Seljuk Sultan Sanjar dies in exile

1156

The last great ruler of the Seljuks of the east, who had been captured by Oghuz nomads for three years and watched his beloved Merv plundered, died of despair at seventy-one. His death ended effective Seljuk rule in Khurasan; the eastern provinces dissolved into warring emirates. The Seljuk empire's collapse left a power vacuum in Central Asia that successive Khwarazmian, Qara Khitai, and eventually Mongol conquerors would rush to fill.