year, A.H. 433 (1042), murdered by his own nephew. The princes of Ghazna continued to reign until A.H. 555 (1160),—in fact, they outlasted the Seljuks of Central Asia, but no chief of the dynasty ever attained to the greatness of its earlier representatives. Their hostilities with the Seljuks were finally brought to a close by a treaty concluded in A.H. 451 (1059) between Chakir and Ibrāhīm, the then ruler of Ghazna, who thereby for ever lost the province of Khorāsān.1 1 Müller, op. cit. i. 77. CHAPTER XVIII TOGHRUL BEG'S THE SELJUKS career career of conquest is admirably epitomised by Gibbon in the 57th chapter of his immortal work. After driving the Ghaznavides back to India, he overthrew the powerful dynasty of the Buyides,1 and with their fall the whole of Persia passed into the hands of the Turks. "By the conquest of Azerbāyjān, or Atropatene, he approached the Roman confines, and the shepherd presumed to despatch an ambassador or herald to demand the tribute and obedience of the Emperor of Constantinople.2 The expeditions of these fortunate brothers, Toghrul and Chakir, in their results at all events, more closely resembled the migration of entire peoples than military campaigns. By the year A.H. 440 (1048) Azerbāyjān, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor were entirely overrun by Turkish bands. Four hundred years before this a huge wave of conquering Arabs and Persians had swept in an easterly direction over all Persia as far as the Oxus and 1 Vide supra, p. 112, note I. Cf. Gibbon, chap. Ivii. De Guignes gives a somewhat different version of the relations between the Emperor and the Turk (vol. iii. p. 191). He says: Constantin-Monomaque qui regnoit alors à Constantinople, ne crut pas devoir négliger l'alliance d'un prince qui faisoit trembler toute l'Asie : il lui envoya des ambassadeurs pour lui proposer de faire la paix, et Thogrulbegh y consentit." This difference is due to the fact that Gibbon's authorities were Byzantine, while De Guignes' were Mohammedan. beyond it. We now find a still vaster influx of Turks over the same country, but starting where the other had ended. The first flood-tide took the form of a religious war into the infidel countries, and brought with it the influence of culture and solid learning. The reflex wave was an irresistible migration of savage tribes, who, though well-nigh destitute of any tincture of letters,1 were still, it must be remembered, the children of Islām. The marks left on the East by the Western wave were ethnographically slight, but psychically of great importance; while precisely the opposite is true of the second immigration. Bokhārā and Balkh became, and for centuries remained, the centres of Mohammedan lore, while Asia Minor and Azerbayjān were the permanent abodes of the descendants of the Seljuks. The forces of the two brothers were probably augmented by the westward flow of new bands of Turks, and victory attended them wherever they turned. In A.H. 449 (1055) Toghrul Beg entered Baghdād, and helped to establish the Caliph Ka'im on his throne.2 Toghrul Beg had no male issue. On the approach of death he selected as his successor his nephew Alp Arslan, the son of his deceased brother Chakir. Thus, in the year A.H. 455 (1063), Alp Arslan became lord of a kingdom which extended from the Oxus to the Euphrates, and from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. One of his first measures was to rid himself of his uncle's 1 It would, however, be wrong to regard these Turks as uncultured people; for though few traces of their early literature have come down to us, testimony is not wanting to the fact that they had, long before they began their westward migrations, a written language and perhaps a literature. 2 He was not received in audience by the Caliph till A.H. 451 (1059). In 455 (1063), in spite of his outward show of respect, Toghrul Beg practically forced the Caliph to give him his daughter in marriage. But, in the same year, as Toghrul was about to claim his bride, fortune suddenly deserted him, and he died at the age of seventy in Ray, where, according to Mirkhwänd (see ed. Vüllers, p. 65), he wished to celebrate his nuptials. vezir, and appoint in his stead a man who afterwards bore one of the most exalted names in the history and literature of the East. Hasan ibn 'Alī, better known as Nizām ul-Mulk, or Regulator of the State, was born in Tūs in A.H. 408 (1018), and early displayed signs of administrative power. He held office first under the Ghaznavides, and later, at Balkh, under the Seljuks. The post of chief vezir, which now fell to his lot, he continued to hold for a period of thirty years. He was celebrated alike for justice, tolerance, and literary attainments.1 It was under Alp Arslan that the Turks first invaded the Roman Empire.2 Having temporarily satisfied his ambition in the West, he returned to his capital, and formed the project of crossing the Oxus and invading the countries whence his ancestors had come. His career was, however, cut short in A.H. 465 (1063) by a mortal wound received at the hands of a man whom he had condemned to death.* He was succeeded by his son Melik Shah, whose claims were disputed by several rivals, but these were disposed of with little difficulty. In A.H. 446 (1073) 1 His name is familiar to the English public through the medium of 'Omar Khayyam. All who have read Fitzgerald's admirable translation of the Rubaiyat know the story of the three famous schoolfellows-'Omar Khayyām, the poet; Nizam ul-Mulk, the statesman; and Hasan ibn Sabbah, "the Old Man of the Mountain." These three, as schoolboys at Nishāpūr, had sworn that whichever of them should rise highest in the world should help the others. Of two of them we shall have to speak below. 2 His was not actually their first expedition, for, in 1050, parts of Armenia had been laid waste and countless Christians massacred by the Turks. Cf. Gibbon, chap. xlvii. 3 We refer the reader to Gibbon's 57th chapter for a vivid account of Alp Arslan's dealings with the Romans (see also Malcolm, op. cit. i. 209–213). 4 This was a chief named Yusuf, who had long held out against the Sultan in his fortress of Berzem in Khwārazm. Cf. Malcolm, op. cit. i. 213; and De Guignes, iii. 213. "Notably his uncle Kāwurd (see Müller, op. cit. ii. 94),—whom Vambéry calls Kurd; and Vüllers (in Mirkhwänd's Seljūks), Kādurd; and Malcolm (op. cit. i. 216), Cawder. he engaged in warfare with Altagin, the Turkish Khān of Samarkand, who, on hearing of the death of Alptagin, had presumed to lay siege to Tirmiz, a town included in the Seljuks' realms, though it lay on the right bank of the Oxus.1 He soon drove the Khan back, and forced him to sue for peace. Melik Shah apparently remained on peaceful terms with the Turks until A.H. 482 (1089), when, in response to a call from the oppressed inhabitants of Transoxiana, he crossed the great river and made himself master of Bokhārā and Samarkand. Pushing beyond the last-named city, he threatened to invade the territory of the Khan of Kashghar, who, overcome by fear, consented to recognise the suzerainty of the Seljuks, both in his coins and in the public prayers. At the zenith of his fortunes the great Sultan held sway from the frontiers of China up to the gates of Constantinople. August Müller aptly compares Alp Arslān and Melik Shah with Trajan and Hadrian. Brilliant as were the military successes of Melik Shāh, they are cast into the shade by his cultivation of the peaceful arts and his sedulous care for the development of his territories. Though five years passed by ere he was firmly established on his throne, the remaining fifteen years of his reign were attended by a degree of internal prosperity, an advance in literature and learning, which will ever associate his name with one of the most brilliant epochs in the history of Islam. There is, however, one great blot on his escutcheon: his treatment of his able and faithful minister, Nizam ul-Mulk. Influenced by lying reports brought to his ears by the enemies of the vezir, he 1 Müller, op. cit. ii. 94. 2 See below, chap. xix. 3 Vambéry (op. cit. p. 100) qualifies these statements as the " tions of partial Arab and Persian writers." 4 Op. cit. ii. 95. mere fabrica |