THE SELJŪKS
Toghrul Beg’s 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 Būyides,[281]
and with their fall the whole of Persia passed into the hands of the
Turks. “By the conquest of Āzerbāyjān, 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.”[282]
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)
Āzerbāyjān, 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 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,[283] 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 Āzerbāyjān were the permanent abodes of the descendants of
the Seljūks. 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 Kā´im on his throne.[284]
Toghrul Beg had no male issue. On the approach of death he selected
as his successor his nephew Alp Arslān, the son of his deceased
brother Chakir. Thus, in the year A.H. 455 (1063), Alp Arslān 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 vezīr, 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 Seljūks. The post
of chief vezīr, 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.[285]
It was under Alp Arslān that the Turks first invaded the Roman
Empire.[286] Having temporarily satisfied his ambition in the
West,[287] 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.[288] He was succeeded by his son Melik Shāh, whose claims were
disputed by several rivals,[289] but these were disposed of with little
difficulty. In A.H. 446 (1073) 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 Seljūks’
realms, though it lay on the right bank of the Oxus.[290] He soon drove
the Khān back, and forced him to sue for peace. Melik Shāh 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 Khān of Kāshghar,[291] who, overcome by fear,
consented to recognise the suzerainty of the Seljūks,[292] 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[293] aptly compares Alp Arslān and Melik
Shāh 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 Islām. There is, however, one
great blot on his escutcheon: his treatment of his able and faithful
minister, Nizām ul-Mulk. Influenced by lying reports brought to his
ears by the enemies of the vezīr, he 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,[294] 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.[295] The
youngest, Mahmūd, 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 Isfahān, preceded by the corpse of Melik Shāh. Berkiyāruk, the
eldest prince,[296] was residing there; but, powerless to resist, he
retired to Ray, attended by Mu`ayyad ud-Dawla, the son of the late
vezīr 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 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 Baghdād, 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,[297] 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 Āzerbāyjān, 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 Isfahān to Baghdād,[298] 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 Shāh II. The young prince was, however,
unable to resist his uncle Mohammad, who seized Baghdād 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 Isfahān in A.H. 511 (1117), and was nominally succeeded by his
son Mahmūd, who was almost immediately reduced by his uncle Sanjar to
the condition of a dependant.[299] 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.