Gazi Gümüshtigin

Who was Gazi Gümüshtigin?

Emir Gümüshtigin Gazi was the second ruler of the Danishmend state which his father Danishmend Gazi had founded in central-eastern Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert.

He succeeded his father when the latter died in 1104. In 1130, he allied with Leo I, Prince of Armenia against the crusader Bohemond II of Antioch, who was killed in the subsequent battle; Bohemond's head was embalmed and sent to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Gümüshtigin may have been able to conquer more territory in the Principality of Antioch if not for the intervention of Byzantine emperor John II Comnenus, who wished to exert his own influence in Antioch.

In 1131, he besieged the castle of Kaysun in the County of Edessa, but retreated upon the arrival of Count Joscelin, whom Gümüshtigin believed had already died.

Gümüshtigin died in 1134, and the Danishmend state began to collapse under pressure from the Byzantines and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm.