CHAPTER III
THE EARLY SELJÚQ PERIOD, FROM THE RISE OF ṬUGHRIL BEG
TILL THE DEATH OF MALIKSHÁH, INCLUDING THE ORIGIN
OF THE ORDER OF THE ASSASSINS

“THE advent of the Seljúqian Turks,” says Stanley Lane-Poole, in his excellent Mohammadan Dynasties (p. 149), “forms a notable epoch in Mohammadan history. At the time of their appearance the Empire of the Caliphate had vanished. What had once been a realm united under a sole Mohammadan ruler was now a collection of scattered dynasties, not one of which, save perhaps the Fáṭimids of Egypt (and they were schismatics) was capable of imperial sway. Spain and Africa, including the important province of Egypt, had long been lost to the Caliphs of Baghdád; Northern Syria and Mesopotamia were in the hands of turbulent Arab chiefs, some of whom had founded dynasties; Persia was split up into the numerous governments of the Buwayhid princes (whose Shí'ite opinions left little respect for the puppet Caliphs of their time), or was held by sundry insignificant dynasts, each ready to attack the other, and thus contribute to the general weakness. The prevalence of schism increased the disunion of the various provinces of the vanished Empire. A drastic remedy was needed, and it was found in the invasion of the Turks. These rude nomads, unspoilt by town life and civilised indifference to religion, embraced Islám with all the fervour of their uncouth souls. They came to the rescue of a dying State, and revived it. They swarmed over Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor, devastating the country, and exterminating every dynasty that existed there; and, as the result, they once more united Mohammadan Asia, from the western frontier of Afghánistán to the Mediterranean, under one sovereign; they put a new life into the expiring zeal of the Muslims, drove back the re-encroaching Byzantines, and bred up a generation of fanatical Mohammadan warriors, to whom, more than to anything else, the Crusaders owed their repeated failure. This it is that gives the Seljúqs so important a place in Mohammadan history.”

To this we may add that they were the progenitors of the Ottoman Turks, the foundation of whose Empire in Asia Minor, and afterwards in Syria, Egypt, the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa, was laid by the Seljúq kingdoms of Rúm—the so-called Decarchy—and actually determined by the Mongol Invasion, which drove westwards by its storm-blast the Turkish band of Ertoghrul and 'Osmán, whose descendant is the present Sultan of Turkey.

The rise of the Seljúq power, then, constitutes the historical, as opposed to the purely literary, portion of this chapter. For the necessarily brief account of this which I shall here give the chief authorities which I shall use are: (1) Ibnu'l-Athír's Chronicle (Cairo edition, vol. x, and concluding portion of vol. ix); (2) 'Imádu'd-Dín's edition of al-Bundárí's recension of the Arabic monograph on the Seljúqs composed by the Wazír Anúshirwán b. Khálid (died A.D. 1137-38), forming vol. ii of Professor Houtsma's Recueil de textes relatifs à l'Histoire des Seldjoucides (Leyden, 1889), with occasional reference to the History of the Seljúqs of Kirmán contained in vol. i of the same; (3) the unique manuscript Persian monograph on Seljúq history, entitled Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr, and composed in A.D. 1202-3, described by me in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1902, pp. 567-610 and 849-887. To save space, I shall henceforth refer to these respectively as Ibnu'l-Athír, with a reference to the year in his Annals where the matter in question is mentioned (or more rarely the page in the above­mentioned edition); Bundárí and Seljúqs of Kirmán (Houtsma's ed.); and Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr (“f.” followed by a number meaning leaf so-and-so of the unique Schefer Codex, “p.” meaning page so-and-so of my description).

