328 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Out of this prolific Oghuz stock arose many renowned chiefs, 

 founders of vast but somewhat unstable empires, such as those of 

 the Gasnevides, who ruled from Persia to the Indus ; the Seljuks, 



who first wrested the Asiatic provinces from Byzan- 

 Osmanii ^ ^ um '- the Osmanli, so named from Othman, the 



Arabized form of Athman, who prepared the way 

 for Orkhan (1326-60), true builder of the Ottoman power, which 

 has alone survived the shipwreck of all the historical Turki states. 

 The vicissitudes of these monarchies, looked on perhaps with 

 too kindly an eye by Gibbon, belong to the domain of history, 

 and it will suffice here to state that from the ethnical standpoint 

 the chief interest centres in that of the Seljukides, covering the 

 period from about the middle of the nth to the middle of the 

 1 3th century. It was under Togrul-beg of this dynasty (1038-63) 

 that " the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with 

 fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet 1 ." A little later 

 began the permanent Turki occupation of Asia Minor, where 

 after the conquest of Armenia (1065-68) and the overthrow of 

 the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes (1071), numerous 

 military settlements, followed by nomad Turkoman encampments, 

 were established by the great Seljuk rulers, Alp Arslan and Malek 

 Shah (1063-92), at all the strategical points. These first arrivals 

 were joined later by others fleeing before the Mongol hosts led 

 by Jenghiz-Khan's successors down to the time of Timur-beg. 

 But the Christians (Greeks and earlier aborigines) were not exter- 

 minated, and we read that, while great numbers apostatized, 

 " many thousand children were marked by the knife of circum- 

 cision ; and many thousand captives were devoted to the service 

 or the pleasures of their masters" (/A). In other words, the already 

 mixed Turki intruders were yet more modified by further inter- 

 minglings with the earlier inhabitants of Asia Minor. Those 

 who, following the fortunes of the Othman dynasty, crossed the 

 Bosporus and settled in Rumelia and some other parts of the 

 Balkan Peninsula, now prefer to call themselves Osmanli, even 



1 Gibbon, Chap. LVII. By the "Turkish nation" is here to be understood 

 the western section only. The Turks of Mawar-en-Nahar and Kashgaria 

 (eastern Turkestan) had been brought under the influences of Islam by the 

 first Arab invaders from Persia two centuries earlier. 



