Transcriber’s Notes

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GŪR AMĪR, THE MAUSOLEUM OF TAMERLANE

THE HEART OF ASIA

A History of Russian Turkestan
and the Central Asian Khanates
from the Earliest Times

BY

FRANCIS HENRY SKRINE
FORMERLY A MEMBER OF H.M. INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE

AND

EDWARD DENISON ROSS, Ph.D.
PROFESSOR OF PERSIAN AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

WITH 19 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SKETCHES BY VERESTCHAGIN
NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS AND 2 MAPS

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1899

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

A time when Russia’s movements in the East are being watched by all with such keen interest seems a fitting one for the appearance of a work dealing with her Central Asian possessions. “That eternal struggle between East and West,” to quote Sir William Hunter’s apt phrase, has made Russia supreme in Central Asia, as it has made England mistress of India: and thus it has come to pass that two of the greatest European Powers find themselves face to face on the Asiatic Continent. On the results of that contact depends the future of Asia.

Ten years have elapsed since Lord Curzon of Kedleston published his work entitled Russia in Central Asia, and in the interval no book on this subject has appeared in English. The intervening period has been one of change—almost of transformation—in the countries so brilliantly described by the present Viceroy of India.

The authors of the present work have visited independently the land of which they write, and each may claim to have had exceptional facilities for studying those questions in which they were most interested.

Professor Ross is responsible for the greater part of the research in the historical chapters. He has laid under contribution many Persian, Arabic, and Russian authorities hitherto inaccessible to persons unacquainted with those languages; and has aimed at offering, for the first time in any language, a consecutive history of Central Asian events from the earliest days. His task has been lightened by the generous help of Sir Henry Howorth, M.P.; Mr. Percy Gardner, of Oxford; M. Drouin, of Paris; and especially of Mr. E. G. Browne, of Cambridge. The historical portion does not claim to be exhaustive, but rather introductory, and, such being the case, certain omissions were perhaps inevitable. Thus, for example, the engrossing subjects of Mediæval travel and Christianity in Central Asia—which have already been exhaustively dealt with by Colonel Yule and others—have been but lightly touched on. If, again, such famous men as Chingiz Khān and Tamerlane have been somewhat briefly dismissed, less known figures, such as Kutayba ibn Muslim, have been brought from comparative oblivion into a prominence more worthy the important parts they played in Central Asian history.

It has been Mr. Skrine’s province to describe the mechanism of government, the development of railways and commerce, and the social life in the great cities. He owes much to the help of Monsieur P. Lessar, Chancellor of the Russian Embassy; Colonel C. G. Stewart, C.S.I., our Consul-General of Odessa; Monsieur de Klemm, of the Turkestān Staff; Colonel Brunelli, Commandant of Transcaspian Railway Rifles; and Colonel Arandarenko, District Officer of Merv. He is also indebted to the proprietors of the Standard and Pioneer for the permission to use literary matter which has already appeared in their journals. In the important matter of illustrations the authors desire to acknowledge the generous kindness which prompted M. Verestchagin to consent to the reproduction of his admirable drawings. They have to thank, too, Sir Archibald Buchan Hepburn, Bart. of Smeaton Hepburn, and Mr. A. Adam of Steeton Hall, for lending them a series of most interesting photographs of Central Asian scenes.

PART I
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
RUSSIAN OCCUPATION

CHAPTER I
Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander

The history of Central Asia is that of the cradle of mankind. He who seeks to evolve it from the mass of nebulous tradition is brought into contact with the traces of widely diverse nationalities and religions, and must consult in turn the annals of the Iranians, Greeks, Scythians, Chinese, Turks, and Russians. We propose in the following chapters to review the principal events enacted in that portion of Central Asia which is vaguely styled Turkestān, and is bounded on the north and east by the Sir Darya and the Hindu Kush, and on the west by the Caspian Sea.

The earliest references to Turkestān that have reached us are contained in the Indian and Iranian epics, and give some colour to the theory that the Pamirs were the birthplace of the Aryan race.[1]

The ancients gave the name of Bactria to the tract lying between the Oxus and the mountains of the Paropamisus.[2]

The earliest mention of Bactria[3] is preserved in the inscription of Behistūn, dating back to the sixth century B.C., in which it is included in the list of the satrapies belonging to the Persian Empire of Darius II. Cyrus I. subdued this country, and, according to Ctesias,[4] Bactria was the first of his conquests in Eastern Asia. The founder of the Persian Empire carried his arms as far as the Jaxartes (or Sīhūn), on the other side of which roamed the Massagetæ (B.C. 550), and near it he built a city called Cyropolis.[5] The annexation of Bactria involved that of Margiana, Khorazmia,[6] and Soghdiana. From Greek sources we learn that under the rule of Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 521–492) these districts were reckoned among the Persian satrapies; although the authority of the Achæmenians was probably but slight there. It is not unlikely that all the eastern countries mentioned in the oldest Darius inscriptions as “subdued,” or “rebellious,” had already belonged to Cyrus, and that he ruled over Khorazmia and Soghdiana.[7]

The Persian monarchy finally fell before the overwhelming might and genius of Alexander of Macedon. In the space of four years (B.C. 334–331) he carried his victorious arms from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to Persepolis, overthrowing Darius II. at Issus in B.C. 333, and again at Gaugamela[8] in B.C. 331. The latter defeat was the deathblow of the Persian monarchy. Darius fled in an easterly direction, accompanied by a still considerable army, determined if possible to enter Bactria. Alexander took and plundered Persepolis and Pasargadæ, the cradle of the Persian dynasty, and then set out in pursuit of Darius, who had reached Ecbatana, the capital of Media. But at this crisis Bessus, the governor of Bactria and commander of the contingent of that province, in conjunction with other Persian nobles, seized on the person of the king and laid him in chains. Their design was to conciliate Alexander, should he overtake them, by giving up Darius alive; while in the event of their escaping, they proposed to murder the prisoner, usurp his crown, and begin a new war.

Bessus won over the whole army by intimidation and promises, placed the fallen monarch in a covered chariot, and set out again from Ecbatana, where Alexander arrived five days later. The conqueror followed them with all possible despatch. On reaching the Caspian Straits he halted to rest his troops; but when news was brought him of the treachery of Bessus, he at once continued his march. The latter, on hearing that Alexander was rapidly overtaking him, was filled with terror, and entreated Darius to mount his horse and flee with him. The fallen emperor refused to follow a band of traitors; whereupon the conspirators, roused to fury, transfixed him with javelins, and left him weltering in his blood.

Alexander came up only a few moments after he had expired. It is on record that he lamented the “too severe a fate” of his illustrious foe, and caused his body to be embalmed and buried with every demonstration of respect. He then set out on a fresh career of conquest, overrunning the whole country now occupied by Khorāsān, Sīstān, Belūchistān, Kandahār, and Kābulistān.

Meanwhile Bessus hastened back to his satrapy of Bactria, and assumed sovereignty under the name of Artaxerxes IV. That he was able for a brief period to hold his own was due only to the fact that Alexander wished to secure possession of other districts in Eastern Persia before advancing against Bactria and Soghdiana.

In B.C. 329 the conqueror recrossed the Hindu Kush. The first town in the Bactrian valley which he came upon was Drapsaca (corresponding with modern Andarab), where he made a halt of a few days. Thence with an army of 25,000 men he took Aornos (Gori or Khulum) and Bactria (Balkh). Bessus, at the head of a small body of men who remained faithful,—for on hearing of the approach of Alexander many thousands of his Bactrians abandoned him,—crossed the Oxus, burning all the boats which he had made use of, and withdrew to Nautaca.[9]

Alexander did not wait to replace the boats, but crossed the river with his whole army on skins and sacks stuffed with straw.

The timidity of Bessus had probably disgusted his few remaining followers, who now turned against him. His chief confidant Spitamenes seized and led him bound before Alexander, who sent him to Ecbatana to be judged and executed as a traitor by the Persians.

Alexander next turned towards Marcanda (Samarkand), the capital of Soghdiana, which he took. Placing therein a considerable garrison, he laid waste the surrounding country. Thence he advanced to the banks of the river Jaxartes or Sīhūn, the Sir Darya of our days, which he believed to be the Tanaïs, or Don.

The point at which he reached the Jaxartes is probably the site of the modern Khojend: there he determined to build a town, but the execution of his design was retarded by a rebellion of the Soghdians and the Bactrians. The natives also overpowered the garrisons which he had established in seven different towns on the banks of the Jaxartes, the most important of which was Cyropolis. Alexander crushed the rebels and re-established his authority on the Jaxartes in the course of a few days.

At this juncture he received news of two serious events. The Sacæ, or Scythians, had collected an army on the opposite bank of the river; while Spitamenes, in whom, owing to his past conduct, he had placed reliance, was besieging the Macedonian garrison left at Marcanda. Alexander despatched a considerable force against Spitamenes, while he himself turned towards the Jaxartes, on the left bank of which he built a city in the space of seventeen days, calling it Alexandria according to his custom. It was surrounded by a wall 60 stadia[10] in circumference. Hemmed in as he now was by enemies on all sides, and weakened by sickness, he stood in great need of that magnificent self-confidence which is the birthright of conquerors. Moreover, his army was becoming disheartened, and was disinclined to attempt the passage of the river in the teeth of an enemy drawn up in battle array on the opposite bank. But he was daunted by no difficulty or danger. After completing his new capital he ordered the construction of a multitude of rafts, on which he carried his whole army in safety, fell on the Scythians, and put them to utter rout. They recognised the uselessness of further resistance, and sent envoys to announce their submission.

Meanwhile the division which had been sent to relieve the garrison of Marcanda had been annihilated by Spitamenes in the valley of the Polytimetus, or Zarafshan. On hearing of this disaster Alexander set out in haste for Marcanda, which he reached in four days. Spitamenes on the first news of his approach fled into Bactria. Alexander started in pursuit, but, despairing of overtaking him, turned back and laid waste the whole valley.

He took up his winter quarters in Zariaspa.[11] During this winter (B.C. 329–328) he received reinforcements from Greece of 19,000 men, which enabled him to overrun Margiana in the following spring. There remained now but one stronghold unsubdued, namely, Petra Oxiana,[12] which was provisioned for two years, and defended by a Soghdian named Arimazes.[13] It finally capitulated, and its brave defender, together with his relatives and the principal nobility, were crucified by the exasperated conqueror.

SO-CALLED SARCOPHAGUS OF ALEXANDER

PRESERVED IN CONSTANTINOPLE

Alexander established two fortresses south of the town of Margiana or Merv, corresponding with the modern Sarakhs and Meruchak. He next turned eastwards into Bactria, and on his way established four more strongholds, on the sites of the modern Meimena, Andakūy, Shaburgān, and Saripul. From Bactria he returned to Marcanda, whence he probably made several expeditions into the surrounding country.[14]

His old enemy Spitamenes, after repeatedly attacking the Macedonian garrisons in Soghdia and Bactria, was at length killed by a band of nomads, and his head was sent to Alexander. Having now entirely subdued Soghdiana, Alexander retired for the winter to Nautaca. It was at this time that the tragic death of Cleitus occurred at the hands of the master whom he had loved and served so well.

In B.C. 327 Alexander set out on the conquest of India, leaving in Bactria a contingent of 10,000 foot and 3000 cavalry for the maintenance of order.

His career has left an indelible impression on the Oriental mind, which is slow to grasp new ideas, but extremely tenacious of them when formed. He is associated throughout Islam with the “Two Horned” (Zulkarnayn) of the Koran, and his exploits are the daily theme of professional story-tellers in the market-places of Central Asia.

CHAPTER II
Bactrians and Parthians

At the epoch of Alexander’s death the satrapy of Bactria and Soghdiana was held by his general, Amyntas. The death of the young conqueror was the signal for a mutiny among the Macedonian soldiers who had remained in that country, which was, however, immediately put down. Amyntas was removed from his satrapy and superseded by Philippus of Elymeus, who, within the space of a year, was appointed to Parthia and succeeded by Stasanor.[15]

The latter held his post until B.C. 301, when these provinces passed into the hands of another of Alexander’s generals, Seleucus I. (Nicator), who since B.C. 312 had been in virtual possession of the greater part of his late master’s conquered possessions.[16] Hitherto the allegiance of Bactria had been of a doubtful character—but it was now finally established.

In 305 he entered on a campaign against Chandra Gupta, a powerful Indian king who was endeavouring to regain the realms conquered by Alexander.

At his hands Seleucus suffered a crushing defeat, in consequence of which he was obliged to abandon all the territory between the Indus and the Paropamisus except Alexandria of the Caucasus.[17] This was the first dismemberment of the gigantic empire. The terrible civil war which began immediately after the death of Alexander lasted, almost without interruption, for forty-two years, when the Macedonians were at last compelled to renounce all hopes of ruling the world.

In B.C. 280 Seleucus was assassinated by one of his officers, and was succeeded by Antiochus I. In B.C. 256, under the rule of Antiochus II., Diodotus, known as “Governor of the thousand cities of Bactria,” threw off his allegiance and assumed sovereignty, thus founding the Græco-Bactrian kingdom.[18] Polybius[19] tells us that Diodotus was superseded by Euthydemus, who was in the enjoyment of power at the time of Antiochus the Great’s expedition to the East—about B.C. 208.

Euthydemus was defeated by Antiochus, but appealed to his victor’s generosity, and pointed out the grave danger that would arise if he were obliged to call in the aid of the Scythians, who were already hovering on the Chinese frontier of his dominions.[20] Antiochus finally agreed to acknowledge his independence.

In B.C. 250 a certain Arsaces, who seems by his coins to have been the chief of a band of Dahæ Scythians dwelling near the Oxus, overthrew Andragoras, nominally satrap of Parthia, and set himself up as king of Parthia.[21] He was the founder of the famous dynasty of the Arsacidæ. As Mr. Gardner[22] observes, the “so-called history of Parthia is really the history of Central Asia under the Arsacidæ.”

After a reign of two years he was killed in battle, leaving his kingdom to his brother Tiridates, who was the real founder of the Parthian power. The fifth king of this dynasty was Mithridates (B.C. 190), who extended his conquests to such a degree that, according to Justin, his sway included the Himalayas and the Euphrates.[23] He also compelled Eucratides, the powerful king of Bactria, who had come to the throne about B.C. 170, to cede certain districts of his kingdom.

After a glorious reign he died about B.C. 140, and was succeeded by his brother Phraates.[24] The Syrian Empire of the Seleucidæ was fast falling to pieces, and Parthia was never again invaded by the Greeks. But a more terrible foe was approaching from the East,[25] for it now came into collision with a Scythian band, called “Su” or “Se” in the Chinese annals, which in the second century B.C. had overrun the provinces bordering the Jaxartes. They are identical with the Sacæ of classical writers, and were afterwards known in Upper India as the Sakas. Phraates[26] summoned a band of these savages to aid him against the Syrian Antiochus. Arriving at the scene of action too late to be of service in the campaign, they turned against him, defeated his army and slew him.

He was succeeded by his nephew Artabanus II., who after a brief reign fell in battle against the Thogari,[27] mentioned by Strabo as one of the four great Saka tribes.[28] His son Mithridates II., justly distinguished by the appellation “Great,” revived the fading glories of the Parthian Empire. He commenced his reign by administering several crushing defeats to the Sakas, from whom he wrested the greater portion of Bactria. But he was destined to meet a foe more worthy of his steel, and finally to submit after a lifelong struggle. The Romans had entered on the career of foreign conquest which seems inevitable in the case of a powerful republic. Greece was theirs, and they had planted their eagles in Asia Minor.

