a rum seljuq sultan as cosmic ruler 151 SUZAN YALMAN ʿALA AL-DIN KAYQUBAD ILLUMINATED: A RUM SELJUQ SULTAN AS COSMIC RULER Whoever knows philosophy, and perseveres in thank- ing and sanctifying the Light of Lights, will be bestowed with royal Kharreh [Divine Wisdom] and with luminous Farreh [Divine Glory], and—as we have said elsewhere— divine light will further bestow upon him the cloak of royal power and value. Such a person shall then become the natural Ruler of the Universe. He shall be given aid from the High Heavens, and whatever he commands shall be obeyed; and his dreams and inspirations will reach their uppermost, perfect pinnacle. And God knows best what is true.1 Suhrawardi al-maqtūl (d. 1191), Partawnāma Harry Luke, a British traveler to Konya in the early 1900s, described the renowned Anatolian Seljuq ruler ʿAla al-Din Kayqubad (r. 1220–37) as “the greatest of his dynasty and a mighty builder, a veritable Seljuq Justinian; the memory of his name yet lingers in the lands over which he ruled.”2 Luke’s statement syn- opsizes the perception of Kayqubad as the “greatest” Anatolian Seljuq ruler and architectural patron. In the meantime, his contemporary, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen (r. 1220–50), was known as “wonder of the world” (stupor mundi). Both rulers were similarly hailed by early twentieth-century nationalists attempting to reconstruct their respective histories by finding precursors for their modern nations.3 In his bi- ography of the emperor, David Abulafia is critical of the portrayal of Frederick as a modern trapped in a medi- eval body.4 The same could be said for Kayqubad as well. Part of the fascination with these two figures involves their particular civic and secular interests. With respect to Frederick, the better known of the two, this percep- tion was fueled by his excommunication from the Church, together with his interest in the ancients and scientific learning, enjoyment of philosophical debates, and fondness for sending letters posing questions to dif- ferent rulers, both Christian and Muslim.5 Kayqubad’s intellectual curiosity, scientific interest, artistic know- how, and historical consciousness are described in sim- ilar terms by the Seljuq court chronicler Ibn Bibi (active ca. 1285).6 In fact, both of these rulers experienced the reality of negotiating the boundaries of the bifurcation of power and had to come to terms with being tempo- ral rulers under religious superiors, one in the domain of Christianity, the other in Islamdom. To this end, Fred- erick accepted the superior status of the pope, while Kayqubad submitted to the caliph. By evaluating a number of artifacts associated with ʿAla al-Din Kayqubad, I argue that the sultan was nei- ther a Sunni revivalist orthodox ruler, as he has been portrayed, nor secular, but a product of his times and geography, situated between “East” and “West” (two terms of problematic use for the medieval period). In some cases—such as the sultan’s well-known city walls in Konya—there appears to be, at first sight, an anti- quarian penchant for the “classical” or “Roman” past (fig. 1). With what seem to be borrowings of an imperial nature, Kayqubad’s commission invites comparison with Frederick II’s gate at Capua (fig. 2). The questions of inspiration, influence, and mimesis are complicated for these two contemporaries. In my own endeavor to clarify these matters, through detective work that began with a single object (a lead seal by Kayqubad to be dis- cussed below), I discovered that first impressions can be misleading. As I will argue below, in addition to obvi- ous “Western” links, Kayqubad was also inspired by sources further “East,” such as the Artuqids of Hisn Kayfa and Amid (1102–1232), which, combining classi-