THE GHAZNAVIDES AND THE RISE OF THE SELJŪKS
The struggles between Mahmūd of Ghazna and Ilik Khān of Kāshghar
continued till the year A.H. 401 (1010), when the latter, owing to a
quarrel with his brother Toghān, 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
Khwārazm,[269] 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 Shāh,[270] 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 Mahmūd marched
into the country at the head of a large force and conquered it, setting
up a governor of his own creation named Altuntāsh.
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
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 Turkestān and the
Uzbegs of Russian Turkestān, to whom are related the Tartars of the
Crimea and the Volga.
(3) The Western Turks, comprising the Osmānlīs, or Ottoman branch, the
Āzerbāyjānīs 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 Altaï, whence they
migrated in large numbers at an early period towards China and
Turkestān. 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 Seljūks 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 Osmānlīs, who finally overthrew the Byzantine Empire. A
portion, however, of the Seljūks either remained in the Oxus country,
or were pressed across that river by the advances of the Eastern Turks
into modern Turkomania.
[Illustration: CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES
1. UZBEG WOMAN
2. UZBEG
3. UZBEG
4. UZBEG
]
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 (A.D. 1241).
The smaller horde was composed of Eastern Turks, who, under Mongolian
leadership, drove their Western cousins out of Transoxiana in the
thirteenth century.
According to the _Tārīkh-i-Guzīda_[271], the Turks of the tribe of
Kabak, to which Seljūk belonged, passed in the year A.H. 395 (985)
from Turkestān into Transoxiana, and settled in the neighbourhood of
Samarkand and Bokhārā. They were a race of shepherds, and were prompted
to cross the Jaxartes by the scarcity of pasturage on their own side.
They are said to have lived on peaceful terms with Sultan Mahmūd of
Ghazna, who, not long afterwards, gave them permission to cross the
Oxus and settle in the environs of Nisā and Abīverd. Their chief at
this period was named Mikā´īl, and he had two sons named Toghrul and
Chakir, who were the founders of the Seljūk dynasty.[272]
It is not within the scope of the present sketch to describe the
wonderful campaigns of Sultan Mahmūd[273] in India and elsewhere,
and the brilliant circle of poets and writers which he had gathered
round him at Ghazna. In the year before his death, A.H. 420 (1029), he
conducted a successful expedition against the Seljūks, who had invaded
his Persian territories. The last of his successes was the conquest
of nearly the whole of `Irāk, which, together with Ray and some other
territories, he formed into a government for his son Mas`ūd, declaring
at the same time his other son Mohammad heir to his throne and the rest
of his possessions.[274]
On the death of Sultan Mahmūd, in A.H. 421 (1030), Mas`ūd’s whole
energies were absorbed in withstanding the Ghuz hordes which invaded
his province of Khorāsān in ever-increasing numbers. He tried in
vain to conciliate them by granting fresh pasture-lands. In A.H. 425
(1034), while he was engaged in quelling a rebellion in India, a
formidable rising against the Ghaznavides took place in Khorāsān, whose
inhabitants felt that they were deserted by their chief and left at
the mercy of the Ghuz. At the same time the prince of Tabaristān and
Jurjān, deeming the occasion favourable, reasserted their independence.
In the following year Mas`ūd marched northwards, and succeeded not only
in driving back the Ghuz beyond Tūs and Nīshāpūr, but in bringing to
submission the rebellious prince of Tabaristān.
[Illustration: CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES
1. TURKOMAN
2. KIRGHIZ
3. TAJIK
4. SARI
]
Meanwhile events were taking place in the north which were to render
these minor successes valueless,[275] for in A.H. 425 (1034) Hārūn,
the Ghaznavide governor of Khwārazm,[276] profiting by the embarrassed
position of Mas`ūd, threw off his allegiance. Although the immediate
result of this step was an interval of disorder, during which Hārūn
was murdered, his successor persisted in a policy of rebellion, and
ceased to pay any regard to the court at Ghazna. This event in itself
seemed of small importance, but it brought grave results in its
train. We are told that the Seljūks, in A.H. 426 (1035), helped Mas`ūd
to drive the rest of the Ghuz out of Khorāsān, but the alliance did
not survive this campaign; and thus, while Mas`ūd was absent in Ghazna
in the following year, we find his lieutenant in Khorāsān engaged in
hostilities with the Seljūks. During the same year, A.H. 427 (1036),
the Ghaznavide general suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Chakir
Beg in the vicinity of Merv. From this event dates the rise of the
Seljūks. In A.H. 428 (1037) Merv surrendered to Chakir, and in the
following year Toghrul was declared master of Nīshāpūr. Khorāsān was
now practically in the hands of the Seljūk brothers. Mas`ūd had been
too busily employed with troubles in India to give due attention to
the protection of his richest province. At length, in A.H. 431 (1040),
he determined to make a final effort to retrieve his losses, and led
an army in person against Merv, where he suffered a final and crushing
defeat at the hands of Chakir and Toghrul.[277] He still clung to
Khorāsān with all the energy of despair. Leaving his son in Balkh, he
hastened to India to raise a fresh army. But his influence with his
troops had gone, and no sooner had he crossed the Indian frontier than
his lawless soldiers began to plunder the treasures which had been
accumulated by his illustrious father. When they recovered their senses
they “were seized with a dread of punishment, and came to the sudden
resolution of reinstating Mohammad,[278] who was a prisoner in the
camp.”[279] Mas`ūd was captured, and in the following 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 Seljūks
of Central Asia,--but no chief of the dynasty ever attained to the
greatness of its earlier representatives. Their hostilities with the
Seljūks 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.[280]