Between B.C. 88 and 63 Mithridates waged three wars of extreme ferocity against the future conquerors of the world, and inspired them with a dread which they had not felt since the invasion of Hannibal.[29] Not till the latter year did this great monarch acknowledge the supreme might of Rome, and then his indomitable spirit forbade him to sink to the condition of tributary. Defeated by Pompey on the Euphrates, he fled to the Caucasian Bosphorus,[30] and was planning fuller resistance when the rebellion of his son rendered his schemes nugatory. He slew himself in despair, leaving a reputation which still echoes in the Crimea and Northern Caucasus.

From the period down to A.D. 226 the history of Parthia is one of continual struggle and crime, which finally exhausted the emperor’s strength and rendered it an easy prey to a Roman invader.

CHAPTER III
The Huns and the Yué-Chi

It is to Chinese sources that we must turn for an account of the tribes which overthrew Græco-Bactrian rule, and were a constant thorn in the side of the Parthian Empire. These sources, with faint sidelights thrown on an obscure period by allusions to be found in classic authors, enable us to bridge a gap of several centuries replete with events which exercised a lasting influence on the history of Central Asia.

The Chow dynasty ruled from B.C. 1122 to B.C. 250.[31] After its fall China split up into a vast number of nearly independent principalities, and the reigning sovereign enjoyed but little power. The Tsin succeeded in gaining the foremost rank as feudatories, and finally restored the authority of the central power. Their aim was not achieved without a desperate struggle with their rivals. In the course of the resulting civil war Tsin Chi Hwang-ti began his reign. He was the Louis XI. of the Chinese monarchy, and brought force and stratagem by turns to bear on the task of restoring the imperial prestige.[32]

When he found himself master at home, he turned his attention to the task of protecting his frontier from aggressors. Of these, the Hiung-nu, a Tartar tribe whose habitat was Eastern Mongolia, were the most troublesome. He carried the war into the enemy’s camp by despatching an army across the great Gobi Desert, with orders to establish a strong place at Hami.[33] In B.C. 250 he commenced a work which had a more lasting effect in repressing their invasion. This was the Great Wall of China, which starts from the Shan-hi Pass and ends at the Chin-Yü barriers, a distance of not less than 1500 miles. The Hiung-nu, like their kinsmen the Mongols of Chingiz and of Tīmūr, fought on horseback, and their plan of campaign was simply a succession of raids followed by speedy retreats. This stupendous barrier intimidated them, and turned westwards the tide of their migration. Thus the Great Wall, which it is the fashion to decry as a monument of misplaced labour, was a most important factor in the history of Central Asia. At this epoch the Sakas were settled in Hexapolis, to the east of the Pamirs; while the Usuns dwelt on the southern side of Lake Lob, separated from the Sakas by the Uīghūrs. About B.C. 300 the empire of the Yué-Chi,[34] who were a branch of the Tung-nu, or Eastern Tartars, extended most probably from the Muztagh Mountains on the north to the Kuen-lun Mountains on the south, and from the Upper Hoang-ho in Shan-si on the east to Koché and Khotan on the west.[35]

About B.C. 200 a war broke out between the Tung-nu and the Hiung-nu (the Western Tartars or Huns), their neighbours. Mothé, the chief of these latter, falling on the Eastern Tartars unawares, utterly defeated them and drove the Yué-Chi from their kingdom. The latter fled to the banks of the Ili River, while Mothé pushed his conquests as far as the Volga on the west and the border provinces of China eastwards. The Emperor Kao-tsu (B.C. 202–194), founder of the famous Han dynasty, who had achieved the subjugation of the whole of China, was alarmed at the progress of Mothé, and marched against him. His troops were, however, surrounded by Mothé’s colossal hordes in the north of the province of Shan-si, and only escaped destruction by the employment of a ruse.[36] On the departure of the Chinese army Mothé set out for Tartary. For upwards of fifty years the power of Hiung-nu sustained no check. They continued to press down on the Yué-Chi, who, after suffering a further crushing defeat, broke into separate hordes. The lesser division, or “Little Yué-Chi,” passed into Tibet. The “Great Yué-Chi’s” first movement was westwards to the banks of the Ili, but finding the Usun too strong for them, they wandered in a southerly direction, and finally descended upon Kāshghar, Yarkand, and Khotan, whence they displaced the Sakas (B.C. 163). The latter, on their expulsion from Soghdiana, invaded Bactria, and from this period until the fall of the Græco-Bactrian kingdom the Greeks had to deal with both Sakas and Parthians. It would seem that the latter were alternately friends and foes. This intercourse possibly accounts for the Parthian characteristics found on the early Saka coins of India.[37]

The Sakas were driven towards the Pamirs and the Tien-shan. One branch of them fled to Zungaria, while the majority remained in Hexapolis and intermixed with the Uīghūrs, who had been for a long period masters of that country. A third branch turned their steps towards the upper valleys of the Yarkand Darya. Some of these fugitives established themselves in the little Iranian States of Serikūl and Shugnān, where appreciable traces of their language still survive.[38] Others crossed the Karakorum, and invaded the north-east of India.

At this epoch the Chinese obtained a glimpse of the position of Western Asia through the medium of prisoners taken from the Hiung-nu. From them they learned that the Yué-Chi had suffered defeat at the hands of the Huns, and been compelled to migrate far from their ancient abode. They had, however, become very powerful in Bactria and Transoxiana, and had conquered Ta-hia (Khorāsān), establishing themselves finally there in spite of the Parthian resistance. The Emperor Wu-ti eagerly desired an alliance with the Yué-Chi against their common enemy the Hiung-nu. With this view he sent his general Chang-Kien on an embassy to the prince, accompanied by a suite of a hundred attendants. The envoy, however, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Huns while traversing their territory, and escaped only after a ten years’ imprisonment. On joining the Yué-Chi, he found them employed in driving the Sakas out of Soghdiana. He accompanied them on a victorious expedition, and then returned to China, with two followers, sole survivors of his cortege. The emperor expressed his appreciation of the intelligence brought by Chang-Kien regarding Central Asian events, by elevating him to an important post. These events led to the establishment of direct commercial intercourse between China and the West, which, however, the Huns did their utmost to interrupt.

A collation of the Chinese annals, the classic authors, and the coins which have come down to us, would render it tolerably certain that the Greeks lost their hold on Soghdiana in B.C. 163; that a little later they were deprived of Bactria by the Sakas, and of Margiana by the Parthians. From this period their dominion was limited to the southern slopes of the Indian Caucasus. That the Græco-Bactrian Empire had attained a high degree of natural civilisation, and, indeed, of artistic culture, is evidenced by the purity of design and the excellence of workmanship displayed by the later coins.

The Bactrians displaced by the Sakas fled eastward, and settled in the confines of Bokhārā, and the surrounding countries.[39] But the dominion of their opponents in Bactria was not destined to be of long duration, for in B.C. 120 the Yué-Chi, who had already overrun the ancient territory of the Sakas, began to pour into Bactria.

After expelling the Sakas, and the remnant of the Græco-Bactrians,[40] the Yué-Chi settled in that part of Central Asia which is named Tokhāristān, after their tribal appellation, and which included Balkh, Kunduz, Hisār, Bolor, Wakhān, and Badakhshān. Meanwhile the Sakas retreated southwards, and occupied in turn Kiphin, Soghdiana, Arachosia (Kandahār), and Drangiana (Sīstān).[41]

Their invasion of India was directly due to the usurpation of their country by the Yué-Chi. The latter parcelled Bactria out among their five clans.[42] Each had its own capital, but the only Yué-Chi headquarters which has been identified is Bamian, at the foot of the northern slope of the Hindu Kush.

The partition continued in force for nearly a century, during which repeated collisions occurred between the Yué-Chi and the Parthians. In B.C. 30 the chief of one of the clans, the Kwei-shuang, subdued the rest, and assumed sovereignty over the whole race. They became thenceforward known by the name of the conquering clan, which in course of time was modified to Kushan, and appears so inscribed on their coins. The recent overthrow of their most persistent enemies the Hiung-nu rendered the more easy the task of consolidating their power, for in the year B.C. 71 the reigning Chinese emperor had administered a crushing defeat on the Huns, who were in B.C. 60 finally enrolled into the Chinese Empire. They thus became masters of all those countries which go to form Turkestan, Eastern Iran, and Afghanistan. The Yué-Chi, or Kushans, relieved of this incubus, turned their arms towards the south, crossed the Paropanisus, and overran Kabul, which belonged in part to the Arsacidæ, and in part to the Sakas, driving the latter out of their kingdom of Kiphin.[43]

At the dawn of the Christian era the Kushans were a foremost power in Central Asia. The Romans deigned to treat with them as an established empire. Mark Antony, for example, sent ambassadors to Bactria, whose chiefs (all Kushans) were represented at Rome by an envoy under Augustus; while later, in the reign of Trojan and Adrian, they sent ambassadors to solicit an alliance against the Parthians.[44]

From Chinese sources we learn that in the year A.D. 98 their general Panchao[45] was received during an expedition to the Caspian by the Yué-Chi, and that they recognised the imperial sovereignty by annual presents.

Their power was not destined to endure for long. By the end of the third century A.D. they had lost most of their conquests in the south of Paropamisus, including Kashmir. They were finally expelled from Bactria itself by the Ephthalites, or White Huns, about the year A.D. 430.

The last Kushan king of whom we find a trace in history was named Kitolo. He conquered Gāndhāra, or Kandahār; but was forced to return to his own dominion by an irruption of White Huns. The son whom he left in charge of the new province established his capital at Peshāwar.[46] The name of the founder of the Little Yué-Chi, as they were afterwards called, survives in the title of Shah Kator, chief of Chitral.

The Ephthalites, or White Huns, who, as we have seen, in the year A.D. 430 became possessed of Bactria, were in all probability of the same stock as the Yué-Chi. They are known to history under a great variety of names, such as Naphthalites, Hayāthila, and Yetha. This last is the name by which they are known to the Chinese, who always most carefully distinguish between the Yetha and the Yué-Chi.[47] The Yetha were of Tartaric origin, and are described as having anciently lived to the north of the Great Wall, and to have advanced southwards about the first century of our era. They then came under the domination of the Juen-Juen,[48] but emerging from this, they ultimately became masters of an empire which extended to the borders of Persia, and comprised Kiphin, Kharashar, Kāshghar, and Khotan. The arrival of the Yetha in Transoxiana about the year 425 of our era was the result of those migrations of Tartar peoples which took place in Central Asia at the beginning of the fifth century. About 360 the Juen-Juen advancing westwards became masters of all Tartary.[49] One of their kings, Tulun by name, who reigned at the beginning of the fifth century, carried his conquest from Corea to the confines of Europe. It was owing to these conquests that the various Hunnish tribes, driven from their ancient habitats by these new invaders, swept into Transoxiana in 425 (i.e. the Ephthalites), and into Europe, under Attila, in 430. On the appearance of the White Huns in the Oxus districts that country had been for five centuries in the possession of the Yué-Chi, or Kushans, as we have seen above, and they occupied the land for upwards of 130 years (425 to 557), during which period they were in close contact with the Sāsānides of Persia. The Kushans did not, however, immediately disappear from Central Asia, for we find references after this date in Chinese authors to small Kushan principalities in the Upper Oxus and Farghāna.

CHAPTER IV
The Sāsānides, the Ephthalites, and the Turks

The history of Central Asia during the earlier centuries of our era is bound up in that of Persia, and its course was moulded by the fortunes of the great dynasty called after the grandfather of its founder, the Sāsānide, which governed the empire from A.D. 219 until the Arab invasion more than four centuries later. In the third century (A.D. 200) of our era the condition of Persia resembled that of France before the power of feudalism was broken by the crafts and iron will of Louis XI. The authority of the reigning dynasty was little more than nominal, and the land was parcelled out among a host of petty tribes whose mountain fastnesses enabled them to bid defiance to the Parthian dynasty. Among the followers of one of their rabble chieftains was a certain Pāpak, a native of a village lying to the east of Shīrāz. With the aid of a son named Ardashīr, he overthrew his master, and usurped authority over the province of Fars. Ardashīr’s bold and restless character appears to have inspired his father with some distrust, for on his death he left his dominions to another son, named Shāpūr. The succession was contested by Ardashīr, but when he was about to enforce his claim with the sword, Shāpūr died, in all probability by poison.[50] Ardashīr’s thirst for empire now led him to attack his neighbouring potentates. One after another succumbed to his genius; and he became master, in turn, of Kirmān, Susiana, and other eastern States. Then finding himself in a position to strike a blow for the sovereignty of Persia, he bade defiance to Ardavān,[51] the last of the Parthian line. A decisive battle was fought between them, probably in Babylonia, in the year 218. Ardavān was slain, and Ardashīr was crowned “king of kings” on the field. His capital was Istakhr, but he chose Ctesiphon (or Madā´in) as a residence. How far Ardashīr’s personal conquests actually extended, it is hard to define. Oriental historians have greatly exaggerated the extent of his empire, which they allege to have stretched from the Euphrates on one side, to Khwārazm on the other. Ardashīr was a wise and just ruler, and his career can be compared only with Napoleon’s. Without the prestige of birth or fortune he won an empire, and was able to maintain order in extended realms which had for centuries been a prey to anarchy. He died in 241, and was succeeded by his son Shāpūr I. For the first ten years of his reign he was, like his father, engaged in chronic warfare with Rome, which did not terminate till 260, when the Emperor Valerian fell into his hands, dying afterwards in captivity. According to extant coins, Shāpūr I. made himself master of the non-Iranian lands to the east of Khorāsān, and to him is ascribed the conquest of Nīshāpūr,[52] and Shāpūr in Northern Persia. In 272 he was succeeded by his son Hormuz, who continued the struggle with the Romans, in which Syria, Asia Minor, and Armenia were alternatively subjects of contention.

The succeeding reigns have little bearing on history until we come to that of Bahrām Gūr,[53] which was signalised by a persecution of the Christians,[54] and a recommencement of warfare with Rome. Bahrām Gūr was worsted in the latter, and entered into a treaty with the Western Empire, which bound the contracting parties to tolerate the Christian and Zoroastrian cults respectively. The Romans further undertook to pay an annual subsidy towards the maintenance of the fortifications on the Dariel Pass[55] in the Caucasus, by which both kingdoms were protected from the inroads of the wild hordes of the North. Bahrām took advantage of his truce with the Romans to make an expedition into Bactria,[56] where he encountered the Ephthalites, or White Huns, whom, according to Persian accounts, he utterly defeated. We are told that the Khākān[57] of the “tribes of Transoxiana,” being informed that Bahrām and his court were immersed in luxury and had entirely lost their martial spirit, ventured to cross the Oxus and laid waste the whole of Khorāsān.[58] He was soon undeceived, for Bahrām, at the head of seven thousand men, fell upon the Turks by night, and put them utterly to rout, the Khākān perishing by the king’s own hand. Bahrām then crossed the Oxus and concluded a peace with his eastern neighbours.[59] Bahrām died in 438, and was succeeded by his son Yezdijerd II. During his reign of nineteen years his attention was engrossed by Armenia and by Khorāsān, where he suffered many reverses at the hands of the Ephthalites. On his death in A.D. 457 his two sons, Hormuz III. and Pīrūz, became rival claimants to the throne. Their father, who preferred the former, but feared a quarrel between the brothers, had given Pīrūz the governorship of a distant province, Sīstān. Pīrūz, on learning that his brother had seized the throne and won the support of the nobility, fled across the Oxus, and implored the chief Khākān[60] of the Ephthalites to espouse his cause. The Huns consented, and sent an army thirty thousand strong to his aid.[61] With this accession of strength, Pīrūz invaded Persia, and defeated his brother in a pitched battle. Hormuz III. thus lost his crown, and was put to death together with three of his nearest relatives. The reign of his successful rival was fraught with useful domestic measures. He had to contend against a famine which lasted for seven years; but, so prompt and effectual were the means adopted to combat it, that, if Tabari is to be believed, there was not a single death from starvation.[62] Pīrūz’s foreign policy was by no means so praiseworthy: though he owed his crown to the ready help of the Khākān of the Ephthalites, we find him in 480 freely attacking his benefactor’s son and successor. This apparent ingratitude is ascribed by Joseph Stylites to the intrigue of the Romans, whose jealousy of the power of Persia induced them to incite the Huns to attack her eastern frontier. Nöldeke suggests as the cause of this rupture the exorbitant nature of the demands made by the Huns as the price of their assistance in placing Pīrūz on the throne. Be this as it may, the struggle was disastrous to the Persian army. After obtaining some trivial successes, Pīrūz was obliged to conclude more than one humiliating treaty with the Huns, the terms of which he did not loyally fulfil. On one occasion his son Kobād was left for two years in their hands as a hostage for the payment of a large indemnity. A little later we find Pīrūz himself a prisoner.

