95 



SELJUKIDES. 



SELJUKIDES. 



396 



it, and ordered him to be cruelly put to death. The captive, taking 

 a concealed knife from his boot, rushed upon the sultan ; the latter, 

 confiding in bis own strength and unerring archery, bade his guards 

 leave to him the punishment of the rebel ; the arrow of the unrivalled 

 bowman for this once missed its aim, and Alp Arslan received a 

 mortal wound. He died a few hours after, in the tenth year of his 

 reign (A.D. 1073), confessing with his dying breath the presumption 

 which had been the cause of his fate. 



Malek Shah, surnamed Moezzeddin Abulfatah, son of. Alp Arslan, 

 succeeded his father in 1073, and in the beginning of his nign defeated 

 his two uncles, who had rebelled against him j one of these he after- 

 wards poisoned in prison, as he found that his own troops were growing 

 mutinous in the idea of making the captive their leader. In 1075 Aftis, 

 one of the generals of Malek Shah, took Damascus, and subdued the 

 greater part of Syria, but was unsuccessful in an attempt to possess 

 himself of Egypt. Malek Shall himself reduced MawaraunaLr (the 

 country beyond the Jihun) in 1078, and two years afterwards made 

 preparations to invade the dominions of Ibrahim, the niuth Gaznevide 

 sultan. This intention however he was prevailed upon to relinquish, 

 and he received in marriage the daughter of Ibrahim. In 1090 the 

 successes of the Batanians, or Assassins, made Malek Shah send them 

 an embassy, requiring obedience in a somewhat threatening tone ; but 

 the singular proof which the ambassador received of the devotion that 

 these men bore their master (three of them having slain themselves 

 successively at his command), induced the sultan to suspend his pro- 

 ceedings against them. Shortly after, the vizir Nizam -al-Mulk, who 

 had been disgraced a little time before, was murdered by an emissary 

 of this fraternity. Malek Shah died at Baghdad in 1092, leaving 

 behiud him the rep'utation of being the greatest of the Seljukian 

 princes. 



Earkiarok, the elder son of Malek Shah, was the virtual successor of 

 his father, though the latter had left his kingdom to his younger son 

 Mahmud, then only six years old, under the guardianship of his widow 

 Turkhan Khatan. The queen-regent fixed herself in Ispahan, where 

 she was besieged by Barkiarok ; but fearing a revolt of the citizens, 

 she consented to divide the government with her stepson, taking for 

 Mahmud the province of Ispahan and its dependencies, while she left 

 to Barkiarok the rest of his father's dominions. The death of the 

 infant prince shortly after however devolved the separated province 

 again upon Barkiarok. His next opponent was his uncle Tajaddowlet 

 Tatash, governor of all Syria, who was defeated and slain in 1095; 

 and this revolt was followed three years after by that of Mohammed, 

 younger brother of Barkiarok, who, by the mutiny of the troops of 

 the latter, gained possession of Irak without striking a blow. From 

 this date till 1104 the brothers were engaged in perpetual skirmishes, 

 which were ended by a treaty in the year last mentioned, giving to 

 Mohammed Syria, Mesopotamia, Mousul, Azerbijau, Armenia, and 

 Georgia, and leaving Barkiarok in possession of the rest. He died 

 however in the year when this treaty was concluded, appointing as his 

 successor his son Malek Shah. During this reign the Crusaders entered 

 Svria. 



Mohammed, the brother of the late king, was too powerful to permit 

 the succession of an infant prince ; and on the death of his brother 

 he marched to Baghdad, where he was invested with the sovereignty. 

 He conquered part of India, and refused an immense ransom for an idol, 

 which he ordered to be placed as the threshold of a magnificent college 

 built at Ispahan, that the feet of the faithful might perpetually trample 

 on it. He died in 1117, appointing his son Mahuiud Abulcassem his 

 successor. 



