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fully defended his capital against the attack of a large Turkish force under a certain Saghir Beg. He held this post until his death, and apparently continued in his loyalty to Sanjar, who, as we have seen, ascended the throne of the Seljūks in 51I. We are not told when he died, but Narshakhi says that his son Nasr Khan was killed during a revolt in Samarkand in A.H. 523 (1128). On the death of his father, Nasr's son Mohammad Khān wrote to inform Sanjar of what had passed. Sanjar thereupon set out with a force to establish order in Samarkand, but when he approached the town Mohammad Khan sent him an insolent message that the Sultan would do well to retreat, inasmuch as he (Mohammad) had subdued his opponents. Sanjar was much incensed, and promptly invested the city. After a protracted siege he captured Samarkand and took Mohammad prisoner, A.H. 524 (1129). A new governor was now appointed, but he died two years later, when the reins of power were given to Mahmud Khān, the son of Mohammad.1

In the meanwhile another mighty host was advancing on Transoxiana; but before describing their progress we must retrace our steps and recount the downfall of the Ghaznavides and the rise of the great Seljūk dynasty of Persia.

1 Mirkhwänd (Vüllers, Historia Seldschukidarum, p. 176), and Vambéry following him, say that Mohammad was reinstated.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GHAZNAVIDES AND THE RISE OF THE

SELJÜKS

THE struggles between Mahmud of Ghazna and Ilik Khan of Kashghar continued till the year A.H. 401 (1010), when the latter, owing to a quarrel with his brother Toghan, was obliged to withdraw his troops, and a long period of peace ensued, with but slight interruptions, during which the Oxus continued to be regarded as the frontier of their respective realms.

Before the actual downfall of the Sāmānides the province of Khwärazm,' which lay between the states of the Turkish Khāns and the Ghaznavides, had become practically independent. On the final overthrow of the Sāmānides, the Khwārazm Shah, as their ruler was called, had thrown in his fortunes with the Ghaznavides. In A.H. 407 (1017) the then ruler was murdered by rebels, whereupon Mahmud marched into the country at the head of a large force and conquered it, setting up a governor of his own creation named Altuntash.

Great difficulties attend an attempt to define the ethnographic affinities of the Turks. A similarity of language forces one to associate the Tartars of Southern Russia, the Turkomans of the Oxus countries, and the Uzbegs of Transoxiana. This race, in the broadest * See chap. XX.

1 The modern Khiva.

sense of the word, may be divided into three groups :

(1) The Northern Turks, comprising the Siberian nomads, such as the Yakuts, etc.

(2) The Eastern Turks, including those of Chinese Turkestan and the Uzbegs of Russian Turkestan, to whom are related the Tartars of the Crimea and the Volga.

(3) The Western Turks, comprising the Osmanlis, or Ottoman branch, the Azerbayjānīs of Persia, and the Turkomans, in fact, what we commonly in Europe understand by the word Turk.

The habitat of the original Turks was in the Altar, whence they migrated in large numbers at an early period towards China and Turkestan. It was in this latter direction that they met with least resistance, and thither, therefore, they wandered in the greatest numbers.

But, apart from these lesser migrations, two great Turkish waves poured, at an interval of two hundred years, over Western Asia and Southern Europe-the Seljuks and the hordes of Chingiz Khān.

The former, composed of what we now call Western Turks, of whom the Ghuz and the Turkomans were the predominant element, swept over the Oxus-lands into Armenia and Asia Minor. From them sprang, at a later date, the Osmanlis, who finally overthrew the Byzantine Empire. A portion, however, of the Seljuks either remained in the Oxus country, or were pressed across that river by the advances of the Eastern Turks into modern Turkomania.

The second great migration spread simultaneously in two directions. The larger body penetrated north of the Sea of Aral into Southern Europe, where they carried all before them until their progress was stayed by Western skill at the memorable battle of Leignitz

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