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People
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Turks had been dominant in respect of political and
military affairs in the Seljuks States and they were also dominant in the social life. The
staffs of the palace organisation and the members of the military classes were composed of
the Turks. Iranians were dominant in the governmental organisation and the state offices
were generally hereditary. There were very influential families in the cities. We can
include the scholars and the physicians to this class. The merchants, artists and the
petite craftsmen lived in the cities and towns. Various tradesmen and experts of craft had
established separate guilds. The foot-servant classes in the big cities had also
established some groups called as "ayyar" and "evbas". The landowners
and villagers lived in the villages and their means of subsistence was agriculture.
Finally, the beggars and the crazy people had constituted the other classes of the
community.
In the Turkey Seljuk State, the
"people" was examined in two groups such as the people living in the cities and
the people living in the villages. Various groups that constituted the Anatolian
population lived in the cities. As a result, the city groups were composed of four classes
such as 1- Governmental members (officials), 2- Notables, 3- Scientific experts, 4-the
organisation of fütüvvet= ahilik (trade guilds). Of these classes, the system of trade
guilds was a religious-economical order that was established upon the union of the
tradesmen among each other. All subsidiaries of crafts such as jewellers, bakers,
shoemakers, leather dealers and the others had their own guilds. Within the social groups
that we have stated as the people of the city, there were some notables called as ayan and
"igdişler" that represented he public in the presence of the government and
probably some merchants.
In ethnical respect, the Turkish villagers that
were rooted from Turkmens were "nomadic" and they were occupied with
stockbreeding. Those who had settled were occupied with agriculture. In case the village
groups maintained the tribal organisation, they had an administration as their leader
called as "bey". The leader of the agricultural villagers who had settled in the
regions was a villager home affairs minister (duhkan). In the first periods when the Turks
settled in Anatolia, the Christian farmers had been protected, and even the native farmers
from the other regions that were invaded were transferred to their own regions by the
rulers.
Anatolian Seljuk State had been tolerant to all
the traditions of the Non-Muslim groups that lived in Anatolia unless they caused any harm
to the Muslim people. The Christians who were not Greek had gotten rid of the tiresome
pressures of the Byzantine church. Therefore, they were contented to live under the
dominion of Turks in general. As a matter of fact, the religious men and historians
pertaining to these communities such as Suryani (Syrian Christian) Mikhail had mentioned
about the tolerance of the Seljuk sultans with praise.
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