A crisis in his affairs came in 484, when he led an immense force against his inveterate foes, only to suffer a crushing defeat at their hands, and to lose his life; while his daughter was taken prisoner and forced to enter the Khākān’s harem. Persia now lay at the mercy of the barbarians whose hordes overran the country, drowning its civilisation in blood. From this anarchy the land was saved by the efforts of a great noble named Sukhrā, or Zermihr. At the time of the Huns’ invasion he was essaying to quell one of the periodical revolts in Armenia. Hurrying back to the Persian capital with a considerable force, he established a semblance of order, and placed Balāsh, a brother of Pīrūz, on the throne. The new king bought off the White Huns, probably by undertaking to pay a yearly tribute. But his treasury was empty. He was able to attach no party in the State to his banner, and in 488 he incurred the resentment of the all-powerful priesthood. Falling into their hands, he was deprived of his eyesight, a loss which under the Persian law incapacitated him from ruling. Balāsh was succeeded by his nephew, Kobād,[63] son of Pīrūz. Tabari tells us that before he came to power, even probably on the accession of his brother, he had fled to the Khākān for help to meet his claim. On his way he halted at Nīshāpūr, and took to wife the daughter of a nobleman, who bore him a son, the famous Anūshirawān. He was kept waiting four years for the promised help, but finally, after much entreaty, the Khākān gave him the control of an army, with which he set out for Madā´in.[64] On reaching Nīshāpūr he learnt the news of his brother’s death.[65] The first act of his reign was to resign the entire administration to Sukhrā, on the score of his own youth and inexperience. Finding, when he came to man’s estate, that the people regarded Sukhrā as their sovereign and ignored his own ancestral claims, he determined to rid himself of a too powerful minister, and had him put to death.

When Kobād had been for ten years on the throne a false prophet arose in the person of a certain Mazdak, who taught that all men were equal, and that it was unjust that one should have more possessions or wives than another. The inference was that there should be an equal division of all property. These tenets appear at first identical with the latest plans of social ethics. But Mazdakism had a side which is not shared by the Socialistic creed. Its founder preached a life of piety and abstinence, and himself practised an extreme asceticism, refraining from the use of animal food. Kobād saw in the new cult an opportunity of eluding the grip of the nobles and clergy, who stifled his aspirations to govern as well as reign. He espoused the reformer’s side with ardour,[66] and thereby hastened the anarchy which such doctrines were certain to promote. The followers of Mazdak adopted such of his principles as appealed to their unbridled lust, and ignored the religious teaching with which he sought to hold it in check. The disorders were stemmed by a combination between the nobles and the clergy, who seized and imprisoned Kobād, setting up his brother Jāmāsp in his stead. But Kobād contrived to escape from confinement, and sought shelter with old allies, the Ephthalites. With them he sojourned until 502, when he returned to Persia at the head of a large force, and overthrew his brother, thus regaining sovereignty. The remainder of Kobād’s career was as stirring as the commencement had been. Hardly was he reinstated on the throne ere hostilities broke out with Rome, and then began a series of terrible conflicts which reduced the strength of both parties to the lowest ebb, and rendered them a prey to barbaric invasion.

Not until 506 was a truce concluded between the two powers; but it did not bring rest to Kobād’s distracted empire. He was soon plunged into hostilities with the Huns,—whether the Ephthalites, or another branch of the race, is uncertain. The result is not recorded, but it must be assumed to have been favourable to his army. In 528 he was confronted with a more pressing danger than had attended his struggles with Roman legions over barbaric hordes. Mazdak’s now rampant army held the land, and a reign of terror set in which threatened the existence of its institutions. Kobād at length became alive to the potency of the force for evil which he had encouraged, and the measures which he adopted for the suppression were drastic and effectual. The effort, however, proved too severe for his declining strength, and three years later he closed a chequered but not unsuccessful career.

His successor, Chosrau I., surnamed Anūshirawān “the Just,” stands forth as the most illustrious figure in the annals of ancient Persia. Chroniclers agree in depicting him as a wise and benevolent ruler, and one who made his prowess reflected in distant regions. His first care was to restore order in a realm which still groaned under the curse of Mazdakism; his next to crush the Ephthalites, whose incursions into his eastern provinces had been as disastrous as those of the Roman legions into Armenia. In the meanwhile the Ephthalites were being threatened from another quarter by the Turks.

The Turks proper, that is the Tu-kiué of the Chinese, first appear in the history of the Sāsānides about A.D. 550. At that period the Turks were divided into two distinct khanates—(1) the Eastern Turks,[67] who possessed the vast territory between the Ural and Mongolia; and (2) the Western Turks, or Tu-kiué, who ruled in Central Asia from the Altai to the Jaxartes. About 550 the Khākān of the Turks, whose name was Tumen, being elated with successes he had gained over the Tartars,[68] made so bold as to demand in marriage the daughter of the Khākān of the Juen-Juen, Tiu-ping. On receiving an insulting refusal, Tumen at once declared war against the Juen-Juen; at the same time he married the daughter of the Chinese emperor, with whose aid he defeated Tiu-ping. Tumen then took the title of Il-khān (or khān of the people), and established his court in the mountain of Tu-kin, near the sources of the Irtish. He only enjoyed his newly acquired empire for a short time, for in the following year (A.D. 553) he died. His son Ko-lo mounted the throne, but died very shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by his illustrious brother Mokan-khān, whom we find in 554 entering into relations with Anūshirawān the Just. Though he had finally crushed the Juen-Juen, and became master of their vast country, he was fearful of the superiority of the Chinese, and therefore turned his arms in a westerly direction.[69] The Turks now crossed the Jaxartes and entered Badakhshān, where they encountered the Ephthalites, with whom, according to Tabari, they at first dwelt in peace.

Great uncertainty prevails as to the dates and details of the campaigns undertaken by the Anūshirawān in association with the Turks against their inveterate foes. But their result is not open to question; for about the year 560 we find the territories of the White Huns divided between the allies. The Turks then became masters of Transoxiana, while the Persians took possession of Balkh and Tokhāristān. The Oxus served as the boundary between their respective spheres of influence.[70] Then Bactria, which had been a perpetual thorn in Persia’s side, became one of its provinces, and the fate of Pīrūz was fully avenged. Anūshirawān set a seal to his friendship with the Turks by espousing their chief’s daughter; but the alliance did not produce lasting results. The Romans regarded with unconcealed apprehension the alliance between foes which threatened the existence of their Western Empire, and they sent frequent embassies to the Turkish Khākān with a view to detaching him from Anūshirawān. The reconciliation was partially successful, but the recurrence of disorders on his frontier led the Persian king to build the great city of Darband, to serve as a rallying point in repulsing Turkish attacks. After its completion we hear little of their troublesome neighbours, and Anūshirawān’s concluding years were exempt from the troubles which had overwhelmed so many of his predecessors.

On the death of Chosrau Anūshirawān in A.D. 579, Hormuz IV., his son by the daughter of the Turkish Khākān, ascended the throne. The new reign was soon clouded by war with Rome, and his own kinsmen on the maternal side. At one period Hormuz endured simultaneous attacks from four different quarters. A Turkish prince, called by Tabari, Shāba, at the head of 300,000 warriors advanced as far as Bādghīs and Herāt. The Roman emperor, with an army of 80,000 strong, attacked Hormuz in the Syrian desert. The king of the Khazars led a large force against Darband, and finally two Arab chieftains raided the Euphrates Valley. Shāba sent Hormuz a haughty message “to see that his bridges and roads were in good order, for that he intended to cross Persia on his way to the Romans.” The Persian monarch’s reply was the despatch of a nobleman of Ray, named Bahrām Chūbīn, in command of twelve thousand picked veterans, to hinder the progress of the Turks. Bahrām advanced against them by forced marches, and surprised Shāba in his camp. The Turks were routed, and Shāba perished by an arrow from Bahrām’s bow. The dead chieftain’s son was taken prisoner, and sent together with 250,000 camel-loads of booty to Hormuz. The victorious general was straightway despatched to Transcaucasia to oppose the Romans; but there he met with a crushing defeat. It is not within the scope of the present work to record all the details of the extraordinary career of Bahrām Chūbīn, who is one of the favourite heroes of Persian poetry.[71] Suffice it to state that Hormuz, in an evil hour for himself, deprived the great general of his command as a punishment for his failure in the campaign against the Romans, and then drove him into a revolt which led to his own dethronement (590). His successor, Chosrau II., surnamed Parvīz “the Victorious,” proved a despot of the true Oriental type. He began his reign by slaughtering an uncle Bendoe, to whose efforts he owed the throne of Persia. Another uncle called Bistām, who had stood by him at the crisis of his fate, escaped his clutches, and held out against him for six years with the aid of the Turks and people of Daylam, succumbing at length to treachery. But Parvīz was a brave and capable soldier; and at one period of his career it seemed as though Persia were destined to build up an eastern empire on the ruins of the Roman sway. In 613 he conquered Damascus, and in the following year Jerusalem bowed its stubborn neck to the Persian yoke.[72] But a new movement was gathering force which was destined to sweep before it the effete civilisation of Persia and Byzantium.

CHAPTER V
The Rise of Islām and Invasions of the Arabs

At the end of the sixth century the western shore of Arabia was inhabited by tribes of Semitic descent, who possessed a complex religion and some literary culture. The capital was Mekka, to the north of Arabia Felix,[73] an ancient city which nestled round a temple called the Ka`ba, or Cube. In this holy of holies was a black stone, probably a meteorite, which served as a tribal fetish, and attracted hosts of pilgrims from the southern provinces of the peninsula. The family who had charge of the temple belonged to the priestly tribe of Koraysh, and one of its members was the future prophet Mohammed. While a youth he gained an insight into the habits of men of various creeds, not only as an inhabitant of Mekka, whither merchants and pilgrims of widely different creeds and nationalities flocked, but as a frequent attendant on caravans during distant journeys to the north. The impression left on his mind was that the religions of the Christian and the Jew had far greater vitality than the lukewarm idolatry of his own people.[74]

At the age of twenty-four he entered the service of a middle-aged widow named Khadīja, who carried on a large caravan trade, and he found such favour in her eyes that she offered to become his wife. Mohammed, being by this marriage assured of a competence for life, withdrew from the world and began to cast about him for the means of raising the debased moral standard of his countrymen. The conception of a Messiah, which enabled the Hebrews to bear their many afflictions, and of the Comforter promised by Jesus, worked so strongly upon his powerful imagination that he was at length convinced that he himself was the chosen one for whom the world was waiting. Catalepsy, which frequently threw him into long trances, led his superstitious neighbours to believe that he held commune with higher powers. At the age of forty[75] Mohammed came before the Eastern world with his simple gospel: “There is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.” At first none but a few of his closest associates believed in his mission, and so much opposition did he encounter that he was obliged to flee from Mekka to the town of Medīna, 270 miles northwards. This was on the 6th of July A.D. 622, which has been taken as the starting-point of the Mohammedan era.[76] And fitly so, for it was the turning-point of Mohammed’s great career. The once flouted visionary gained hosts of adherents in Medīna and the surrounding country, and spared no effort to consolidate his influence by appeals to the latent fanaticism of the Arab character. He continued to utter rhapsodies which, two years after his death, were collected and divided into chapters and verses under the name of the Koran, and became the foundation of the religious and civil codes of his followers.

Mekka soon recognised his mission, and after a fierce struggle with many vicissitudes the whole of Arabia accepted Islām.[77]

At the time of Mohammed’s death, which took place in the 16th year of his Hijra, or A.D. 632, the creed which he had formulated was still a religious rather than a worldly power. But it had profoundly stirred the impetuous, highly strung Arab temperament, which was vaguely conscious of possessing immense hidden force, and of a boundless sphere for its exercise in the worn-out empires which bounded their peninsula. A leader alone was wanted to focus and direct the aspirations engendered by the dead Prophet’s teachings, and one was found in the person of Abū Bekr, Mohammed’s father-in-law and earliest convert. He was proclaimed as the Khalīfa,[78] or successor of the Prophet, and was the first of that long line of sovereigns who, like the Tsars of our own age, wielded unquestioned spiritual and temporal power, and, like them, became prominent factors in the history of the Eastern world.

