It is sad that so great, and, on the whole, so good a Minister as Abú 'Alí al-Ḥasan b. Isḥáq, better known by his title The Nidhámu'l­Mulk. Nidhámu'l-Mulk, should first appear prominently in history in connection with this deed of violence, and, as though the curse of his dying predecessor had a real efficacy, should, after a career of usefulness hardly rivalled by any Eastern statesman, come to a bloody and violent end. He was born in A.D. 1017-18, of a family of dihqáns, or small landed gentry, in Ṭús. His mother died ere yet he was weaned, and at the same time his father was beset by financial difficulties and losses. Notwithstanding these unpromising circumstances, he obtained a good educa­tion, learned Arabic, and studied the theological sciences, until he obtained some secretarial post at Balkh under 'Alí b. Shádhán, the Governor placed over that town by Alp Arslán's father, Chaghrí Beg, who on his death recommended him most strongly to the young prince. * So he became Alp Arslán's adviser and minister, and, on the accession of his master to the throne, Prime Minister over the vast realm which acknowledged the Seljúqs' sway. He was a most capable administrator, an acute statesman, a devout and orthodox Sunní, harsh towards heretics, especially the Shí'ites and Isma'ílís, a liberal patron of letters, a sincere friend to men of virtue and learning ('Umar Khayyám, or whom we shall shortly have to speak, being one of the most celebrated of his protègès), and unremitting in his efforts to secure public order and prosperity and to promote religion and education. One of his first acts on becoming Prime Minister was to found and endow the celebrated Nidhámiyya College (so called after him) in Baghdád, of which the building was begun in A.D. 1065 and finished in 1067, and which after­wards numbered amongst its professors some of the most eminent men of learning of the time, including (A.D. 1091-95) the great theologian Abú Ḥámid Muḥammad al-Ghazálí, of whom as-Suyúṭí said: “Could there have been a prophet after Muḥammad, it would assuredly have been al-Ghazálí.”

As regards Alp Arslán, his birth is variously placed in A.H. 420 and 424 (= A.D. 1029, 1033) * by Ibnu'l-Athír,

Alp Arslán. and at the beginning of A.H. 431 (September 23, A.D. 1039) by the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr, which says (f. 50) that “he reigned twelve years after the death of his uncle, Ṭughril Bey, in A.H. 455 (= A.D. 1063), and two years before that over Khurásán, on the death of his father, Chaghrí Beg Dá'úd”; and that he was thirty-four years of age at the time of his death. “In appearance,” continues this history, “he was tall, with moustaches so long that he used to tie up their ends when he wished to shoot; and never did his arrows miss the mark. * He used to wear a very high kuláh on his head, and men were wont to say that from the top of this kuláh to the ends of his moustaches was a distance of two yards. He was a strong and just ruler, generally magnani­mous, swift to punish acts of tyranny, especially of extortion and exaction, and so charitable to the poor that at the end of the fast of Ramaḍán he was wont to distribute 15,000 dínárs in alms, while many needy and deserving persons in all parts of his vast kingdom (which, as Ibnu'l-Athír * says, “stretched from the remotest parts of Transoxiana to the remotest parts of Syria”) were provided with pensions. He was also devoted to the study of history, listening with great pleasure and interest to the reading of the chronicles of former kings, and of works which threw light on their characters, institutes, and methods of administration. He left at least five sons and three daughters. Of the former, he married Maliksháh (who succeeded him) to the daughter of the Turkish Khátún, and Arslán Arghún to one of the princesses of the House of Ghazna, while one of his daughters, Khátún Safariyya, was wedded to the Caliph al-Muqtadí.

Alp Arslán's reign, though short (September, A.D. 1063 to November, 1072), was filled with glorious deeds. In the first Achievements of his reign. year of his reign he subdued Khatlán, Herát, and Ṣighániyán in the north-east, and drove back the “Romans” (i.e., the Byzantines) in Asia Minor. A little later (A.D. 1065) he subdued Jand (which, since his great-grandfather Seljúq was buried there, probably had a special importance in his eyes), and put down a rebellion in Fárs and Kirmán. He also checked the power of the Fáṭimid Anti-Caliphs, from whose sway he recovered Aleppo and the holy cities of Mecca and Medína; and last, but not least, in the summer of A.D. 1071, he, at the head of 15,000 picked troops, * inflicted a crushing defeat at Malázgird (near Akhláṭ, in Western Asia Minor) on a Byzantine army numbering, at the lowest estimate, 200,000 men (Greeks, Russians, Turks of various kinds, Georgians, and other Caucasian tribes, Franks and Armenians), and took captive the Byzantine Emperor Diogenes Romanus.

