Muḥammad b. Maliksháh, entitled Ghiyáthu'd-Dín, who now became the practically undisputed ruler of the Persian Reign of Muḥammad b. Maliksháh. dominions of the Seljúq Empire, reigned rather more than thirteen years (A.D. 1105-18), during which time he sedulously strove to suppress the growing power of the Assassins, of whose development during this period we shall speak presently. Otherwise his reign was comparatively uneventful, save for his successful campaign, in A.D. 1108, against the noble Arabian Amír Ṣadaqa b. Mazyad, lord of Ḥilla and “King of the Arabs,” concerning which,

Reign of Maḥmúd b. Muḥammad. à propos of astrologers, Nidhámí-i-'Arúdí of Samar-qand has a curious anecdote. Muḥammad was succeeded by his son Maḥmúd, a boy of fourteen, who, after a brief period of misrule, had the folly to give battle to his uncle Sanjar, the powerful ruler of Khurásán, in August, A.D. 1119, at Sáwa. The defeat which he suffered cost him less dear than was usual in those days, for Sanjar, at the intercession of his mother, received his vanquished nephew with kindness, pardoned his rash folly, delegated to him the government of 'Iráq, over which he continued to reign for some fourteen years, and bestowed on him the hand of his daughter Máh-Malik Khátún. She died soon afterwards, and her father Sanjar, whose love for her was deep and sincere, is said to have been for some time inconsolable, and to have expressly summoned the aged poet 'Am'aq of Bukhárá to compose a brief elegy on her death.

Sanjar was formally proclaimed King at Baghdád on the 4th of September, A.D. 1119, having already, as stated above,

Reign of Sanjar. exercised sovereign sway over Khurásán for some twenty-four years. His reign, in spite of the dark clouds which overshadowed its latter days, was on the whole brilliant and prosperous, and with him and his Court were associated Anwarí, Mu'izzí, Adíb Ṣábir, and other great names amongst the Persian poets of this period. He was born in A.H. 479 (= A.D. 1086-87), at Sinjár in Asia Minor (after which he was named), and died in A.H. 551 or 552 (= A.D. 1156-57), at the age of seventy-two lunar years, having reigned, as ar-Ráwandi says, “61 years, 20 years over his own appanage of Khurásán, and 41 years over the world,” i.e., the whole Seljúq Empire. The troubles which darkened his later days began with the overt rebellion of Atsiz Khwárazmsháh, who declared his independence in A.D. 1140-41. In the following year he was defeated by heathen Turks, his wife was taken captive, and he lost a hundred thousand of his troops, and for a while Merv, Sarakhs, Níshápúr and Bayhaq. His disastrous defeat by the Ghuzz took place in the summer of A.D. 1153, when Ṭús and Níshá-púr were sacked, and many of their inhabitants, including some of those most celebrated for their learning and piety, were slain. He was practically a prisoner in the hands of the Ghuzz, outwardly treated with some respect, but unable to go where he would, or to protect his unfortunate people, till the autumn of A.D. 1156, when Mu'ayyidá and a few others of his old retainers succeeded, by bribing some of his Ghuzz custodians, in effecting his deliverance, and in bringing him safely to Merv, where he began to collect an army; but grief at the ruin and desolation of his country, combined with old age, caused his death a few months later. He was buried, like his grandfather, Alp Arslán, at Merv, in the building called Dawlat-Khána, which he had erected there.

Of the Seljúqs of Kirmán, four, Túránsháh (d. A.D. 1097), his son, Iránsháh (murdered in A.D. 1101 on the suspicion Seljúqs of Kirmán. of leaning towards the doctrines of the Isma'ílí heretics), Arslánsháh (cousin of him last-named, d. A.D. 1142), and Mughíthu'd-Dín Muḥammad, son of Arslánsháh, who inaugurated his reign by blinding some twenty of his brothers and nephews (d. A.D. 1156), are included in the period covered by the present chapter.