The new-born creed soon showed its strongly militant character. Led by Khālid, a pillar of Islām who won by his prowess the title of the Sword of God, the Arabs defeated a Roman army with heavy loss, and took Damascus. In six years the whole of Syria and Palestine passed under their sway. Persia was the next object of attack. The Zoroastrians struggled long and desperately for their independence, but in 639 they suffered a crushing defeat at Nahāvend, a battle which must rank high amongst those which have influenced the current of the world’s history. Yezdijerd, the last of the Sāsānian dynasty, fled through Sīstān and Khorāsān to Merv. Here he found no safe asylum, for the governor sent news of his arrival to the Turks, and the Khākān advanced in person to seize so rich a prize. The fugitive became aware of the intended treachery, and concealed himself in a mill near the city. The owner received him with apparent kindness, but was tempted by the splendour of the king’s accoutrements to kill him while he slept. He severed Yezdijerd’s head from his body, which he cast into the mill stream.[79]

THE RAHLA, OR READING-DESK

OUTSIDE THE MOSQUE OF BĪBĪ KHĀNŪM, SAMARKAND

The immediate results of the battle of Nahāvend were disastrous to civilisation. Persia was traversed in all directions by bands of marauding Arabs, and the miserable inhabitants suffered as severely as they had suffered at the hands of the Mazdakites. “The Caliph Othman,”[80] writes Gibbon,[81] “promised the government of Khorāsān to the first general who should enter that large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians. The condition was accepted, the prize was deserved; the standard of Mahomet was planted on the walls of Herāt, Merou, and Balkh; and the successful leader neither halted nor reposed till his foaming cavalry had tasted the waters of the Oxus.” The ill-cemented power of the Caliph was more adapted for conquest than assimilation, and its area overrun by his undisciplined hordes was too vast to be held in permanent subjection. Conscious of their weakness, the Arabs spared no efforts to spread the tenets of Islām, which alone was capable of welding together communities differing widely in race, language, and customs. From this epoch dates the decline of the creed of Zoroaster throughout Persia and the countries of Central Asia. The assassination of the Caliph `Omar by a Persian slave was the signal for a general insurrection throughout this loosely knitted empire. This was not finally quelled till A.H. 31 (652), when Ibn `Āmir gained a victory over the Persians at Khwārazm on the Oxus, and compelled the country as far as Balkh to acknowledge the Caliph’s suzerainty.[82] In A.H. 41 (661) `Abdullah ibn `Āmir organised a successful expedition into Khorāsān and Sīstān;[83] and in the course of the following year Kays ibn al-Haytham was sent thither as provincial governor. He was superseded in A.H. 43 (663) by `Abdullah ibn Khāzim. In A.H. 45 (665) Ziyād, whom in the preceding year the Great Caliph Mo`awiya had officially recognised as his brother, was made governor of Basra and “the East.” Al-Hakam ibn `Āmir al-Ghifārī was sent in A.H. 47 (667) on an expedition into Khorāsān. He occupied Tokhāristān and the country south and south-east of Balkh as far as the Hindu Kush, and was, moreover, the first Arabian general to cross the Oxus.[84] Al-Hakam died at Merv in A.H. 50 (670), on his return from an expedition against the people of Mount Ashall.[85] In the following year Rabī` ibn Ziyād[86] el-Hārithī was sent to Khorāsān to succeed him.[87] About this date many Arabs migrated with their families to Khorāsān and settled there.[88] Rabī`’s first care was the reduction of Balkh, which had been the scene of a revolt, and this he effected without resorting to force. He also engaged the Turks in Kūhistān, and put them to rout. Among the fugitives was Nīzak Tarkhūn,[89] who perished later at the hands of Kutayba ibn Muslim. Rabī` also crossed the Oxus, but made no conquests on the farther side.[90] His death, and that of his master Ziyād, took place in A.H. 53 (673). He named his son `Abdullah as his successor, but the latter died two months later, and was succeeded by Khulayd ibn `Abdullah el-Hanafī. On the death of Ziyād the Caliph gave the governments of Kūfa, Basra, and Khorāsān to his own son `Ubaydullah, while he appointed Ziyād’s son `Ubaydullah, in supersession of Khulayd, as his lieutenant in Khorāsān. `Ubaydullah ibn Ziyād collected an army in Irāk, entered Khorāsān and, crossing the Oxus, penetrated into the mountains of Bokhārā,[91] and conquered Rāmtīna and half of Baykand. The Turks of Bokhārā were at that time governed by a princess named Khātūn, who acted as regent during the minority of her son Tughshāda. On the approach of the Arabs with an overwhelming force, Khātūn fled to Samarkand. According to Tabari,[92] so great was her haste that one of her shoes was left behind. It fell into the hands of the Arabs, and was valued by them at 200,000 direms.[93]

Diplomacy gained for Bokhārā what arms could never have accomplished. Khātūn saved the evacuation of her capital by entering into a treaty by which she bound herself to pay a yearly tribute.[94] `Ubaydullah withdrew to Merv laden with booty, and on his return to Irāk was appointed by the Caliph Mo`awiya, governor of Basra. In A.H. 56 (676) Sa`īd ibn `Othman, who had superseded him in Khorāsān, determined to complete the conquest of Bokhārā, in spite of the treaty concluded by his predecessor. The Queen-Regent Khātūn was powerless to resist the invasion, for she had reason to doubt the loyalty of her troops, and her resources had been well-nigh exhausted in her struggle with `Ubaydullah. She therefore came to terms with Sa`īd by the surrender of the last shreds of her sovereignty in Bokhārā. But Samarkand, the wealthiest of its strongholds, was still unmastered. Sa`īd ibn `Othman embarked on a campaign for its reduction, carrying with him eighty Bokhārān nobles as hostages for their queen’s good behaviour. After several successful engagements with the Turks he stormed Samarkand[95] and carried off 30,000 prisoners, with much booty.[96] When Sa`īd passed through Bokhārā on his return to Khorāsān the queen demanded back the eighty hostages, but he replied that he did not yet feel sure of her good faith, and that he would not part with the Bokhārāns until he had crossed the Amū Daryā. At this stage of his march the queen sent messengers to repeat her demand, but she was informed by Sa`īd that the hostages should be sent back from Merv. Thus he continued to elude compliance, and finally dragged his wretched captives to Medīna. Here they were stripped of the attire proper to their rank and reduced to a condition of slavery. Preferring death to an ignominious existence, the desperadoes broke into Sa`īd’s palace, and, closing fast the doors, slew him and afterwards themselves. This tragedy occurred in A.H. 61 (680), under the Caliphate of Yezīd ibn Merwān, who had succeeded his father Mo`awiya in the previous year.

One of the Caliph’s first acts had been to appoint Salm ibn Ziyād as his lieutenant in Khorāsān.[97] The latter found the northern part of his charge a prey to revolt, for the restless Khātūn had taken advantage of dissension among the Caliph’s followers to throw off his hated yoke. Salm took council with a trusted general named Muhallab,[98] and, establishing a base at Merv, crossed the Oxus with[99] a force 6000 strong and moved rapidly on to Bokhārā. The queen, in her despair, turned to the Tarkhūn Malik of Soghd, to whom she promised her hand in marriage as the price of his alliance against the invaders. The Tarkhūn, seduced by the dazzling bait, advanced to her assistance at the head of 120,000 men. He put a reconnoitring party of the Arabs to flight, destroying more than half their number, but was beset by the entire force, and after a fierce struggle was utterly routed. So vast was the booty taken by Salm’s followers in the pursuit that each man-at-arms received 2400 direms.[100]

This victory[101] brought the queen of Bokhārā to her senses. She sued for peace, which was granted, and Salm returned in triumph. Salm seems to have won for himself universal respect during his two years’ residence in Merv as governor of Khorāsān, and the fact that during this period 2000 children had received his name[102] is quoted as a proof of his popularity.

The Caliph Yezīd had died during the previous year (683). He was succeeded by Mo`awiya II., who was less imbued with fanaticism than his lieutenants, and found the Caliphate too heavy a burden. Resigning it after a few months’ reign, he left Islām a prey to anarchy. Two claimants appeared for the thorny crown—`Abdullah ibn Zobayr, and Merwān I. of the race of Umayya. The first gained the allegiance of Yemen, including the Holy Places, Egypt and part of Syria; the second was proclaimed lord of Damascus, and speedily drove his rival from Syria and Egypt. Merwān’s son and successor, `Abd el-Melik, concluded a peace with the Byzantine emperor on the basis of the payment of a tribute of 50,000 pieces of gold, and turned the whole of his forces against the pretender, who still held to Mekka and Medīna. Him he defeated twice, and slew Mohammad. All Islām was now under his chieftainship, with the exception of Khorāsān, which was governed by `Abdullah ibn Khāzim as representative of Ibn Zobayr. Finding it impossible to secure the former’s allegiance, `Abd el-Melik incited one of his generals named Bukayr to compass his master’s death, on a promise to confer on him the governorship of the province. The bait was swallowed by Bukayr, who formed a conspiracy against `Abdullah ibn Khāzim, and deprived him of authority (692). He became head of Khorāsān; but his triumph was shortlived. The Caliph naturally doubted the loyalty of one who had shown himself unfaithful to his trust, and superseded him by Umayya ibn `Abdullah ibn Khālid (696). Four years later (700), Muhallab, who had left Merv and established himself in Kesh (the modern Shahrisebz), sent his son Habīb with a huge army against Bokhārā, whose king he utterly defeated. While Muhallab was in Kesh, his followers entreated him to penetrate farther into the country, but Muhallab replied that his only aim was to bring all his Musulmans safe back to Merv. After two years’ stay at Kesh he came to terms with the inhabitants of the surrounding country, and, satisfied with the large tribute they rendered to him, returned to his headquarters at Merv.

Muhallab died A.H. 82 (701), and was succeeded by his son Yezīd in the government of Merv. In A.H. 84 (703)[103] the latter was deprived of his post by the famous Hajjāj,[104] who had the disposal of all such appointments. Yezīd thereupon quitted Khorāsān, and his brother Mufaddhal, who had formerly been his lieutenant, was appointed governor. He held the post for about nine months, undertaking during that brief period successful expeditions against Khiva and Bādghīs. The immense spoils of war he distributed among his soldiers, keeping, we are told, nothing for himself. In A.H. 86 (705) `Abd el-Melik died, and in the same year, on the arrival of Yezīd in `Irāk, Hajjāj appointed Kutayba ibn Muslim el-Bāhili governor of Khorāsān in place of Mufaddhal. The glorious career of Kutayba in Central Asia began at this epoch with his entry into Merv.

CHAPTER VI
The First Eastern Campaigns of Kutayba ibn Muslim

The arrival of Kutayba on the scene marks a new epoch in the history of Mohammedan conquests in Central Asia. Though the Arabs had been for many years masters of Khorāsān, with an established capital at Merv,[105] their hold on the country beyond the Oxus was very slight. The expeditions which they had hitherto made into Bokhārā[106] and other parts of Transoxiana were mere raids, and their authority in those countries departed with the main body of their army. Kutayba was the first Arab leader who compelled the inhabitants of the tract lying between the Oxus and Jaxartes to acknowledge the Caliph’s supremacy, and to plant the standard of Islām in lands where the creed of Zoroaster had retained its greatest vitality.

CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES

1. PERSIAN
2. PERSIAN
3. AFGHAN
4. KALMUCK

In A.H. 86 (705), as we have seen, `Abd el-Melik died. He was succeeded in the Caliphate by his son Welīd, and in the same year Kutayba ibn Muslim made a triumphal entry into Merv as governor of Khorāsān. On arriving at Merv, Kutayba called together the inhabitants, and urged them to join a Holy War, emphasising his trumpet-call by quotations from the Koran. The fierce Arabs swarmed to his standard, and Kutayba soon found himself at the head of an army animated with the keenest enthusiasm, to whom he distributed pay sufficient to maintain their families during their career of conquest. The military and civil administration of the oasis during his absence was delegated by him to trusted lieutenants. Having thus organised victory, he set out in a westerly direction across the desert. The first town which he reached was Tālikān.[107] Here he was received by the dihkans[108] and chief men of Balkh, who escorted him across the Oxus. He was met on the right bank by the king of the Chaghāniān, who brought presents and a golden key, and invited him to enter his capital. Kutayba accepted his submission, and allowed him to remain in office under the Caliph’s suzerainty. He then marched to Akhrun and Shūmān, and after levying tribute on their chief, returned to Merv. Some authorities relate that Kutayba, before crossing the Oxus, made an expedition into Balkh, and there crushed a rising among the inhabitants, who were attempting to rid themselves of the Arab yoke.[109] In the same year he concluded a peace with Nīzek, Tarkhūn of Bādghīs. In the following year, A.H. 87 (705), Kutayba set out for Transoxiana. During his march thither he passed through Merv er-Rūd, Āmul, and Zamīn; and, crossing the Oxus, sat down before Baykand. This place was, according to Tabari, the Bokhārān town nearest to the great river, and lay at the edge of the desert. It was known far and wide as the “City of Merchants,” and was equally renowned for the strength of its fortifications. The inhabitants, on learning Kutayba’s approach, put their town into a state of defence, and sent messengers into Soghdiana imploring aid. The call was obeyed, and Kutayba’s little force was soon hemmed in on all sides by numerous and determined foes. For a space of two months so closely was he pressed that he was unable to send a messenger to Hajjāj, whose consequent anxiety led him to order prayers for the army in all the mosques. Tabari tells us that Kutayba had in his employ a Persian spy, named Tandar, whom the Bokhārāns bribed to induce his master to retire from their country. Tandar obtained a private audience of Kutayba, which was attended only by a certain Dhirār ibn Hasan. He told the Amīr that his patron Hajjāj had lost his office, and that a new governor had arrived to replace the former. Kutayba called one of his slaves named Siyāh, and ordered him to strike off Tandar’s head. When this had been done, he turned to Dhirār and said: “No one knows of this affair except you and myself. If it is bruited abroad I shall be certain that you are to blame; so master your tongue. For should the people hear the story, they will be discouraged.” He then summoned his followers into his presence. When they saw the body of Tandar they were filled with fear, and threw themselves on the ground before Kutayba. He asked them why they were appalled by Tandar’s execution. They replied: “Verily, we thought that he was a friend to the Musulman.” “No,” replied Kutayba, “he was a traitor—may God punish him for his sins, but he has met with his deserts. Now go and prepare to meet the enemy to-morrow with more courage than you have hitherto shown.”

On the following day the Arabs took up their positions and began the fight with fresh vigour, while Kutayba passed through the ranks giving his commands and encouraging his men in every way.[110] The battle lasted till sunset, when the enemy gave way and fled in disorder towards the town, hotly pursued by the Arabs. A few only reached the shelter of its walls, while the rest were slain or taken prisoners. Kutayba immediately began a regular siege of Baykand, which, though the place had lost most of its garrison, cost the assailants many lives.[111] For fifty days, says Narshakhi, “the efforts of the Musulmans were of no avail, and their sufferings were great. At last they had recourse to stratagem. A party of soldiers dug a trench under the town-wall, near the citadel, connected with a stable within the fortress, where they made another breach in the wall. Hardly had the Musulmans reached the fortress ere these men sallied from the breach. Kutayba shouted: “To the first man who enters the fort by this breach I will give blood-money, and if he should be killed, then his children shall receive it.” This promise filled the besiegers with emulation. All threw themselves into the breach, and captured the fort. The men of Baykand begged for quarter, which Kutayba granted, and then retired laden with booty, leaving a lieutenant in the town with a detachment of troops. But when he reached Khunbūn,[112] which is only a farsakh’s distance from Baykand, on the Bokhārā road, he learnt that the people of Baykand had risen against his lieutenant and garrison, and slaughtered them after cutting off their noses and ears.[113]

Kutayba immediately turned back and invaded the town a second time. The siege lasted a month, when the Amīr had a tunnel excavated under the wall and filled with wood, which was set on fire. The wall above crumbled and fell, crushing forty men to death. The Baykandis offered to capitulate on condition that their lives were spared, but Kutayba stormed the town and put to death all the fighting men. The rest were carried off into slavery, and the city became a heap of ruins. Kutayba then returned to Merv with much spoil,[114] which, according to Tabari, exceeded in value all the booty that had been taken by the Arabs in Khorāsān.

The story of Baykand’s resurrection is a curious one. It was a town of long-standing fame and a great centre of trade; and, during the siege, most of the heads of families were absent in China and other distant countries with their caravans. On their return they redeemed their wives and surviving relatives from the Arabs, and soon repeopled Baykand. Narshakhi justly remarks,[115] that it is the only town in history which, after undergoing a destruction, root and branch, was restored to its former prosperity by the same generation as saw its ruin. Tabari adds that the inhabitants agreed to pay a yearly tribute to the Arabs, and were guaranteed peace, under a written pact, by Kutayba.

The conquest of Baykand was achieved by Kutayba in the autumn of the year of the Hijra, 87 (705). He then returned for the winter season to his headquarters at Merv. It was not till A.H. 88 (706) that Kutayba entered on a career of conquest. During his first two years of command he had achieved little towards the extension of the Caliph’s authority in Central Asia. His predecessors had already carried their arms as far as the city of Bokhārā, while his own had never extended far beyond the frontier of that kingdom. The destruction of Baykand was, however, a feat of no mean value, as, quite apart from the immense booty which fell into the victor’s hands, the position of the town rendered it “the south-western gate of Transoxiana,”[116] and hence its importance to the Arabs as a basis for further encroachments.

The immediate objects of Kutayba’s attacks were, according to Tabari,[117] Numushkat and Rāmtīna, which obtained peace on condition of paying a yearly tribute.

