Atabegs were originally tutors and protectors for young Seljuk princes who usurped power and made their rule hereditary. These Seljuk princes thus ruled only in name and not in practice, with the atabegs holding the real power.

The Byzantine Empire was the former eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived after the Western half collapsed in 476. Byzantine territories once included parts of eastern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, but some of these lands had been lost to Muslim conquest starting in the 600s. By 1071 the Seljuk Turks presented a serious threat to Byzantine stability when they crushed the Byzantine forces at the Battle of Manzikert, leading the Byzantine emperor to appeal to the West for support. That support, however, did not arrive for over 20 years, with the Crusaders often betraying their promises to restore lands to Byzantine hands.

The Byzantine Empire’s character was more Greek than the west (which was more heavily under Latin influence) and various Christian denominations outside of the Roman Catholic orthodoxy flourished. Arab historians understood this history and that the Byzantines viewed themselves as the successors to Rome, thus referencing them as the “Rūm.”