in any great number. Islamicization was accomplished largely through the missionary efforts supported by the Samanids, whose Muslim state of Central Asia straddled the river Oxus. At the end of the 10^th century a group of Turks destroyed the hegemony of the samanids. Subsequently, those victors were themselves vanquished by a mighty group of nomadic Turks led by the descendents of a chieftain named Seljuk. Following a significant victory in 1040, the Seljuks divided the spoils of war. Seljuk’s grandson Tughril received direction of the Seljuk thrust into the Islamic heartland. A combination of sound leadership, military prowess, unbridled energy and zeal, as well as a deteriorating economic and political situation in the Islamic territories in their path, enabled the Seljuks quickly to make themselves masters of the Iranian plateau, taking Isfahan in 1043. Sweeping down from that region into the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent in 1055, Tughril took the Caliphal seat of Baghdad.

As Seljuk leadership became more politically ad culturally more sophisticated, and identified its interests with those of the urban elites it had conquered, the more it became necessary to keep the predatory Turcomans out of the settled areas. The Turcomans were encouraged to satisfy their thirst for plunder and adventure in the north against Christian kingdoms in Georgia and Armenia. There they joined other Muslim warriors for the faith (ghazis) in the Holy struggle for the greater glory of Islam.

It was in Byzantium that the ghazis found a rich lode worthy of their efforts. Its own internal difficulties compounded the threat posed by the ghazis. Fifty years of strife between the bureaucracy and the army had weakened it.  However under Alp Arslan, the Seljuks chose to maintain a tranquil northern flank whilst moving against the Shi’ite Fatimids in the south and the Byzantines and the Seljuks reached an accord in 1070. 

This stalemate with Byzantium ended the following year, when the Emperor Romanus Diogenes gathered a large army and marched eastward across Anatolia. In august 1071 the two armies clashed at Manzikert near lake Van. At first the battle went in favour of the Emperor; but the tide swung and Romanus was captured (some sources say through treachery), and his army fled. Anatolia was now open to permanent Turkish settlement to become the Seljuks of Rum (Arabic term for Roman empire).

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