Meanwhile the people of Bokhārā, Soghdiana, and the surrounding countries had banded together to oppose the Arab invaders, who found themselves surrounded in the country lying between Tārāb, Khunbūn, and Rāmtīna. The combined forces numbered about 40,000 men, and comprised the armies of the Tarkhūn Melik of Soghd, Khunuk-Khudāt, Vardān-Khudāt, and Prince Kur-Maghānūn,[118] who was a son of the Chinese emperor’s sister, and who was, according to Narshakhi, a mercenary soldier of fortune. Kutayba had set out on his return to Merv when the Turks suddenly fell upon his rear-guard. The Musulmans were beginning to waver, but Kutayba appeared on the scene of action and filled them with fresh courage. The battle lasted till midday, when “God put the Turks to flight.”[119] Kutayba then returned to Merv, taking the road in the direction of Balkh, and crossing the Oxus above Tirmiz. On reaching Fāryāb[120] he received a letter from Hajjāj ordering him to march against the Vardān-Khudāt, king of Bokhārā. He therefore retraced his steps and crossed the Oxus at Zamīn. On the road through the desert he was met by some Soghdians and the people of Kess (Kesh) and Nasaf (Nakhshab), whom he engaged and defeated. He then plunged into Bokhārā, and pitched his camp at Lower Kharkāna, to the right of Vardān, where he was attacked by superior forces. After a battle which lasted for two days and two nights, victory declared for the Arabs. Kutayba now advanced against the Vardān-Khudāt, king of Bokhārā, but was repulsed and retreated to Merv. Here he informed Hajjāj by letter how he had fared, and was ordered to send his master a map of the country. Having examined this map, Hajjāj wrote to him in the following terms: “Return to your former purpose, and acknowledge in prayer to God your repentance for having abandoned it. Attack the enemy at vulnerable points. Crush Kesh, destroy Nasaf, and repulse Vardān.[121] Take care that you are not surrounded; and leave the difficulties of the road to me.” On receiving these instructions, Kutayba left Merv, and in the beginning of the year A.H. 90 (708) again invaded the kingdom of Bokhārā. When the Vardān-Khudāt heard of Kutayba’s advance, he sent messengers to the Soghdians and their neighbours asking for their help. Kutayba arrived before their allies, and immediately laid siege to Vardān; but as soon as reinforcements appeared the garrison sallied forth and attacked the Arabs.

The versions of the battle that ensued as given by Tabari and Narshakhi[122] differ materially, while both enter into so much detail that it is hard to reconcile them. That given by Tabari[123] is graphic enough to deserve epitomising.

“When the Turks came out of the town, the men of the tribe of Azd asked Kutayba to allow them to fight separately. They straightway charged down on the Turks,—Kutayba remaining seated the while, wearing a green mantle over his armour,—and their endurance was great. At length they were driven back to Kutayba’s camp by the Turks, but here the women struck their horses’ heads[124] and forced the Musulmans to turn against the enemy. They succeeded in driving them back to his first position, a piece of rising ground which appeared to them inassailable. Then said Kutayba: ‘Who will dislodge them for us from this place?’ No one advanced, and all the tribes remained where they were. Then Kutayba went up to the Beni Temīm[125] and appealed to their old prestige, whereupon their chief Wakī` seized the banner and said: ‘Oh ye sons of Temīm, will you abandon me to-day?’ They shouted ‘No,’ and advanced until they came to the stream separating them from the enemy, over which Husayni, the commander of the horse, leaped, followed by his men. Meanwhile Wakī` gave the banner to Husayni and, dismounting, superintended the construction of a small bridge. He then said to his men: ‘He who is willing to risk his life, let him cross; and he who is not willing, let him remain where he is!’ Eight hundred men dashed across the bridge. Then Wakī` told Husayni to harass the enemy with his cavalry, while he himself attacked them with his foot-men. So great was the fury of their double onslaught that the Turks gave way, seeing which the Musulmans sprang towards the bridge as one man, but ere they could cross the Turks were in full flight. The latter were thus completely routed; the Khākān and his son were both wounded. When the inhabitants of the surrounding countries saw what had happened to the men of Bokhārā they trembled before Kutayba.”

After this victory Kutayba again withdrew to Merv. The chroniclers differ as to the part which the Tarkhūn Melik of Soghd played in this battle. Tabari relates that the Tarkhūn, seeing that the day was going with the Musulmans, rode, accompanied by two horsemen, close up to Kutayba’s camp—there being only the river of Bokhārā between them, and asked him to send a man across to confer with him. A certain Hayyān, the Nabatæan, came over, and through his mediation a peace was settled upon, the Tarkhūn agreeing to pay tribute to Kutayba. The Tarkhūn then returned to his own country, while Kutayba, as stated above, retired to Merv, accompanied by Nīzek. Narshakhi, on the other hand, says that Hayyān, the Nabatæan, told the king of Soghd that it would be much wiser for him to abandon the allies and return to his own country. “We,” he said, “will remain here as long as the warm weather lasts, but when the winter sets in we shall retire, and then you will find the Turks all against you,—for nothing will induce them to leave your beautiful Soghd.” The Tarkhūn, convinced of the value of this advice, asked what course he should pursue. Hayyān replied: “First, you must make peace with Kutayba, and pay him an indemnity. Next represent to the Turks that Hajjāj is sending reinforcements by way of Kesh and Nakhshab. Then you must turn back; and haply they will do likewise.”

That same night the Tarkhūn concluded a treaty with Kutayba, and gave him 2000 direms;[126] Kutayba, for his part, promising not to molest his kingdom. He then sounded his trumpets and marched off, and his example was very soon after followed by the emperor of China’s nephew.

“Thus did God deliver the Musulmans from the great straits in which they had been plunged for four months.” During this period Hajjāj had received no news from Kutayba, and his anxiety was so great that special prayers were offered in the mosques for his safety.

“This was Kutayba’s fourth expedition into Bokhārā.”[127]

CHAPTER VII
Kutayba’s Last Campaigns

Among Kutayba’s followers was a certain noble named Nīzek, prince of Bādghīs, and a minister of Jighāya, ruler of Tokhāristān, who was in all probability attached temporarily to his court as a prisoner on parole. Nīzek had watched Kutayba’s campaigns with keen interest, in the fond hope that he might receive a serious check, and that Transoxiana and Khorāsān might be emboldened to throw off the Arab yoke. The great leader’s success in Bokhārā convinced the moody rebel of the folly of such anticipations; and he saw only too clearly that the moment had come for the oppressed nationalities of Central Asia to strike a last despairing blow for freedom.[128] His first step was to obtain from the unsuspecting Kutayba permission to visit Tokhāristān, his next to raise the standard of revolt, which he did on reaching the defiles of Khulm.

As a measure of precaution he sent his valuables for safe keeping to the king of Kābul, whose support he entreated for his arduous enterprise. He sent messengers to the Ispahbad[129] of Balkh and to the princes of Merv er-Rūd, Tālikān, Fāryāb, and Jūzajān, inviting them to join the coalition. All replied in the affirmative. After these negotiations Nīzek placed his master Jighāya in chains,[130] and dismissed Kutayba’s agent from Tokhāristān.

When Kutayba received intimation of this revolt winter was setting in. His army was dispersed, and there only remained with him the contingent supplied by the town of Merv. He sent his brother `Abd er-Rahmān, at the head of 2000 men to Balkh, with instructions to remain there inactive till the spring, when he was to proceed to Tokhāristān, adding, “Be sure that I shall be near thee.” Towards the end of the winter A.H. 91 (709), Kutayba summoned reinforcements from Abarshahr, Bīvard, Sarakhs, and Herāt. On their arrival he set out against Tālikān, leaving, as was his practice, a trusted follower in charge of the garrison, and another in that of the civil affairs of Merv.[131] The first operation was the storming of Merv er-Rūd. Its chief had fled, but his two sons who had remained were hanged. At Tālikān he met the enemy in the open field, and at the first onslaught the Turks were put to rout by his rear-guard, which was commanded by `Abd er-Rahmān. No quarter was given, and all who were not slain outright were hanged,—the line of gibbets extending for a distance of sixteen miles. After appointing an Arab as governor of the town, Kutayba received the submission of Fāryāb and Jūzajān, and placed those towns under one of his lieutenants. He now proceeded to Balkh, where he was peaceably received by the inhabitants; and, after remaining there for a day, advanced into the defiles of Khulm. Meanwhile Nīzek had retired to Baghlān and established a camp there, leaving a small force to guard the entrance of the pass. Kutayba halted opposite the castle of Nīzek, but found it too strong for reduction. While disheartened at this failure, he received an offer from the king of Rūb and Siminjān to point out to him a road leading to the castle in return for an amnesty. Kutayba consented, and, guided by the king, his troops turned the defiles and poured down upon Nīzek’s garrison and advance-guard. The Turks were taken at a disadvantage, and all were put to the sword who did not make good their escape. The army of Kutayba now advanced to Siminjān, which was separated by a desert from Baghlān, where Nīzek had his fortified camp. Hearing of the approach of Kutayba, the latter retreated to Kerz, a position which was assailable only on one side, and was quite unapproachable for cavalry. Here for two months he sustained a siege, and, as all the approaches were occupied by Kutayba, provisions grew scarce in this retreat. On the other hand, Kutayba dreaded the prospect of remaining in a country so remote and barbarous, and determined to hasten his triumph by the aid of diplomacy. Calling to him a trusted councillor named Sulaymān, he ordered him to make his way to Nīzek’s camp and endeavour to secure his surrender. Quarter was not to be promised unless it was insisted on, and the messenger was informed that his own fate was at stake. Sulaymān, with the certainty of the gallows before him as the result of failure to bring the rebel to terms, obtaining a covering party to guard his retreat, and taking with him several days’ provisions, started for the enemy’s camp.

He was admitted to a parley with Nīzek, whom he exhorted to submit to overwhelming force. The prince stipulated for mercy, but was assured that no formal guarantee was necessary. On the understanding that his life would be spared, he surrendered and accompanied Sulaymān to Kutayba’s camp. He was at once placed in a tent under strict guard, while his own camp was occupied by the Arab forces. Kutayba then asked instructions from his chief Hajjāj at Basra as to what should be done with the prisoner, and in forty days a reply arrived that he must be put to death. The order was not obeyed without considerable hesitation. For three days Kutayba shut himself up in his tent and held converse with no one. On the fourth he took council with his officers, and all agreed that the breach of faith implied was a just and necessary measure. And so Nīzek, with 700 of his followers, was put to death, and their heads were sent to Hajjāj.

The prince of Tokhāristān was released from his golden chains and despatched with a retinue to Damascus. The perfidy which Kutayba had practised towards Nīzek was too outrageous even for the Arabs, but it was followed by another action scarcely less scandalous. When Kutayba returned to Merv, the king of Jūzajān, who had made common cause with Nīzek, sent messengers offering his submission on condition that his life should be spared. The terms were agreed to, but Kutayba insisted that the king should present himself in person, and also give hostages. Kutayba, on his side, sent him an Arab hostage named Habīb. The king of Jūzajān intrusted several members of his own family to Kutayba’s care, and betook himself to Merv, where he concluded a peace with Kutayba. But on his return to his native country he died at Tālikān, and the inhabitants, in the belief, real or pretended, that he had been poisoned, slew Habīb. On hearing of this Kutayba put all the hostages to death. In the year A.H. 91 (709) Kutayba marched against Shūmān, Kesh, and Nakhshab, and after capturing the three towns he sent his brother Rahmān to attack the Tarkhūn of Soghd. The latter, however, offered to pay tribute, and gave hostages. After accepting this proposal `Abd er-Rahmān joined Kutayba in Bokhārā, and the two brothers returned to Merv.

Meanwhile the people of Soghd rose against their chief, and set up another named Ghūzek in his stead. The deposed Tarkhūn put an end to his own life.

In A.H. 93 (711) Chighān, king of Khwārazm, secretly invited Kutayba to help him against his brother Khorzād, who, though younger than himself, usurped much of his power and appropriated a large share of his possessions. Kutayba, satisfied with the terms offered, arrived unexpectedly at Hazārasp,[132] whereupon Khorzād gave himself up, and was handed over as a prisoner to his brother Chighān. After recompensing Kutayba handsomely, he begged him as a further favour to assist him in crushing the king of Khāmjerd, who had repeatedly invaded his territory. Kutayba intrusted the operation to his brother, who slew the king, conquered his realm, and brought 4000 slaves to Merv.

Having thus brought his Khwārazmian campaign to a successful termination, Kutayba turned his attention to Soghdiana, which, as related above, had been the theatre of a revolution. He reached Samarkand without adventure, and at once invaded the historic city. The resistance of the Soghdians was most stubborn; they made frequent sorties,[133] and defied the besiegers to do their worst. The new king, however, alarmed at the persistence of the Arabs, sent a letter to the king of Shāsh asking his aid. Two thousand men of Shāsh set out at once for Samarkand; but Kutayba, hearing of their movements, surprised them in ambuscade and put them to rout. Two days later the king sued for peace. Kutayba agreed to retire on payment of a heavy tribute, but stipulated that he should be allowed to enter the city and build a mosque and inaugurate a religious service. His terms were accepted, but instead of masons he sent 4000 armed Arabs to uproot idolatry. All the graven images of Samarkand were burned, Kutayba himself commencing the conflagration and inaugurating the auto-da-fé.

The hostility of Shāsh was not forgotten. At the beginning of A.H. 94 (712) Kutayba set out from Merv, crossed the Oxus, and marched against Shāsh and Farghāna at the head of a large army.[134] The expedition resulted in the reduction of the towns of Shāsh, Khojand, and Kāshān on terms similar to those accorded to the people of Samarkand.[135]

In A.H. 96 (714) Kutayba set out on his last expedition. He carried the Mohammedan arms farther east than any of his predecessors had done; and, though his conquests on the borders of China were not of a permanent nature, he established an eastern frontier to Islam which has never since been encroached on. Before setting out on this last campaign Kutayba received news of the death of the Caliph Welīd, and the succession of Sulaymān his brother. As he knew that the Caliph was his enemy he[136] took the precaution of carrying his family with him to Samarkand, where they were placed in safe keeping. On this expedition Kutayba reached, and apparently entered, Kāshghar, but though it is stated that he conquered the province, we have no particulars of an engagement of any kind.

CHAPTER VIII
Kutayba’s Fall and Death

The realm of Arabic literature contains no more vivid picture of contemporary life and manners than that given us by Tabari in his account of Kutayba’s fall.[137] Many circumstances conspired to effect his ruin. The unbounded arrogance arising from uniform success, and the many acts of perfidy of which he was guilty, had weakened the attachment of his followers, which was based rather on greed for booty than devotion to a cause. His friend and constant patron Hajjāj had died in A.H. 94. The new Caliph, Sulaymān, had never forgotten that Kutayba had supported his predecessor Welīd in an attempt to exclude him from the succession; and his principal adviser was Yezīd ibn Muhallab, whom Kutayba had ousted from the government of Khorāsān. But tribal hatred was the most telling factor in Kutayba’s fall. It raged with intense fury among the Arabs during the Caliphate, and was at the root of every revolution of that stirring period.

Kutayba’s first thoughts[138] on hearing of the accession of Sulaymān were that the Caliph would certainly reinstate Yezīd as governor of Khorāsān. In view of forestalling this action he sent a messenger to Sulaymān bearing three letters. The first contained assurances of his loyalty; the second, expressions of his contempt for Yezīd; the purport of the third, which was written on a smaller sheet, was as follows: “I have ceased to recognise Sulaymān as my sovereign, and have revolted against him.” His envoy was intrusted to hand the first missive to the Caliph and watch his movements narrowly. If he should read it and then pass it to Yezīd, the second was to be submitted to him. Should it be similarly treated, the gauntlet of defiance was to be thrown down in the third letter.

