Tughril Beg enters Baghdad

December 18, 1055

The Seljuk sultan marched into the Abbasid capital ostensibly to protect Caliph al-Qa'im from the Shia Buyid dynasty. The caliph formally invested Tughril as sultan and gave him one of his own daughters as wife. The Abbasid caliph became a spiritual figurehead under a new Turkish military overlord. The arrangement established the template for Sunni political order that would persist until the Mongol sack of 1258.