Of the 'Abbásid Caliphs of Baghdád, al-Muqtadí died about the beginning of this period (A.D. 1094), and al-Muqtafí about Contemporary Caliphs of Baghdád. the end (A.D. 1160); while of the three intervening Caliphs, al-Mustadhhir died in A.D. 1118, and al-Mustarshid and his son ar-Ráshid were both assassinated by the Isma'ílís, the former (by the instigation of Sanjar, it is said) at Marágha, where he was a captive in the hands of Sulṭán Mas'úd the Seljúq, on Sunday, August 29, 1135; the latter, two years after he had been deposed by the same Sulṭán, at Iṣfahán, on Tuesday, June 7, 1138. The Caliphs were, indeed, at this epoch, little more than puppets in the hands of the Seljúqs, so that al-Mustarshid said in a homily which he delivered at Kirmánsháh while on his way to make against their power that vain effort which cost him his life: “We entrusted our affairs to the House of Seljúq, but they rebelled against us, and time lengthened over them, and their hearts were hardened, and many of them were sinners.”*

The star of the House of Ghazna had long been on the wane, and the latter part of the period which now occupies The Houses of Ghúr and Ghazna. our attention saw its final extinction at the hands of the “Kings of the Mountains of Ghúr,” those fierce and hardy Afgháns of Fírúzkúh. The King of Ghazna at the time when this period opens was Ibráhím, who, to judge by an anecdote contained in the Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, p. 42), seems to have been a prince of some force of character. There was a dearth of bread in Ghazna, the bakers closed their shops, and the poor, in great distress, appealed to the King, who summoned the bakers before him and inquired as to the cause of this scarcity. They informed him that the Royal Baker had made a “corner” in flour in order to raise the price. Thereupon the Sulṭán caused the offender to be trampled to death by an elephant; his mangled body was then attached to its tusks and paraded through the city; and proclamation was made that the same fate would befall any baker who closed his shop. “That evening,” says the author, “at the door of every shop were fifty maunds of bread which no one would buy.”

Sulṭán Ibráhím of Ghazna died in A.D. 1099, and was succeeded by his son Mas'úd III, who died in A.D. 1114, and was followed in succession by his three sons, Shírzád (d. A.D. 1115), Arslán, and Bahrámsháh, who strangled his brother and possessed himself of the throne in A.D. 1118, and reigned till near the end of our present period (A.D. 1152). His name is associated with that of the first great mystic poet of Persia, Saná'í, who composed his Ḥadíqatu'l-Ḥaqíqat, or “Garden of Truth,” in A.D. 1131. His reign closed in disaster. In the autumn of A.D. 1135 Sanjar, suspecting him of disloyalty to his engagements, marched against him, and exacted an apology and a fine, and, after remaining at Ghazna for some months, returned to Balkh in July of the following year. * Some twelve years later Bahrámsháh saw fit to put to death his son-in-law, Quṭbu'd-Dín Muḥammad, a prince of the House of Ghúr, whose brothers, 'Alá'u'd-Dín Ḥusayn and Sayfu'd-Dín Súrí avenged this deed in A.D. 1148, by driving Bahrámsháh out of Ghazna, where Sayfu'd-Dín established himself as Governor for his brother, 'Alá'u'd-Dín. A conspiracy was formed against him, however, in the following winter. When the roads were blocked with snow, Bahrám-sháh was invited back, and Sayfu'd-Dín, seized unawares, was paraded through the city with blackened face, mounted on a mule, and then hanged or crucified. For this outrage a terrible retribution was exacted by 'Alá'u'd-Dín Ḥusayn in A.D. 1155, three years after Bahrámsháh had died and been succeeded by his son Khusrawsháh. The title “Jahán-súz” (“the World-consumer”), gained by the fierce Ghúrí is sufficiently significant of what befell the proud city of Ghazna during his three days' vengeance; but it is notable, as indicating the respect in which literature was held, that, as we are informed in the Chahár Maqála (p. 48 of my translation), while “he sacked Ghazna and destroyed the buildings raised by Maḥmúd, Mas'úd, and Ibráhím, he bought with gold the poems written in their praise, and placed them in his library. In that army and in that city none dared call them king, yet he himself would read that Sháh-náma wherein Firdawsí says:—