Sanjar however, brother of the late king, who had held the govern- 

 ment of Khorassan under him and his predecessor during twenty 

 years, took advantage of his power to claim the succession, leaving 

 to Mahmud the province of Irak. In 1127 died Kothboddin, the 

 Kharizm Shah, or king of Karazm. This dominion, originally 

 dependent upon the office of chief cupbearer, to which the revenues 

 of Kharezm were annexed, had grown into a virtual sovereignty, and 

 though Kothboddin and his son Atsiz had actually performed alter- 

 nately the office by which they held their land, the latter harassed the 

 sultau Sanjar with perpetual hostilities, and is generally considered as 

 the first actual sovereign of a dynasty which eventually overturned 

 that of the Iranian Seljuks. In 1153, Sanjar, after gaining a signal 

 victory over the Sultan of Gaur, was taken prisoner by the Turkmans, 

 whom he had attempted to chastise for non-payment of their tribute, 

 and detained by them for four years. He escaped by a stratagem, but 

 died the year after his restoration to liberty, of grief, it is said, at the 

 ravages committed by the Turkmans during his captivity. He died in 

 1157, after a reign of forty years. He was succeeded by Mahmud, the 

 eon of his sister, who governed for five years in Khorassan, after which 

 he was defeated and deprived of his sight by a rebel, who shared with 

 the sultan of Kharezm the province of Khorassan, and thus put an 

 end to the Seljukian dominion there. Between Sanjar however and 

 Mahmud, the eastern historians count three Seljukian sultans 



Mahmud Abulcassem, already mentioned as sultan of Irak, and his 

 two successors in that dignity, 



Togrul and 



Massoud. The reign of these sultans, the last of whom died before 

 the close of Sanjar's reign, are chiefly remarkable for their dissensions 

 with the kalifs of Baghdad, and for the establishment of a new dyua?ty 



that of the Atabegs of Irak. With the death of Massoud, in 1152, 

 ended the domination of the Seljuks in Irak. Of bis successors, 



Malek Shah II., who is variously represented as the grandson or 

 great-grandson of Malek Shah I., 



Mohammed II., brother of Malek Shah, and 



Suleyman Shah, son of Mohammed I., and 



Malek Arslan, his nephew, little is recorded but their mutual 

 dissensions and alternate depositions one of the other. The last- 

 named of the.-e died in 1175, and was succeeded by 



Togrul II., the last sultan of this dynasty, reigned eighteen years, 

 perpetually insulted and harassed by the Atabegs of Baghdad, and 

 was at last slain in a contest with them in 1193. 



The Seljuks of Kerman, or Karamauia, beginning their empire with 

 this province, extended it afterwards to Fara, Mekran, part of Segestan 

 and Zabulistan, and perhaps part of India. The first of this line WHS 



Kaderd, nephew of Togrul Beg, who appointed him governor of 

 Kerman, in 1041. He was poisoned in 1072, by his nephew Llalek 

 Shah I., who had taken him prisoner in an attempt to invade his 

 dominions. He left his dominions to his son, 



Soltan Shah, who was permitted by the conqueror of his father to 

 assume the government of them. He died in 1074, or, according to 

 other authorities, in 1084. The remaining princes of this dynasty 

 are 



Turan Shah, died in 1095. 



Iran Shah, his son, slain by his subjects for his cruelty hi 1100. 



Arslan Shah, nephew of the last mentioned, reigned in peace 42 

 years, leaving his crown in 1141 to his sou 



Mohammed, who died in 1156. 



Togrol Shah, son of Mohammed, died in 1167, leaving three eons, 



Arslan Shah, 



Baharaiu Shah, and 



Turan Shah, who reigned alternately as each could wrest the king- 

 dom from the others, until Turan Shah left the kingdom to 



Mohammed Shah, from whom it was taken by Malek Dinar, who 

 conquered Kerman in 1187, thus terminating this dynasty. 



The Seljuks of Rum (a name somewhat loosely applied to the domi- 

 nions of the Greek emperors in Asia, but here including Asia Minor 

 and part of the rest of what is now Turkey in Asia) take their origin 

 from Kotolmisb, nephew and general of Togrul Beg, who being sent 

 by his uncle against the Greeks, and failing in his enterprise, rebelled 

 from fear of his sovereign's displeasure. . After long hostilities, which 

 outlasted the life of Togrul Beg, his successor Alp Arslan concluded 

 a treaty with Kotolmish, in which it was agreed that the latter and his 

 heirs should hold all the territory he could t;tke from the Greek?, and 

 that the sultan should furnish him with assistance for that purpose. 

 In consequence of this arrangement, Kotolmiah and his sons gained 

 possession of Persarmeuia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia, and Bithjnia; these 

 conquests were left to 



Suleyman, one of the five sons of Kotolmish, who is considered to 

 have begun his reign as the first Seljuk sultau of Rum in 1087. 

 There is however some discrepancy between Oriental and Greek 

 historians as to the source of Suleyman 'a power, the latter deriving 

 it from an independent grant made to him by Alp Arslan, and not 

 from his father Kotolmish. Suleyman took Nice and Antioch, but 

 was slain in 1085, under the walls of Aleppo, by the governor of 

 Damascus, Tajoddowlat, having been engaged during the greater part 

 of his reign in assisting one competitor for the Greek throne against 

 another, and iii taking advantage of their quarrels for his own 

 aggrandisement. After an interregnum of niue years, he was suc- 

 ceeded by his son 



Kilij Arslan, of whom little is recorded by the Oriental historians, 

 and who is mentioned by the Greeks only in connection with their 

 own history. He repaired Nice, and fixed his government there, 

 but was driven from it by the Greeks and Norman crusaders. After a 

 reign troubled by perpetual assaults of the two powers just mentioned, 

 he was drowned in an action against the general of Mohammed, 

 sultan of Irak, after taking possession of Mosul at the invitation of 

 the inhabitants. The Greek writers introduce after him a sultan not 

 mentioned by the Oriental historians, whom they call 



Saysan, who, they say, after suffering several defeats from the 

 Greeks, made with them a treaty greatly to the advantage of the 

 latter, but was treacherously blinded and afterwards murdered, in 

 1116, by 



Masoud, his brother, who reigned till 1152, when he was succeeded 

 by his son 



Kilij Arslan II., an active and prudent prince, who dispossessed his 

 two brothers of their share of the kingdom left by his father, availed 

 himself of the friendship or folly of the emperor Manuel to procure 

 supplies of money for raising soldiers, and in a contest with Manuel, origi- 

 nating in the building of two forts by the latter, he defeated the Emperor 

 in a sanguinary battle, and obtained as an article of peace the destruc- 

 tion of the forts. This treaty, being only partially fulfilled on the 

 emperor's side, gave occasion to fresh hostilities, in the course of which 

 Manuel died, and which ended in the aggrandisement of Kilij Arslan. 

 In his old age, having divided his kingdom among his sous, he was 

 treated by them with great unkiudness ; and Kothboddin, to whom 

 Iconium had fallen, with the possession of which the succession to 

 the empire was usually connected, imprisoned his father. The latter 