The injunctions were strictly followed. The three messages were delivered successively; but, beyond communicating each to Yezīd, the Caliph betrayed no sign of resentment. The messenger was allowed to depart in company with a courtier, who carried with him an Act of reinvestiture in the governorship of Khorāsān in favour of Kutayba. When the pair reached Holwān[139] they learnt that Kutayba had already raised the standard of revolt, and Sulaymān’s messenger returned straightway to Syria. When Kutayba’s messenger reached Khorāsān his master asked him how matters had gone. On learning that his action of throwing off his allegiance had been, to say the least of it, premature, Kutayba was filled with repentance, and took counsel with his brothers and captains as to what course he should pursue. They were agreed that Sulaymān would never pardon Kutayba, but opined that his life would be spared in remembrance of his past services to Islām. “Alas,” cried Kutayba, “it is not death I fear, but that the Caliph will certainly give the government of Khorāsān to Yezīd, and humiliate me before all the world; I prefer death to that!”[140] Among the many projects suggested to him the wisest seems to have been that of his brother `Abd er-Rahmān, who advised him to proceed to Samarkand and then give his followers the option of staying with him or returning to their homes. Having by this means surrounded himself with men whom he could trust, he might declare his independence of Sulaymān. But Kutayba was too confident in his own influence to listen to counsel savouring of timidity. The only plan which suited his temper was one formulated by another brother named `Abdullah. It was that Kutayba should call his officers together and urge them to join in a revolt against the Caliph. This desperate scheme was promptly acted upon. Kutayba harangued his followers in brief but stirring words, dwelling on the want of capacity shown by his predecessors, especially by Yezīd; he reminded his troops of the successes that had attended them under his leadership, of the fairness with which he had always divided the spoil among them, and of his prosperous administration of Khorāsān. He then awaited the acclamations which his lightest utterances had hitherto received. A deep and anxious silence reigned on the assembly. Kutayba, lashed to fury by the ingratitude of those who owed everything to him, lost all semblance of self-restraint and burst forth into a tirade, in which his lieutenants were designated as “cowardly Bedouins, infidels, and hypocrites.” Then, trembling with half-suppressed passion, he withdrew to his palace, where he joined the members of his family. They attempted to remonstrate, and pointed out the folly of exasperating men on whose goodwill everything depended. The Arab troops, too, entered into negotiations with `Abd-er-Rahmān, who was regarded as the most reasonable of Kutayba’s brothers, and he proffered his services as a peacemaker. But Kutayba had by this time entirely lost his head, and turned a deaf ear to all advice. The Arabs, lashed to madness by his obstinacy, beset his palace with shouts of vengeance. Some set fire to his stables, and in the confusion that ensued another band broke into the council-hall and attacked their fallen chief. He received a wound from an arrow, and was straightway hacked to pieces with swords, A.H. 96 (714).

Thus fell, at the age of forty-six, a man whose personality stands out in bold relief in the earlier annals of the most militant of creeds.

It would be unjust to omit mention of Kutayba’s zeal in the propaganda of Islām. Narshakhi has much to tell us of his pious exertions in the town of Bokhārā. On each of his four expeditions thither he compelled the inhabitants to accept the faith of Mohammed, but as soon as his back was turned they reverted to idol-worship. In A.H. 94 Kutayba built, on the site of a fire-temple, a large mosque, where prayers were read every Friday; a reward of two direms was given to every attendant in order to assure the permanent conversion of the people. Kutayba quartered an Arab in every house, who played the dual part of spy and missionary. His character was an epitome of the qualities which made Islām a terror to mankind, and ultimately conspired to reduce it to impotence.

GENERAL VIEW OF BOKHĀRĀ

CHAPTER IX
Kutayba’s Successors

On the death of Kutayba, Wakī`, who had been a ringleader in the revolt, took upon himself the direction of affairs in Khorāsān. After a lapse of nine months, however, a new governor arrived, in the person of Yezīd ibn Muhallab, and Wakī` was placed under arrest, while his partisans were subjected to punishment. According to the Persian translation of Tabari, Yezīd this year “began a series of expeditions beyond the frontiers of Khorāsān, to countries where Kutayba had not penetrated,”[141] but they are not mentioned in the Arabic original, nor are such undertakings consistent with the rest of Yezīd’s career. For his attention was turned to the subjection of the countries to the west of Khorāsān,[142] rather than to the extension of Mohammedan authority towards the Chinese frontier.

Thus we find him in A.H. 98 conducting his troops against Jurjān and Tabaristān. The former country was regarded as the key of Western Asia. It was strongly fortified; and its walls, extending as far as the Sea of Azof, were an effectual barrier to the aggressions of the Turkish hordes.[143] But these attacks appear to have told severely on the inhabitants, who finally secured the withdrawal of their persistent foes by the payment of tribute. They had adopted similar tactics on an Arab invasion which took place under the Caliphate of `Othman: when the enemy again withdrew, on receiving a bribe of 2,000,000 direms. Jurjān thereafter enjoyed a long immunity from attack, although Kutayba had more than once solicited permission from Hajjāj to establish a direct route between `Irāk and Khorāsān by crushing its independence. Yezīd’s anxiety to achieve a conquest which had been the unrealised ambition of his great rival can be easily understood. On his departure from Jurjān he left his son Mokhallad in charge of Khorāsān. The force at his command included Kūfans, Basrans, Syrians, and the élite of Khorāsān and Ray, and numbered 100,000, exclusive of volunteers and slaves. The first object of his attack was the town of Dihistān, which was peopled by Turks.[144] Having reduced it by a close blockade, he proceeded to Jurjān, where the inhabitants, as was their wont, bought peace at the price of 300,000 direms. Yezīd then passed in a south-westerly direction into Tabaristān. Its king took refuge in a mountain inaccessible to the Mohammedan troops, and organised resistance to the invader from this safe retreat. He obtained reinforcements from Gīlān and Daylam, and called on the Marzabān of Jurjān to break the treaty entered into with Yezīd, and massacre the Arabs in Jurjān. Thus was Yezīd surrounded by active foes, and his retreat cut off. The only course open to him was to conclude peace with the king of Tabaristān, and gather his forces for the punishment of the faithless people of Jurjān. This he did, swearing that he would not stay his sword until he had shed blood enough to turn a mill, and had eaten bread made with flour therefrom. The Marzabān, on learning the approach of the Musulmans, shut himself up in a stronghold which crowned a mountain top, and was accessible by one road only. Here he held out for seven months against Yezīd; but the latter enticed the garrison from their retreat by a ruse, and made prisoners of them all. Their punishment enabled the ruthless conqueror to fulfil his pledge.

Yezīd now returned to Merv, and sent a highly coloured report of his successes to his master the Caliph. His career, however, was not destined to be a long one, for in the following year, A.H. 99 (717), Sulaymān died, and was succeeded by `Omar ibn `Abd ul-`Azīz. Yezīd received at the hands of the new Caliph treatment very similar to that meted out to Kutayba by Sulaymān. He was summoned to appear at Basra, and after a brief interview with the sovereign he was thrown into prison. The government of Khorāsān was at the same time transferred to Jarrāh, son of `Abdullah. The ostensible reason alleged for Yezīd’s disgrace was his retention of the immense booty of which, in his report to the preceding Caliph, he had boasted as the fruit of the Jurjān campaign. `Omar’s real motive was more creditable to him. Yezīd had been accused by Mohammedan converts from Khorāsān of harshness and caprice, and `Omar stood alone among the Eastern Caliphs in pursuing a policy of moderation in propagating his creed.[145] This wise monarch died in A.H. 101 (719), and was succeeded by Yezīd ibn `Abd el-Melik. On his accession Yezīd ibn Muhallab effected his escape from prison, raised the flag of revolt against the new Caliph, one of his bitterest enemies, and made himself master of Basra. The movement spread over most of the Eastern provinces, and was not crushed until the end of the following year, A.H. 102 (720), when Maslama, who held the viceroyalty of the two `Irāks,[146] defeated and slew Yezīd in a fierce battle fought near Kūfa on the banks of the Euphrates. In the same year Maslama appointed a new governor of Khorāsān in the person of Sa`īd ibn `Abd ul-`Azīz. This step was followed by a general rising of the inhabitants of Khojend and Farghāna. The tributary Soghdians, being thus threatened on their eastern frontier, asked help from Merv, but the new governor, who was of a weak and vacillating disposition, delayed so long in sending reinforcements that the Soghdians made overtures to the Turks. When at length the Arabs arrived they were joined by the former; but disputes arose, which ended in the slaughter of the Soghdians to the number of 3000. Throughout the reign of Yezīd II. the Moslem Far East was plunged in continual warfare, with no very marked results; for the army of `Irāk was fully occupied with operations against the Khazar and Kipchāk tribes occupying Armenia, which were, for the most part, attended by ill-success. In A.H. 102 (720) Yezīd II. dismissed Maslama from his post, on the ground that his leniency had led to a serious falling off in the revenues from `Irāk and Khorāsān. `Omar ibn Hobayra replaced him. In the following year Sa`īd, “the Effeminate,”[147] while fighting beneath the walls of Samarkand, received the news of his dismissal. He was superseded in the governorship by a namesake, Sa`īd ibn `Amr el-Harashī.[148] El-Harashī at once set out for Farghāna by way of Bokhārā and Samarkand,[149] and on reaching Farghāna besieged the king in one of his fortresses. The king at last came to terms and paid an indemnity of 100,000 direms, besides surrendering many slaves. During the following night, while most of the Musulmans were asleep, the treacherous chief, at the head of 10,000 men, fell upon them and slew a great number. The main body, however, on receiving the alarm, hastily mounted and charged the infidels fiercely, putting them to rout and killing the king with 2000 of his followers. In the same year, A.H. 104 (722), El-Harashī was in his turn deposed,[150] and Muslim ibn Sa`īd, the Kilābite, put into his place as generalissimo of the Eastern army.

The Mohammedans meanwhile had their hands full in reducing disorders in Transcaspia, and their ill-success accounts for the perpetual changes made in the leaders of their troops. The Turks, indeed, were yearly growing in power and insolence. Muslim ibn Sa`īd suffered a series of defeats at their hands which culminated in an utter rout of the Mohammedan army, the survivors escaping with difficulty across the river of Balkh. In A.H. 105 (723) Yezīd II. died, and was succeeded by his brother Hishām, who at once appointed Khalid ibn `Abdullah al-Kasrī governor of the two `Irāks, while he despatched Khālid’s brother Asad with a powerful army to bring the Turks into subjection. He failed as miserably as his predecessor; for thrice in successive years he crossed the Balkh River and marched into Soghdiana, as often to retreat with severe losses. Enraged by his continued misfortunes, he called together his generals and roundly accused them of being the cause. He then had them stripped, bastinadoed, and shaved, and sent them in chains to his brother Khālid.[151] This outrageous behaviour disgusted the Caliph, who dismissed Asad and gave the command of the Eastern army to Ashras ibn `Abdullah.[152] The new general was held in high esteem by his followers, and received the title of “the Perfect.” He made great efforts to induce the Christians of Central Asia to embrace Islām, by promising them exemption from the capitation tax. He appears, however, not to have abided by his word, but to have reimposed the tax, with the result that many of the recent converts rose in rebellion and attached themselves to the Khākān. But Ashras, too, met with a crushing defeat at the hands of the Turks, and was consequently recalled. In the person of his successor, Junayd ibn `Abd er-Rahmān,[153] we find a man more fit for supreme command than those who had preceded him. In his first engagement with the Turks he defeated the Khākān with a force of 170,000 men, of whom the Musulmans killed about 3000.[154] Junayd then retired across the Balkh River to Merv, where he wintered.

In the following spring he crossed the Oxus with his whole force, and on gaining the right bank divided it into three corps. The first, consisting of 10,000 men, he sent under Saura ibn el-Hurr to occupy Samarkand. The second division was ordered to Tokhāristān under Omāra ibn Horaym, who quickly reduced the whole province; while Junayd himself took command of the remainder.

The accounts of the fighting that ensued, as given by the two versions of Tabari, offer great discrepancies. The Arabic original, which in this case seems the most trustworthy source, points to an almost total defeat of the Mohammedan forces in the first instance, while the Persian translation, in abridging this account, omits many of the details of disaster. According to the Arabic, Junayd was marching on Tokhāristān when news reached him that Saura was hard pressed in Samarkand by the Khākān of the Turks, whereupon Junayd resolved to march to his relief. But his forces were so scattered that he was obliged to set out with the small contingent under his personal command. When about half-way he was surrounded by the Turkish hordes, and a fearful struggle ensued in which hundreds of his brave Arabs were slain. At last he withdrew to a defile,[155] threw up entrenchments, and called a council of war. His officers pointed out to him that either he or Saura must perish. He therefore sent word to Saura[156] to march out of Samarkand, which with much reluctance he did at the head of 12,000 men. Saura set out in the direction of Junayd’s camp, and had nearly reached it when he was suddenly attacked by the Turks. So great was the slaughter that of the 12,000 we are told only three finally escaped,[157] Saura himself perishing with his army. Having created this diversion, Junayd thought fit to sally from his retreat, but only to find himself again outnumbered by the Khākān’s forces. He now promised freedom to the slaves of his camp if they would fight for him,[158] and by the valour of these impromptu auxiliaries he was able to push his way through to Samarkand. When the Caliph Hishām received Junayd’s report[159] of what had passed he sent him larger reinforcements of men from Basra and Kūfa, numbering in all some 25,000. When Junayd had been four months in Soghdiana, tidings were brought to him that the Khākān was threatening Bokhārā; he thereupon set out from Samarkand, leaving there a garrison in charge of Nasr ibn Sayyār. In the course of two years Junayd appears to have restored order in Transoxiana, and with the help of his new reinforcements to have driven out the Turks. The `Abbāsid faction, which a little later brought about the downfall of the Umayyad dynasty, in the year 113 began to send emissaries into Khorāsān; Tabari tells us that Junayd seized one of these men and put him to death. But, apart from this fact, Tabari has scarcely anything to relate of Junayd between the years 113 and 116.

In A.H. 116 (734) Junayd, in spite of his great services, was dismissed from his post by the Caliph for having married the daughter of Yezīd ibn Muhallab, and `Āsim ibn `Abdullah was appointed in his stead. He died of dropsy before his successor reached Merv. By his cruelty and injustice to all who had held office under Junayd, `Āsim incurred the bitter hatred of his people.

A certain Hārith ibn Surayj rose against him, took possession of many towns in Khorāsān, such as Merv er-Rūd, Balkh, and Bab-el-Abwāb, and gathered a crowd of soldiers of fortune to his banner by distributing amongst them the tribute levied from his acquisitions. `Āsim, failing to crush this revolt, was dismissed by the Caliph, and Asad el-Kasrī was reinstated in the governorship of Khorāsān.[160] Asad at once advanced against Hārith at the head of a large army, drove him to Turkestān, where he entered into league with the Khākān, who assigned him and his followers the town of Fārāb as a residence.

In A.H. 118 (736) Balkh became temporarily the Mohammedan capital of Central Asia. In the same year Asad planned a campaign into Khottal, but the Khākān took measures to forestall him. Asad’s advance column was taken completely by surprise, and his camp and harem were captured. A parley ensued without result, after which he returned to Balkh, while the Khākān again withdrew to Tokhāristān. But in the following spring Asad attacked and completely routed the Khākān and rescued all the Moslem provinces.[161] The Turk fled back to Tokhāristān, and shortly afterwards, while on his way to attack Samarkand, he was waylaid and killed by a rebellious follower.