Concerning this last achievement a curious story is told by most of the Muslim historians. * Sa'du'd-Dín Gawhar-Á'ín,

Capture of Romanus IV. one of Alp Arslán's nobles, had a certain slave so mean and insignificant in appearance that the Nidhámu'l-Mulk was at first unwilling to let him accompany the Muslim army, and said in jest, “What can be expected of him? Will he then bring captive to us the Roman Emperor?” By the strangest of coincidences this actually happened, though the slave, not recognising the rank and importance of his prisoner, would have killed him had not an attendant disclosed his identity. When the captive Emperor was brought before Alp Arslán, the latter struck him thrice with his hand and said, “Did I not offer thee peace, and thou didst refuse?” “Spare me your reproaches,” answered the unfortunate Emperor, “and I will do what thou wilt.” “And what,” continued the Sulṭán, “didst thou intend to do with me hadst thou taken me captive?” “I would have dealt harshly with thee,” replied the Greek. “And what,” said Alp Arslán, “do you think I shall do with thee?” “Either thou wilt slay me,” answered Romanus, “or thou wilt parade me as a spectacle through the Muslim lands; for the third alternative, namely, thy forgiveness, and the acceptance of a ransom, and my employment as thy vassal, is hardly to be hoped for.” “Yet this last,” said the victor, “is that whereon I am resolved.” The ransom was fixed at a million and a half of dínárs, peace was to be observed for fifty years, and the Byzantine troops were to be at Alp Arslán's disposal at such times and in such numbers as he might require, while all Muslim prisoners in the hands of the Greeks were to be liberated. These terms having been accepted, Romanus was invested with a robe of honour and given a tent for himself and 15,000 dínárs for his expenses, and a number of his nobles and officers were also set free. The Sulṭán sent with them an escort to bring them safely to their own marches, and himself rode with them a parasang. This humiliating defeat, however, proved fatal to the supremacy of Romanus, whose subjects, as al-Bundárí says, “cast aside his name and erased his record from the kingdom, saying, ‘he is fallen from the roll of kings,’ and supposing that Christ was angered against him.”

Two years later, in November, A.D. 1072, Alp Arslán was engaged at the other extremity of his empire in a campaign against the Turks. He reached the Oxus at the head of 200,000 men, * whose transport across the river occupied more Death of Alp Arslán. than three weeks. And while he was halting there, there was brought before him as a prisoner a certain Yúsuf Narzamí (or Barzamí, or Khwárazmí), * the warden of a fortress which had withstood his troops and had now fallen before their prowess. Alp Arslán, exasperated, as some historians assert, by the prisoner's evasive answers, ordered him to be brought close to his throne and extended on the ground by being bound by his wrists and ankles to four pegs driven into the earth, so to suffer death. On hearing this sentence the prisoner, hurling at the Sulṭán a term of the foulest abuse, cried out, “Shall one like me die a death like this?” Alp Arslán, filled with fury, waved aside those who guarded the prisoner, and, seizing his bow, fired an arrow at him. The skill for which he was so famous, however, failed him at this supreme moment, and the prisoner, no longer held, rushed in, ere one of the two thousand attendants who were present could interfere, and mortally wounded him in the groin with a dagger which he had con­cealed about him. Gawhar-Á'ín, who rushed to his master's assistance, was also wounded in several places before a farrásh (an Armenian, according to al-Bundárí) succeeded in slaying the desperate man by a blow on the head with his club. Long afterwards the son of this farrásh was killed at Baghdád in a quarrel with one of the Caliph's servants, who then sought sanctuary in the Caliph's private apartments, whence none dared drag him forth. But the farrásh came before Maliksháh crying for vengeance, and saying, “O Sire! deal with the murderer of my son as did I with thy father's murderer!” And though the Caliph offered a ransom of ten thousand dínárs to save his house from such violation, Maliksháh was obdurate until the murderer had been given up and put to death.