THE SELJUK TURKS
A Turkish Priest
[1055-1092 A.D.]
The name of Seljuks, applied to the Turks who shared in the conquests of Toghril Beg, must not deceive as to their number; no particular horde was meant by those thus designated, since in the Turkestan as in the Arabian deserts any tribe which succeeded in imposing its sovereignty upon others gave to these the name of its chief. The Turks were of the Scythian race, to which also belonged those ferocious Huns, presented to us under so terrifying an aspect by Greek historians; but a distinction must be made, inasmuch as at the extremity of Asia the Tatars and Mongols lived still in a state of primitive savagery, acknowledging no god but a sword stuck upright in the ground; while the tribes called Turks had learned agriculture and commerce from the Arabs, and were possessed moreover of an overweening vanity and love of power, which made them willing even to be slaves that they might gradually work upon the spirit of their master for his final overthrow and destruction. Moslems themselves and Sunnites, the Seljuks found everywhere brothers in the enemies’ ranks, and took their investiture from the hands of the Abbasids. After they had vanquished the Greeks, from whom they wrested Asia Minor, they extended their dominion from the Indus to the Bosporus. But they had no idea of a strong organisation; their independent chieftains, at rivalry among themselves, disputed with each other the fragments of sovereign power, and these divisions made them fall an easy prey to the Mongols, when, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Jenghiz Khan swept into the western world.
The most brilliant epoch in the history of the Seljuks was the period between 1055 and 1092, when they were united under one single head, and that head was the dispenser of booty. Numerous were the gifts which it was in the power of Toghril Beg to bestow on relatives and followers. Recognised as sultan or supreme ruler by the caliphs, he extended his sovereignty over Jezireh and Armenia, and it was in the midst of further exploits that death surprised him in 1063. His nephew, Alp Arslan, succeeded him and enjoyed a brilliant reign. He vanquished the Roman emperor, Diogenes, destroyed the independence of the Georgians, and had just carried his arms into Turkestan, when he died by the hand of a citizen of Khwarizm. The greater part of Asia had come under his sway, twelve hundred chiefs paid homage to him, and two hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banner; and yet he was not the most brilliant among the princes of his family; that glory was reserved for his son, Malik Shah (1072-1092).
Malik Shah was a ruler endowed with the highest qualities, and his noble projects were ably seconded by his grand vizier, Nizam al-Mulk. Mosques and colleges were erected at Baghdad, and new roads and canals facilitated communication between the most distant points of the empire. While Nizam al-Mulk occupied himself with the details of the administration, the sultan travelled from one of his states to another seeking to make their boundaries recede ever further and further. His name was uttered in prayers from Mecca to Baghdad, from Ispahan to Kashgar; and he ultimately became master of all Asia Minor. By his orders Suleiman, one of his kinsmen, entered the territory of the Greeks and advanced to the Bosporus, after having conquered all the countries situated between Great Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, Albania, and Lesser Armenia (1081). This was the origin of the sultanate of Iconium and Rum, afterwards Asiatic Turkey, which played so important a rôle in the time of the Crusades. The Greeks were driven out of Asia by the victories of Suleiman; and in spite of their Christian population, Antioch and the cities of Mesopotamia were obliged to submit to the Turkish yoke. In one of these expeditions Malik Shah was taken prisoner, and Nizam al-Mulk freed him in a manner as prudent as it was adroit; but the sultan afterwards turned upon and disgraced this eminent minister, who was to fall at length by the sword of the Ismailians at the age of ninety-three.
[1092-1218 A.D.]
At the death of Malik Shah (1092) the Seljuk empire, losing its unity, broke up into several independent principalities. In vain the sultan in Persia strove to exercise a sort of supremacy over the other princes of his family; the four sons of Malik Shah, Mahmud, Barkiyarok, Sinjar, and Muhammed, divided the land among themselves at the close of protracted wars that exhausted the resources of the Seljuks without procuring any beneficial results either to Islam or the Turkish race. From this point the various countries and provinces that had once formed one realm drifted further and further asunder. In 1096 the emir Ortok established himself in Jerusalem with the intention of founding there a hereditary sovereignty and a governor of Khwarizm; profiting by the intestine troubles of the Seljuks, he declared his independence, and his successors, commencing a series of conquests which were to include Mawarannahar, Khorasan, Irak, and Kerman, renewed the empire of the Ghaznevids. Certain princes of that race had retained the provinces contiguous to the two banks of the Indus up to the time when the Ghurids, first at Lahore (1183-1205) and then at Delhi, undertook the siege of India, ravaging Benares, subjugating Bengal, and giving birth to the Afghan dynasty in the ancient Paropamisus.
The Ghurids had already been established twenty-five years in the dominion left by the last of the Ghaznevids when Muhammed, sultan of Khwarizm, took from them their western provinces, and became nearly as powerful as Malik Shah had been. At the moment of his greatest splendour this prince fell a victim to the Mongol invasion (1208-1218).
We have witnessed the development of the antagonism between the Turkish and Arab races, whereby barbarism threatened to submerge the Moslem states, as it had menaced Europe in the time of the Germanic invasion. But by the law of compensation the Turks, while making felt about them the authority of the sword, imbibed the influence of Arab civilisation, and adopted with their religion and language their respect for science and the arts. A comparison of the decadence of the Arabian and Roman empires offers points of the most striking similarity; in the East the sultans renewed the glories of the reigns of Theodoric and of Charlemagne, and the school of Baghdad continued to shed effulgence over all Asia up to the end of the fifteenth century.
Still without influence, though restored to independence by the weakening of the Seljuks, the Abbasid caliphs remained in the capital, to which their authority was mostly confined. No successors of Kaim had revolted against the tyranny of the Seljuks except Mustarshid (1118-1135) and Rashid (1135-1136), who both committed acts of resistance, the latter even losing his life in defending Baghdad against the sultan Massud, whose supremacy he obstinately refused to recognise.
Massud, grandson of Malik Shah, was still strong enough to command respect, and during his life-time Muktafi, Rashid’s successor, ventured on no open rebellion. But at his death, there being disputes as to the rights of succession, the caliph publicly presented himself as the lawful sovereign, and after repelling all attacks directed against Baghdad, got himself acknowledged throughout Irak-Arabia. Affairs remained in this condition for a century, during which Mustanjid, Mustadi, Nasir, Dhahir, Mustansir, and Mutasim had not to endure the shame of seeing the government in the hands of others. They were at liberty to protect commerce and industry, letters and sciences, without incurring anyone’s censure; and Baghdad, in the midst of the disturbances which broke forth on all sides, was as an inaccessible fortress, into which even the rumour of certain bloody engagements between hot-headed Sunnites and intractable Shiites could penetrate but feebly.