CHAPTER X
Nasr ibn Sayyār and Abū Muslim

In A.H. 120 (737)[162] Asad died, and was succeeded by Nasr ibn Sayyār, one of the ablest rulers and generals ever sent to the East in Mohammedan times. He was as generous as he was strong, and seems to have won the affection of those under him. During the nine years of his governorship his position was by no means an easy one, for he had to contend with the growing influence of the `Abbāsid faction,[163] and to support, with a loyalty worthy of a better cause, the last degenerate representatives of the house of Umayya. His first care on assuming the supreme command was to subjugate the Khākān of the Turks, whose name was Kūrsūl, against whom he led three successive expeditions. The first two seem to have been without result, but in the last, which was directed against Shāsh, the Khākān fell into his hands and was put to death.[164]

In the same year Nasr renewed his attempt to subject Shāsh to the Moslem yoke. The campaign was a bloodless one. He received the submission of Ushrūsana, and concluded an advantageous peace with the king of Shāsh.[165] He thereupon appointed a Mohammedan governor of Farghāna.

In the year A.H. 123 (740) this judicious ruler established order throughout Transoxiana, Khorāsān, and Farghāna.[166] But he had other difficulties to meet which were not of his own making. The star of the Umayyads was in the descendent, and the `Abbāsid party were daily adding to the number of their adherents. And, apart from dynastic struggles, the whole of Islām was rent with the dissensions of the rival sects of the Khārijites and the Shi`ites. The sectarian zeal of the latter, which to this day remains the cause of bitter discord in the realm of Islām, began now to make itself felt in Persia and in Central Asia.

In A.H. 125 (742) Hishām, the last Umayyad Caliph of any distinction, died. The dynasty lasted seven years longer, and in that short period no less than four Caliphs[167] attempted to restore the fading glory of their house. While such disorders reigned at headquarters there was small hope of quelling sedition in the outlying provinces. The `Abbāsid pretender, Ibrāhīm, thanks to the efforts of his father’s[168] emissaries, had now a powerful and rapidly increasing faction in Merv. But Nasr still held command in Khorāsān, and his personal influence was still great enough to avert open rebellion. It failed; and the fierce tribal jealousy which always smouldered in Arab breasts burst into civil war. The two rival factions were the Yemenites and the Modharites. Nasr ibn Sayyār belonged to the tribe of Modhar, and bestowed the highest offices on his clansmen. In fact, all the towns of Khorāsān were governed by members of one or the other of the three principal branches of the tribe, Asad, Temīm, or Kināna. Now, there was a man of the tribe of Azd called, after his birthplace, Juday` El-Kirmānī, who, before the promotion of Nasr, had held a higher position, and retained some authority among his own people. To him came the Beni Rabī`a with complaints of the partiality of Nasr. He promised his intercession with the governor. On attempting remonstrance he raised Nasr’s ire, and was cast into prison, whence escaping[169] he rejoined his own people. All efforts at reconciliation proving fruitless, the rival parties had recourse to armed strength. In A.H. 127 (744) Hārith ibn Surayj, who was permitted to return to Khorāsān from his captivity in Fārāb, set up his standard at Merv, and, gathering many followers around it, openly revolted against Nasr. In the following year Nasr called upon him to swear allegiance to the Caliph Merwān, but Hārith refused, and boasted that he was “the man with the black flag”[170] who was to overthrow the Umayyad dynasty. Hostilities thereupon commenced between Nasr and Hārith, in which the latter was worsted. He fled to the camp of El-Kirmānī, whom Nasr had meanwhile been vainly endeavouring to conciliate.

Their combined forces now marched against Nasr, whom they defeated in a pitched battle. Nasr fled to Nīshāpūr, while the allies occupied Merv, where, however, dissensions arose between them which cost Hārith his life, A.H. 128 (745).[171]

It was in the midst of these disorders that Abū Muslim, the virtual founder of the `Abbasid dynasty, raised the black banner in Khorāsān. The advent of the `Abbāsids to the Caliphate was an event of such moment for the future of Central Asia that it is necessary in this place to give a brief account of the rise of the new dynasty. The fall of the Umayyads was the death-knell of unity in Islām. In spite of numberless rebellions in all parts of their conquered provinces the Umayyads had never recognised independent rulers, but with the establishment of the house of `Abbās there set in a general dismemberment of the empire of the Caliphs. The origin of the dispute between the Hāshimites (or `Abbāsids) and the Umayyads dates back to a period anterior to the birth of Mohammed. It was a rivalry between the two chief stocks of the house of Koraysh.[172] We have seen above that, although Mohammed, on first declaring his mission, met with opposition from his own tribe, after the conquest of Mekka they temporarily reconciled the conflicting interests. So after the Prophet’s death discussions again arose between `Alī and the Caliph Mo`āwiya. The Khārijites, who demanded a purely theocratic rule, were also continually in a ferment. After the tragic death of Husayn, the son of `Alī, at Kerbelā, a party arose devoted to the house of `Alī, and claiming the succession of his family to the Caliphate, who called themselves the Shī`a (or faction), and who are known to Europeans as the Shi`ites.

In the reign of Hishām (A.H. 105), Mohammed, the great-grandson of the Prophet’s uncle, `Abbās, who was living in retreat in the south of Palestine, began to advance his claims to the Caliphate. Emissaries and secret deputations were sent to all the principal towns of Persia, `Irāk, and Khorāsān, and, in spite of the severe measures taken to check the movement, the cause of the Hāshimites began rapidly to spread. The Shi`ites and the Khārijites were induced to make common cause with the Hāshimites, on the plea that the only object of the movement was to secure the Caliphate for a member of the Prophet’s own family.

In the year A.H. 125 (742) Mohammed visited Mekka, and in the same year Abū Muslim was taken there on a pilgrimage by a party of the Hāshimite faction. This Abū Muslim, whose real name was `Abd er-Rahmān ibn Muslim, was a native of Khorāsān, and had been a saddler in the service of a distinguished Arabian family.[173] While residing at Mekka he attracted the attention of the `Abbāsid claimant, who at once singled him out as a youth of great promise,[174] and prophesied that Abū Muslim would be greatly instrumental in bringing the `Abbāsids to power. He spent the two following years in journeys between Khorāsān and Homayma, in order to promote the cause and report its progress. By means of an active propaganda the Hāshimites had been most successful in winning over large numbers of adherents, and Abū Muslim was only watching for a suitable moment to raise the flag of revolt. In A.H. 129 (746), on the death of Hārith ibn Surayj, Nasr ibn Sayyār sent a small force from Nīshāpūr against El-Kirmānī, which was repelled, and Nasr now moved on to Merv with all the troops he could command. Abū Muslim, deeming the moment favourable for his designs, unfurled the black standard[175] of the `Abbāsids. Ere a month had elapsed contingents began to pour in from all quarters. Nasr, finding himself unable to check the movement, implored reinforcements from Merwān, the governor of `Irāk, and pointed out that the loss of Khorāsān would be fatal to the house of Umayya.

But no help arrived, and Abū Muslim, conscious of his foe’s weakness, invited El-Kirmānī to join with him against Nasr; the latter, foreseeing this contingency, caused El-Kirmānī to be killed by one of his soldiers, and sent his head to the Caliph. The Yemenites and the two sons of El-Kirmānī attached themselves to Abū Muslim. In despair Nasr sent to Merwān a despatch in verse,[176] in which he pointed out the perils surrounding his situation, and asked whether the house of Umayya was asleep or awake.

In the year A.H. 130 (747) Abū Muslim made his entry into Merv, and ordered public prayers to be offered for the `Abbāsid claimant as Caliph. Nasr, who had abandoned the struggle for power and was living in retirement at Merv, withdrew on his approach to Nīshāpūr by way of Sarakhs.[177] In his flight he was joined by such of his troops as remained faithful, but near Nīshāpūr he was overtaken and defeated by Kahtaba ibn Shebīb, who had been despatched by Abū Muslim in pursuit. Nasr now fled farther westward, and on reaching Jurjān was joined by the Syrian troops from `Irāk; but they came too late. Kahtaba again overtook the fugitive and inflicted a final defeat. Nasr fled towards Hamadān, but he died worn out by years and toil at Sāva at the age of eighty-five. With this faithful viceroy perished the last hopes of the Umayyads, A.H. 131 (748).

CHAPTER XI
Khorāsān under the First `Abbāsids

The Umayyad Caliph at last recognised the gravity of the situation, and sent all the forces he could muster to oppose Kahtaba. But the Hāshimite troops carried all before them. They defeated a large Syrian army near Isfahān, and captured the important stronghold of Nahāvend, A.H. 132 (749). Then Kahtaba started for Kūfa, making a slight detour to avoid Ibn Hobayra, who was encamped at Jalūlā. On reaching the Euphrates, Ibn Hobayra came up with him, and a battle ensued at nightfall near Kerbelā. Kahtaba perished,[178] but his son Hasan continuing the fray defeated Ibn Hobayra, and drove him back on Wāsit. Meanwhile the Yemenites revolted in Kūfa, and on the arrival of the victorious Hāshimite forces[179] delivered up the town to them. On the entry of Hasan ibn Kahtaba into Kūfa the head of the `Abbāsid house, Abū-l-`Abbās, emerged from his hiding-place, and the town for the time became the seat of the `Abbāsids. Abū Sālama was provisionally recognised as the Vezīr of the house of Mohammed. Meanwhile the fate of the Umayyads had been decided by the battle of the Zāb in Mesopotamia, A.H. 132 (750), where Merwān himself, surrounded by his greatest generals, encountered the Hāshimites under `Abdullah, Abū-l-`Abbās’s uncle. Merwān suffered a crushing defeat, and fled, hotly pursued, to Egypt, where he was finally captured and slain.

At the beginning of this year Abū-l-`Abbās, called Es-Saffāh, or the “Shedder of Blood,” was proclaimed Caliph in the great mosque of Kūfa. The new Caliph’s first measure was to sweep the entire Umayyad race from the face of the earth. The traditions which have come down to us of his butcheries pass all belief.[180] Syria was soon reduced, and Ibn Hobayra surrendered his last retreat, Wāsit. But troubles continued throughout his reign. Abū Muslim’s attempts to put all the Umayyad faction to the sword led to a serious rising in Khorāsān. The partisans of the fallen dynasty, in Bokhārā, Soghdiana, and Farghāna, aided by the emperor of China, took the field in force, but were soon dispersed with great slaughter by Ziyād, governor of Samarkand. “It is plain,” says Vambéry,[181] “from the historical sources before us that the original Iranian population of the land, namely, the Tājiks, fought under the banner of Nasr, and long remained true to the cause of the Ommayades.”

“The resistance which Nasr ibn Sayyār offered not only to the superior force, but also to the allurements of Ebu Muslim, deserves our respect.”

“On the other hand, the adroitness of Ebu Muslim deserves our admiration, who in an astonishingly short space of time gained over to his side all the Turks of Transoxiana, and attached them to himself to such a degree that the myths which even now live in the mouths of the Ozbegs and Turcomans compare him to the Caliph Alī for valour and wondrous works. At all events the influential individuality of Ebu Muslim first made the warlike supremacy of the Turks, although only mediately, felt in Western Asia.”

About the year A.H. 134 (751) the new Caliph’s brother paid an official visit to Merv, in order to report on the state of the Eastern provinces. So much alarmed was he at the influence and independence of Abū Muslim that on his return to Kufa he recommended his brother to rid himself of the man to whom he owed his throne. In the following year Ziyād, the governor of Samarkand, probably at the instigation of the Caliph, rose against Abū Muslim; but the movement was quickly crushed, and Ziyād was deposed and put to death.

In the following year, A.H. 136 (753), while Abū Muslim and Abū Ja`far were returning from a pilgrimage to Mekka, the Caliph es-Saffāh died in Anbār. Abū Ja`far, who is well known in history as El-Mansūr, had been designated by his brother to succeed him,[182] but he had a rival in the person of his uncle `Abdullah, who was at the head of a considerable army, including a contingent of 17,000 men of Khorāsān. Abū Muslim, compelled to choose between the pretenders, declared for Abū Ja`far, whereupon `Abdullah caused a massacre of the whole of his Khorāsān contingent,[183] in the knowledge that they would refuse to draw the sword against the governor of their province. But the precaution was of no avail, for shortly afterwards his Syrian army was utterly defeated near Nisibis by a Persian force under Abū Muslim, and `Abdullah was compelled to abandon his claim. Hardly was this danger averted when the Caliph el-Mansūr again allowed his jealousy of Abū Muslim to get the better of him. Abū Muslim was warned of his ill-will, so resolved an immediate return to Khorāsān. In order to prevent this the Caliph appointed him to the governorship of Syria and Egypt, and invited him to an audience in Madā´in. The correspondence[184] which followed between the Caliph and his too powerful lieutenant gives us a graphic picture of the times, and also possesses some historical importance. Abū Muslim was too wary to accept the Caliph’s invitation. “A certain king of the Sāsānides,” he replied, “once said: ‘There is no more dangerous time for a Vezīr than when complete tranquillity reigns in the kingdom.’ ... I therefore deem it expedient to avoid the proximity of the Commander of the Faithful, without, however, ceasing on this account to be his faithful subject. Should the Commander of the Faithful allow me to do so I will be the most humble of his servants, but if he gives vent to his passions I shall be compelled for my own safety to recall my allegiance.”

To this the Caliph replied: “I have grasped the meaning of thy letter; but thy position is different from that of the bad Vezīrs of the Sāsānide kings, ... a humble and faithful servant like thyself has nothing to fear during a state of peace. Although the conditions hinted at towards the close of thy letter do not bespeak an entire submission, thou wilt doubtless return with the bearer of this letter. I pray God that He may give thee strength to withstand the enticements of Satan, who hopes to frustrate thy good intentions, and opens for thee the gate which leads to destruction.”

Abū Muslim rejoined in the following remarkable letter: “I had a guide closely connected with the house of the Prophet whose business it was to instruct me in the teachings and duties prescribed by God. From him I had hoped to learn the sciences, but he led me into ignorance and error by means of the Koran itself, which, from love of worldly things, he misinterpreted. He ordered me, in God’s name, to draw the sword, to banish feelings of pity from my heart, to accept no excuses from my enemies, and to pardon no offence. I did everything to pave his way to dominion. Nothing now remains for me but to entreat God to pardon me for the sins I have committed.” Having despatched this letter, Abū Muslim set out for Khorāsān, but in the meanwhile El-Mansūr wrote privately to Abū Dā´ūd Khālid, whom Abū Muslim had left as his lieutenant in Khorāsān, appointing him to the governorship. He further pointed out that the army of Khorāsān had obeyed Abū Muslim because he had been fighting for the `Abbāsids; that he was now in open revolt, and ought to be put to death at the first opportunity. Abū Dā´ūd communicated this letter to the army and chiefs of Khorāsān, who at once recognised him as governor. He then sent news of this momentous occurrence to Abū Muslim, who, seeing that he could no longer count on the attachment of the Khorāsānīs, and deceived by the false assurances of his former friends, consented to wait upon the Caliph at Madā´in. On arriving there he was basely murdered at his master’s instigation by five hired assassins, A.H. 137 (754).

Abū Muslim was barely thirty-five years of age when he met his fall. It was certainly deserved, for, according to computations of Arabian historians, he was responsible for the slaughter of no less than 600,000 human beings. But though the monster richly merited punishment, his master, on whom he had bestowed the Empire of the East, should have been the last to inflict it; and the treachery with which Abū Muslim’s fate was compassed is an additional stain on El-Mansūr’s memory.

