Tughril, Turkish ruler (b. 990)
Abu Talib Muhammad Tughril ibn Mika'il (Persian: ابوطالب محمد تغریل بن میکائیل), better known as Tughril (طغریل; also spelled Toghril), was a Turkoman chieftain, who founded the Seljuk Empire, ruling from 1037 to 1063.
He united many Turkmen warriors of the Central Asian steppes into a confederacy of tribes, who traced their ancestry to a single ancestor named Seljuk, and led them in conquest of eastern Iran. He would later establish the Seljuk Sultanate after conquering Iran and taking the Abbasid capital of Baghdad from the Buyids in 1055. Tughril relegated the Abbasid Caliphs to state figureheads and took command of the caliphate's armies in military offensives against the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimids in an effort to expand his empire's borders and unite the Islamic world.
Before the advent of the Seljuks, Iran was divided between several warring local powers, such as the Saffarids, Buyids, Kakuyids, and Ghaznavids. As a result, it suffered from continuous war and destruction. However, under Tughril peace and prosperity were brought to the country and to Mesopotamia, a transition that was further reinforced due to the Seljuks' assimilation to Iranian-Muslim culture.