A continuing survey of Islamic history from around the middle of the 10th century, comprising: the deepening crisis of the Abbasid caliphate; mass conversions to Islam among non-Arab peoples (including the Karakhanids as well as the Volga Bulgars); the triumph of the Seljukid war-leadership over the Ghaznavids, and from 980 the overrunning of East Iran, then Mesopotamia, and eventually Asia Minor by this new Turkish warrior nobility. A first external shock in the form of the Crusades. With the breakup of the Greater Seljukids, the emergence of a series of independent Seljukid successor sultanates in Anatolia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Kirman and Iran; the triple division of the caliphate itself (between the Abbasids in Baghdad, the Fatimids in Egypt, and the Umayyads in Spain). A second external shock of the Mongol conquest. Finally, the rise of the Mamluks in Egypt, the Ottomans in northwest Anatolia and Rumelia, and the Safavids in Iranian space.
