Death of Malik Shah

November 19, 1092

The Seljuk sultan, at the height of his power, died suddenly at Baghdad just weeks after Nizam al-Mulk's assassination. Rumor blamed the Nizaris or his own jealous wife. His death plunged the empire into decades of civil war among his sons and relatives, giving the Crusaders their later opening. The fragmentation was so complete that no successor ever reunited the whole of the Great Seljuk domain.