degraded his devoted servant and indirectly brought about his death. For, shortly after Nizām ul-Mulk's removal from office, he was murdered by an assassin,1 employed perhaps by his successor in office, who feared a change in the Sultan's sentiments, A.H. 485 (1092). Melik Shāh did not long survive the fallen minister. Within a month he was seized with a violent illness, which terminated his life in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

He left four sons, who each in turn succeeded to his throne. The youngest, Mahmud, was only four years of age when his father died; but the ambition of his mother, the Sultana Khātūn Turkān, placed the crown upon his infant head, and the Caliph Muktadi was prevailed on to have his name mentioned in the public prayers. The Sultana marched to Isfahan, preceded by the corpse of Melik Shah. Berkiyāruk, the eldest prince,3 was residing there; but, powerless to resist, he retired to Ray, attended by Mu'ayyad ud-Dawla, the son of the late vezir Nizām ul-Mulk, who warmly espoused his cause, with all the adherents of his family. This support enabled him to return, and Khātūn Turkān was compelled to resign a great part of her treasures as the price of permission to retain control of Isfahān.

All

1 This assassin was one of the emissaries (or fadawi) of Hasan ibn Sabbah, Nizam ul-Mulk's old school friend. For an account of the Assassins we refer the reader to the article under that heading in the Encyclopædia Britannica. For more than a century the devotees of the Old Man of the Mountain played a part in politics not dissimilar to that of the Jesuits at certain periods in Europe. See J. von Hammer's Hist. de l'Ordre des Assassins (Paris, 1833); S. Guyard's "Un Grand Maitre des Assassins," Journal Asiatique, 1877; and an article by Mr. E. G. Browne in St. Bartholomew's Hosp. Journ., March 1897.

2 The history of the remaining Seljūk kings (of the original branch) is so admirably epitomised by Malcolm that it was considered unnecessary in this place to do more than quote from his well-known History of Persia (vol. ii. p. 222 et seq.). These sons were Berkiyāruk, Mohammad, Sanjar, and Mahmud.

3 He was himself but fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death.

her schemes of aggrandisement were soon afterwards terminated by her own death and that of her son, A.H. 487 (1104).

The death of the Caliph Muktadi, which occurred about the same period, induced Berkiyāruk to go to Baghdad, where he confirmed Mostadhhir as the new Caliph, and was in return hailed by him as Sultan of the empire. He enjoyed that dignity for eleven years, but his reign was a perpetual war in which his nearest relatives and all the great nobles of the state were engaged. His usual residence was Baghdād. His brother Mohammad ruled over Azerbāyjān, while Sanjar established a kingdom in Khorāsān and Transoxiana, whence he extended his conquests over the fallen princes of Ghazna, compelling them to pay him tribute. Berkiyāruk, who appears to have had an excellent disposition, and to have been wanting neither in courage nor conduct, died on a journey from Isfahan to Baghdad, A.H. 498 (1104). He felt his end approaching, and before he expired made his army take the oath of fidelity to his son Melik Shah II. The young prince was, however, unable to resist his uncle Mohammad, who seized Baghdad treacherously and took him prisoner, A.H. 498 (1104). The reign of Mohammad, which lasted thirteen years, was remarkable only for continual civil disturbances, and for the wars which his generals carried on in Syria against the European armies engaged in their crusade to recover the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Mohammedans. He died at Isfahan in A.H. 511 (1117), and was nominally succeeded by his son Mahmud, who was almost

1 A.H. 487-498 (1094-1104). Malcolm throughout his otherwise excellent history scarcely ever condescends to supply the reader with a date of any kind.

* He died of consumption at the early age of twenty-seven (perhaps even younger). Cf. Müller, op. cit. ii. 120.

immediately reduced by his uncle Sanjar to the condition of a dependant.1 Sanjar, who had been governor of Khorāsān and its dependencies for the past twenty years, now became Sultan, and as such enjoyed a reign of no less than forty years, A.H. 511-552 (1117-1157).

We must now turn our attention to Transoxiana and the East, where important events were passing.

1 He allowed his nephew the two 'Irāks on condition that his (Sanjar's) name should be mentioned first in the public prayers (cf. Habib-us-Siyar).

CHAPTER XIX

SULTAN SANJAR AND THE KARA-KHITĀYS

THE Country of Khwārazm1 was one of the first conquests of the Seljuks. On becoming masters of Khorāsān, the 'Irāks, Persia, and Syria, they chose men from among their Turkish slaves whom they placed in charge of the various provinces. The governor thus set over Khwārazm was named Balkategin, who was Tasht-dār, or Grand Ewer-bearer,2 to Sultan Melik Shāh, who exercised paramount authority in that country. He had under him a Turkish slave whom he had purchased, named Nushtegin, who by his conduct at his master's court was in such esteem that on the death of Balkategin he succeeded to the government of Khwārazm. He became even more powerful than his lord, but, though he is regarded as the first of the dynasty of Khwārazm-Shāhs, he remained loyal to the Seljuks. He bestowed great care in the education of his son Kutb ed-Din Mohammad, who succeeded him in A.H. 490 (1097) with the additional title of Khwärazm-Shāh, or emperor of Khwārazm. He was a great patron of letters, and made himself generally beloved in his province.

1 The modern Khanate of Khiva.

2 The Khans of Khiva still bear the title of Ewer-bearers to the Sultan

of Constantinople.

3 About A.H. 470 (1077).

It was during his tenure of office that the KaraKhitays began to make their inroads westwards.

3

The empire of the Kara-Khitays had been founded by the last prince of the Kitan or Liao dynasty,1 whose name was Ye-liu Ta-shi.2 On the destruction of that line by the Kin dynasty in A.D. 1123, Ye-liu Ta-shi, with a following of some two hundred men, passed into the country lying to the north-west of Shen-si,* where he was joined by numbers of Turks. He now set out in a westerly direction and carried all before him. He conquered Kāshghar, Yarkand, Khotan, and Turkestan, and at the beginning of A.D. 1124 or 1125 he reached Ki-rh-man.5 Here all his officers assembled and proclaimed him emperor, whereupon he assumed the title of Gur-Khān, or “Universal Lord."

Mahmud, the Uïghūr Khān mentioned above, was driven into Transoxiana, which shortly after became tributary to the Kara-Khitays. Ye-liu Ta-shi, whose dominions reached from the Gobi to the Oxus, and from the mountains of Tibet to Siberia, now fixed his residence at Balāsāghūn.

Towards the end of Kutb ed-Din's rule they advanced so far into Transoxiana that the Grand Ewerbearer sent an army of 100,000 men to oppose

1 He was a descendant in the eighth generation of T'ai-tsu, or Apaoki, the first Liao emperor. Cf. Bretschneider, op. cit. i. 211; Visdelou, p. 28. For the various forms his name has taken, cf. Howorth on the "KaraKhitay," J.R.A.S., New Series VIII. 273, 274.

2 De Guignes called him Taigir.

3 Called by the Mohammedans Churché, which corresponds to the Niuchi of Chinese historians. Cf. Bretschneider, op. cit. i. 224, note.

4 Cf. d'Ohsson, Histoire des Mongols, i. 163.

5 Some scholars have wished to identify this name with Kirman in Persia, but this seems most improbable. Bretschneider (op. cit. i. 216, note) suggests Kerminé, which is the site of the summer quarters of the present Amir of Bokhārā. Cf. also Howorth, loc. cit.

6 P. 134.