The rise of this dynasty was as swift or swifter than that of the House of Ghazna, and its permanence and power were Origin of the Seljúqs. much greater. They were a branch of the Ghuzz Turks who in A.D. 1029 began to overrun the north and east of Persia, and to cause serious anxiety to Sulṭán Maḥmúd. Of this particular branch the first ancestor was, according to Ibnu'l-Athír, Tuqáq (a name explained as meaning “bow”), the father of Seljúq, who was the first to adopt the religion of Islám; and they came originally from Turkistán to Transoxiana, where they chose as their winter-quarters Núr of Bukhárá, and as their summer pasture-grounds Sughd and Samarqand. The main divisions of Seljúq's descendants are shown in the following tree, wherein the more important names are printed in capitals:—

<genealogy>

<graphic>

The period covered in this chapter embraces the reigns of Ṭughril (proclaimed king in Merv, A.D. 1037, died Sept. 4, A.D. 1063), Alp Arslán (born A.D. 1032-33, succeeded to the throne 1063, killed Nov. 24, A.D. 1072), and Maliksháh (suc­ceeded A.D. 1072, died Nov. 19, A.D. 1092). During nearly the whole of this period of fifty-five years the control of affairs was committed to the charge of one of the most celebrated Ministers of State whom Persia has produced, the wise and prudent Nidhámu'l-Mulk, whose violent death preceded the decease of his third royal master, Maliksháh, by only thirty-five days, and with whom the most brilliant period of Seljúq rule came to an end. The period with which we are here dealing may, in short, most briefly and suitably be defined as the period of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk.

Like nearly all Turks, the Seljúqids were, as soon as they embraced Islám, rigidly orthodox. The author of the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr relates that the Imám Abú Ḥanífa, the founder of the most widely-spread of the four orthodox schools, once prayed to God that his doctrine might endure, and that from the Unseen World the answer came to him, “Thy doctrine shall not wane so long as the sword continues in the hands of the Turks”; whereon the aforesaid author exultantly exclaims that “in Arabia, Persia, Rúm (Turkey in Asia), and Russia the sword is indeed in their hands” (he wrote in A.D. 1202-3); that religion, learning, and piety flourish under their protec­tion, especially in Khurásán; that irreligion, heresy, schism, philosophy, and the doctrines of materialism and metem­psychosis have been stamped out, so that “all paths are closed save the Path of Muḥammad.” Under Maliksháh, the Seljúq Empire extended, as Ibnu'l-Athír says (vol. x, p. 73) “from the frontiers of China to the confines of Syria, and from the utmost parts of the lands of Islám to the north unto the limits of Arabia Felix; while the Emperors of Rúm (i.e., of the Eastern Empire) brought him tribute.”

Yet orthodoxy did not rule unchallenged in the lands of Islám, for Egypt and much of North Africa and Syria were The Fáṭimid Anti-Caliphs. held by the Fáṭimid or Isma'ílí Anti-Caliphs, whose power and glory ṃay be said to have reached their summit in the long reign of al-Mustanṣir (A.D. 1035-94), which just covers the period discussed in this chapter. And far beyond the limits of their territories, most of all in Persia, these champions of the Báṭiní or “Esoteric” Shí'ite doctrine exercised, by means of their dá'ís, or missionaries, a profound and tremendous influence, with some of the most interesting manifestations of which we shall come into contact in this and the following chapters; while two of their chief propagandists, Náṣir-i-Khusraw the poet, and Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ, the originator of the “New Propa­ganda” and the founder of the notorious order of the Assassins, are inseparably connected with the greatest events and names of this supremely interesting age.

Of other dynasties besides these two—the Seljúqs and the Fáṭimids—we need hardly speak in this chapter. On Sulṭán Decline of the House of Ghazna. Maḥmúd's death the House of Ghazna was rent by a fratricidal struggle, out of which Mas'úd emerged victorious, and carried on for a time the Indian campaigns in which his father so rejoiced, besides taking Ṭabaristán and Gurgán from the Ziyárid prince Dárá b. Minú-chihr in A.D. 1034-35. Three years later the Seljúq hordes routed his troops at Balkh and carried off his elephants of war. The year A.D. 1040 saw his deposition and murder, and the accessions first of his brother Muḥammad and then of his son Mawdúd. Ṭabaristán submitted to the Seljúqs in the follow­ing year, and in A.D. 1043-44 they defeated Mawdúd in Khurásán, though he succeeded in expelling the Ghuzz Turks from Bust, which they had overrun, and was even able to continue the Indian campaigns. This, so far as Persia was concerned, put an end to the power of the Ghaznawís, though they maintained themselves in their own kingdom of Ghazna until A.D. 1161, when they were expelled by the House of Ghúr, after which their fortunes concern India only.