Kilij Arslan II

Kilij Arslan II or ʿIzz ad-Dīn Kilij Arslān ibn Masʿūd (; ) was a Seljuk Sultan of Rûm from 1156 until his death in 1192.

Life Born in 1113, Kilij was the son of Mesud I, sultan of the Sultanate of Rum. In 1148 he captured the city of Marash, after the surrounding region had been devastated by the Danishmendids in 1136-1137. Historical sources mentioned that Kilij Arslan II was a hunchback, and the discovery of his skeleton confirmed this. The study revealed that he actually stood 1,83 meters (6 feet) tall, but his hunchback gave an impression of a shorter height.

Reign In 1159, the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos marched back to Constantinople from Syria through the lands of the Sultanate despite having been denied passage. At Kotyaion Kilij’s forces responded and inflicted a defeat on the emperor. The scale of the battle is impossible to determine from surviving sources, but shortly thereafter Manuel made reprisal raids against Seljuk territories. Kilij then sacked Laodikeia and the emperor planned a major campaign against Iconium (Konya). In 1160, Manuel's nephew John Contostephanus defeated Kilij, and the sultan travelled to Constantinople in a show of submission either in late 1160 or 1161.

As Arnold of Lübeck reports in his Chronica Slavorum, he was present at the meeting of Henry the Lion with Kilij during the former's pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1172. When they met near Tarsus, the sultan embraced and kissed the German duke, reminding him that they were blood cousins ('amplexans et deosculans eum, dicens, eum consanguineum suum esse'). When the duke asked for details of this relationship, Kilij informed him that 'a noble lady from the land of Germans married a king of Russia who had a daughter by her; this daughter's daughter arrived to our land, and I descend from her.'

Kilij died during the siege of Aksaray in August 1192, aged 77, after promising Kaykhusraw I the succession. Then he was buried in the Alâeddin Mosque in Konya. Kaykhusraw I's brothers continued to fight for control of the other parts of the sultanate.

Issue In 1186, Kilij decided to divide the Sultanate among his 11 sons and 3 daughters as follows: Qutb al-Din (Sivas, Aksaray) Rukn al-Din (Tokat and its surroundings) Nur al-Din (Kayseri and its surroundings) Muqsed al-Din (Elbistan) Muizz al-Din Caesar Shah (Malatya) Muhyiddin Mesut (Ankara, Çankırı, Kastamonu and Eskişehir) Kaykhusraw I (Uluborlu, Kutahya) Naser al-Din (Niksar, Koyulhisar) Nizam al-Din (Amasya) Arslanshah (Niğde) Sancarshah (Ereğli and its south) Fülane Hatun Gevher Nesibe Khatun Seljuki Khatun