Ahlatshahs were closely tied to Great Seljuq institutions, although they also followed independent policies like the wars against Georgia in alliance with their neighbours to the north, the Saltukids.

They also acquired links with the branch of the Artuqids based in Meyyafarikin (now Silvan), becoming part of a nexus of principalities in Upper Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia.

Ahlat), on the northwest shore of Lake Van, the political situation of the Shah-Armen state changed greatly during the twelfth century in regard to what these shahs held and what was merely subject to them through ties of vassalage.The Seljuk Empire of Iran, proclaimed in 1040, lasted little more than one hundred years.

A number of dynasties such as the Danishmendids, Qaramanids, Shah-Armans, and the Seljuks of Rum emerged in Anatolia.This condition became more accentuated especially during the period of the disintegration of the Saljuq empire, when the atabegs who had assumed great power in border districts, became autonomous.

Ani generally prospered under Shaddadid rule (1072–1199) despite, repeated Georgian attacks, as did Xlat under that of the "Philochristian" Armenized Seljuk dynasty of the Sah-i Armen (1100-1207).It was not long before two Ortokid dynasties were created in Armenia and Kurdistan, the former by Sokman, the Shah-Armen (or "King of Armenia") and the other by Il-Ghazi.The role of the ghulam commanders and the Turkmen begs becomes very prominent in this period, and local Turkmen dynasties begin to form: the sons of Bursuq in Khuzistan; the Artuqids in Diyarbakr; at Khilat the Shah-Armanids, descendants of Isma'Il b. Yaquti's ghulam Sukman al-Qutbl; and shortly afterwards the Zangids, descendants of Aq-Sonqur, in Mosul.In Armenia the Shah-Armanids, descendants of the ghulam Sukman al-Qutbi, were frequently involved in the politics and warfare of Azarbaijan, tending to take the side of Aq-Sonqur II against the Eldigiizids.

But when Nasr al-Din Sukman died without an heir in 581/1185, a bloodless struggle for power took place between Pahlavan b. Eldigiiz, who had married a daughter to the aged Shah-Arman in order to acquire a succession claim, and the Ayyubid Saladin.

from 493/1100 to 604/1207.He also gained the city of Khelat with dependencies that in former times had belonged to the Shah-i-Armen, but shortly before had been taken by Jalal ud-Din; this aggression was the cause of the war just mentioned.But the Mamikonids succeeded in remaining sovereign, under vague Byzantine suzerainty, in the southwestern part of Taraun, round the fortress-city of Arsamosata, and in the neighboring Arzanenian land of Sasun, i.e., in the middle valley of the Arsanias, until their dispossession by the Shah-Armen in 1189/1190 and their migration to Armenia-in-Exile, in Cilicia.Shah Armens, i.e. Kings of Armenia, was a title assumed by a dynasty reigning at Ahlat, founded by Sokman Kothby, a slave of the Seljuk prince, Kotbbedin Ismail, who established an independent principality at Ahlat in A.D. 1100, which lasted eighty years.