CHAPTER XII
The Caliphates of El-Mansūr, El-Hādi, and Hārūn er-Rashīd

El-Mansur’s troubles did not end with the defeat of `Abdullah and the murder of Abū Muslim. The rebellious Mesopotamians, under their leader Mulabbab esh-Shaybāni, more than once repulsed the troops sent against them by the Caliph, and not till A.H. 138 (755) was order restored by Khāzim ibn Khuzayma.[185] In the meantime a “Magian,” or Zoroastrian of Nīshāpūr, named Sinbad,[186] disgusted at the murder of his patron Abū Muslim, rose in rebellion to avenge the blood of the fallen general.[187] He soon found himself at the head of a large following,[188] and gained possession of Nīshāpūr, Kūmis, and Ray. In the town last mentioned the treasure which had been left there by Abū Muslim fell into his hands. Against him El-Mansūr despatched Jahwar[189] ibn Marrār el-`Ijlī, at the head of 10,000 men, who encountered and put to flight the rebels between Hamadān and Ray. Sinbad escaped from the field of battle, but was overtaken and killed between Tabaristān and Ray, his revolt having lasted just seventy days.[190]

In A.H. 138 (755) Jahwar was deprived of his command for having failed to deliver over to the Caliph the treasure of Abū Muslim which had fallen into his hands. He now in turn took up arms against the Caliph, who sent a force against him under Mohammad ibn el-Ash`ath. Jahwar suffered a crushing defeat and fled to Āzerbāyjān, whither he was pursued and slain.

Although El-Mansūr had now, A.H. 139 (756), secured comparative tranquillity and recognition of his sovereign rights in most of his dominions, the distant province of Khorāsān, yearly rising in importance, was still under the heel of the rival faction of the Hāshimites and the Shi`ites, quite apart from minor sectarian movements which rendered the attempt to maintain order there almost hopeless.

In the year A.H. 140 (757) the Shi`ites broke out into open revolt, in the midst of which the then governor, Abū Dā´ūd Khalid ibn Ibrāhim, died.[191] His successor, `Abd el-Jabbār, was powerless to assert his authority, and, on learning that he was about to be dismissed from his office, turned against El-Mansūr. Khāzim ibn Khuzayma, who had already distinguished himself in Mesopotamia, accompanied by the Caliph’s son and successor El-Mahdi, at once marched against `Abd el-Jabbār and his following, A.H. 141 (758). `Abd el-Jabbār was, however, captured by his own people and sent, mounted backwards on an ass, to the Caliph, who, after extorting from him by torture all his treasure, put him to death. The governorship of Khorāsān was now given to El-Mahdi,[192] the Caliph’s own son and successor—an appointment which seems to indicate the growing importance of the far Eastern provinces.

In the year A.H. 141 (758) a strange sect of Persian origin styled Rāvandīs caused no little trouble to the Caliph, and even placed him in imminent personal danger.[193] The old chronicles have little to tell us of Khorāsān between the years A.H. 141 and 150, although during this period they have many grave events to record in other parts of the Caliph’s dominion,—such as the rising of Mohammad and Ibrāhīm, descendants of the martyred Hasan (A.H. 145), and the foundation of Baghdād, A.H. 145 (762). We also hear of frequent engagements in Armenia between the Caliph’s troops on the one hand and the Khazars and Turks on the other. These matters, however, do not directly concern our narrative.[194] We propose, therefore, to chronicle the years A.H. 150 to 180 briefly, recording only such facts as are connected with the history of Central Asia proper, and mentioning the names of those who held the governorship of Khorāsān during this period.[195]

RELIGIOUS MENDICANT—BOKHĀRĀ

In A.H. 150 (767) a serious rising took place in Khorāsān, under the leadership of a Persian named Ustādsīs,[196] who, placing himself at the head of 300,000 men of Herāt, Bādghīs, Sistān, and other provinces, put to flight a large force of Khorāsānīs and men of Merv er-Rūd. On hearing of this, El-Mansūr immediately sent Khāzim ibn Khuzayma, who had been so successful in quelling the revolt in Mesopotamia, to help El-Mahdi, the governor of Khorāsān,[197] to meet this new danger. El-Mahdi gave over the supreme command of his troops to Khāzim, who led a force of 20,000 men to meet the rebel Ustādsīs. On approaching the enemy, Khāzim threw up a zariba and prepared for battle, whereupon Ustādsīs advanced to the attack. But while a portion of his army was forcing the entrenchments Khazim created a diversion by causing a body of his men to sally forth from an opening on the opposite side. This party fell on the rear of the rebel army and put them completely to rout, killing 70,000 and taking 14,000 prisoners. Khazim fled to the hills, but was at length obliged to surrender.

A.H. 151 (768). El-Mahdi returned to Baghdād, and took up his residence in the new town of Rusāfa, which had been built for the Khorāsānīs, who were unable to dwell in peace with the haughty Arabs of the capital.

A.H. 152 (769). Humayd ibn Kahtaba was appointed governor of Khorāsān, and proclaimed a Holy War against Kābul.

A.H. 158 (774). El-Mansūr died, and was succeeded by his son El-Mahdi.

A.H. 159 (775). Humayd was succeeded in the governorship of Khorāsān by Abu `Aun. A rising took place in Khorāsān in connection with the appointment of the heir-presumptive (vali-`ahd).

A.H. 160 (776). Another rising occurred in Khorāsān under the leadership of Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm, called El-Barm, which was quelled by Yezīd ibn Mazyad. Yūsuf was sent captive to El-Mahdi, who, after subjecting him to the cruellest torture, crucified him.

Abu `Aun having provoked the Caliph’s wrath was dismissed from his office, and succeeded by Mu`āz ibn Muslim.

A.H. 161 (777). The revolt of Mokanna`, “the Veiled Prophet of Khorāsān,” originated in a village near Merv. He taught the transmigration of souls, and gave out that the Deity had lately been incarnate in the person of Abū Muslim, and had now passed into his own. He secured a great following from among the people of Khorāsān and Transoxiana, who, from the colour of their clothes, took the name of Sefīd-Jāmegān, or the “White-robed.”

A.H. 163 (779). Mokanna` was besieged by Sayyid el-Harashī in his fortress in Kesh, and on finding his position hopeless poisoned himself. His head was sent to El-Mahdi in Aleppo.[198]

Mu`āz was supplanted by Musayyah ibn Zobayr in the governorship.

A.H. 166 (782). A general rising took place against Musayyah, who was superseded by El-Fadhl ibn Sulaymān Tūsī in the governorships of Khorāsān and Sīstān.

A.H. 167 (783). Death of El-Mahdi. Succession of El-Hādi.

A.H. 170 (786). Death of El-Hādi. Succession of Hārūn er-Rashīd.

A.H. 171 (787). Ja`far el-Ash`ath, governor of Khorāsān.

A.H. 172 (788). El-`Abbās el-Ash`ath followed his father as governor, and was, A.H. 175 (791), succeeded by his uncle El-Ghatrīf ibn `Atā.

A.H. 176 (792). Shi`ite revolt in Daylam. Hamza el-Khuzā`ī, governor of Khorāsān.

A.H. 178 (794). El-Fadhl ibn Yahya was appointed governor of Khorāsān.

A.H. 178 (794). He built mosques and post-stations in Khorāsān, conducted a “Holy War” in Transoxiana, and was unsuccessfully attacked by the king of Oshrūsana Khārakhara.[199]

A.H. 179 (795). Mansūr el-Himyari was governor of Khorasan.

A.H. 180 (796). Ja`far ibn Yahya was governor of Khorāsān and Sīstān.

A.H. 182 (798). The famous Caliph Hārūn er-Rashīd appointed his infant son Ma´mūn ruler over all the countries from Hamadān to the farthest East, under the guardianship of Ja`far ibn Yahya.

The year A.H. 187 (802) was memorable in Mohammedan annals for the sudden disgrace and fall of the all-powerful favourites of the Caliph, the Barmecides,[200] at that time represented by the brothers Fadhl and Ja`far and their aged father Yahya. Their story has been told too often to bear repetition in this place, although, as we have seen, the Barmecides had from their origin been closely connected with Khorāsān.

On the fall of the Barmecides, A.H. 187 (802), `Alī ibn `Isā[201] was appointed to the governorship of Khorāsān, but the complaints against his misgovernment and extortion grew so loud that in A.H. 189 (804) Hārūn resolved to undertake a journey of inspection into the province. He accordingly set out at the head of 50,000 men,[202] leaving the government in the hands of his heir-apparent Amīn. On reaching Ray, however, he found `Alī ibn `Isā awaiting his arrival with rich presents for himself and his generals, and, soothed by these gifts and by the flattery of the cruel governor, Hārūn took him into favour and sent him back to Khorāsān, while he himself returned to his capital, A.H. 190 (806).

In the following year a certain Rāfi` ibn Layth, a grandson of the Umayyad governor, Nasr ibn Sayyār, for reasons of private vengeance, killed the governor of Samarkand and became master of that town. With the aid of the discontented citizens and some Turkish tribes he repulsed the army sent against him by `Alī ibn `Isā, A.H. 191 (807). Hārūn, on hearing of this revolt, at once despatched his trusted general Harthama to re-establish order; but the seditionary movement under Rāfi` continued to grow with such rapidity that the Caliph thought fit to take the field against him in person.[203] So, again leaving Baghdad in the hands of his son Amīn, he set out for Khorāsān with a large army. On reaching Kirmānshāh, he sent forward Ma´mūn, accompanied by Fadhl ibn Sahl as his vezīr, with orders to establish himself in Merv and to send Harthama to attack Rāfi`, who had established his camp in Bokhārā and was now practically master of Transoxiana. Meanwhile the Caliph, who was suffering from a severe malady,[204] was advancing by slower stages towards Khorāsān with the main body of his army. On reaching Tūs the symptoms became more acute, and on the 3rd of Jumāda II. 193 (24th March 809), the great Caliph succumbed at the early age of forty-five, and was buried in that town.

CHAPTER XIII
Decline of the Caliphs’ Authority in Khorāsān. The Tāhirides

On the death of Hārūn er-Rashīd, A.H. 193 (809), a serious dispute arose between his two sons, Amīn and Ma´mūn. The former, probably on the advice of his vezīr, Fadhl ibn Rabī`a,[205] ordered the army, which was at Tūs, to return to Baghdād. This act was not only unfriendly towards his brother, but was also in direct contravention of his father’s will. Ma´mūn, in retaliation, put a stop to all postal communication between Baghdād and the East, and assumed the title of Caliph over a kingdom which extended from Hamadān to Tibet, and from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. With the help of his able vezīr, Fadhl ibn Sahl,[206] he succeeded in establishing order throughout his realms. Meanwhile Harthama took Samarkand after a protracted siege; whereupon Rāfi` threw himself on Ma´mūn’s mercy and was pardoned, and thus peace was restored throughout Khorāsān. But the elements of civil disorder still held sway. While Amīn, on the one hand, struck Ma´mūn from the succession, the latter ordered the omission of his brother’s name from the public prayers. Amīn, angered at his rival’s attitude, resolved on reducing him by force of arms. To this end he despatched `Alī ibn `Isā against him at the head of 50,000 men. On reaching Ray, A.H. 195 (810), he encountered Tāhir, who had been posted there by Ma´mūn to watch the frontier. In the battle that ensued `Alī was slain in single combat by Tāhir, and his army was put to flight. Tāhir, in obedience to Ma´mūn’s orders, now marched on Baghdād, and with reinforcements brought by Harthama defeated all the armies sent to stop his progress. Having secured the submission of Arabia and Mesopotamia, he laid siege to Baghdād, and took the city by storm in A.H. 198 (813), after twelve months’ investment. Amīn made a vain attempt to escape, and was finally slain by a party of Persian soldiers.

Ma´mūn, who was now the undisputed master of the Caliphate, made Merv his capital instead of removing to Baghdād. He took this fatal step, which gave offence to the people of the West generally, on the advice of Fadhl ibn Sahl; for Ma´mūn, like his brother, was overruled by a selfish and masterful vezīr. After the capture of Baghdād, Tāhir placed himself at the head of affairs in that town; but the people soon rose against him to avenge the death of Amīn. The revolt was quelled by the distribution of largesses, and all `Irāk acknowledged Tāhir’s sway.[207] It is impossible to enumerate the disorders which distracted Baghdād and the West, and the countless difficulties which Ma´mūn had to face during the next few years. Suffice it to say that, in spite of repeated risings and conspiracies against the Caliph’s authority, Ma´mūn continued to be guided by the short-sighted counsels of his vezīr, who, as a Persian[208] and a Shī`ite, was hated in the orthodox West. Not till A.H. 202 (817) did the monarch awaken to the dangers of the situation and set out from Merv to Baghdād. On reaching Sarakhs, Fadhl, the real cause of all Ma´mūn’s misfortunes, was murdered in his bath—it appears, at the instigation of his master. In A.H. 204 (817) Ma´mūn entered Baghdād, and Tāhir, who had during the recent troubles fallen into disfavour with the Caliph, was now appointed governor of Baghdād. He did not remain long in this office, for at his own request he was appointed to the viceroyalty of the East, A.H. 205 (818).[209] With him the Caliph sent a confidential eunuch, who had orders to poison Tāhir should he show any signs of insubordination. After a successful rule of two years Tāhir suddenly omitted the Caliph’s name in the weekly prayers, and on the following day he was found dead in his bed, A.H. 207 (822). But so great were the esteem and influence which the viceroy had gained in Khorāsān, that the Caliph did not dare to take the governorship of that province out of the hands of Tāhir’s family. His two sons, Talha and `Abdullah, did not inherit his turbulent character; and whilst `Abdullah was fighting Ma´mūn’s battles in Mesopotamia and Egypt, his brother Talha governed the Eastern provinces (from A.H. 207–213 (822–828)) in the Caliph’s name. His residence was Nīshāpūr, whence he exercised complete authority over Khorāsān, Tabaristān, and Transoxiana.

It is fitting in this place to revert to the rise of a family destined to play an important part in the East under the Tāhirides, and, after succeeding their former masters in the governorship of Khorāsān, to found the first independent Mohammedan dynasty in Central Asia.

While Asad ibn `Abdullah el-Kasrī[210] held the governorship of Khorāsān a certain nobleman of Balkh named Sāmān,[211] who had been driven out of his native town, came to Asad in Merv and begged the governor to help him against his enemies. Asad warmly espoused his cause and succeeded in reinstating him in Balkh. Out of gratitude for this action, Sāmān, who had hitherto been a Zoroastrian,[212] embraced Islām and named his son Asad after his protector. This Asad had four sons, who rendered excellent services to Hārūn er-Rashīd in quelling the revolt of Rāfi` ibn Layth.[213] Ma´mūn, mindful of the obligations under which the sons of Asad had placed his father, ordered the then governor of Khorāsān, Ghassān ibn `Abād,[214] to give to each of them the government of a town. Thus in the year A.H. 202 (817)[215] Nūh, the eldest son, became Amīr of Samarkand; Ahmed, Amīr of Farghāna; Yahya, Amīr of Shāsh (Tashkent) and Oshrūsana; and Ilyās, lord of Herāt.[216] When, in A.H. 205, Ghassān was superseded by Tāhir, these grants to the family of Sāmān were confirmed, and continued in the same hands until the downfall of the Tāhirides and the rise of the Sāmānides to the supreme power in the East.

In A.H. 213 (828) Talha died and was succeeded by his son `Alī, who, however, perished shortly afterwards in a conflict with the Khārijites near Nīshāpūr. Ma´mūn thereupon sent Talha’s brother `Abdullah to Khorāsān to assume the reins of government, which he held until his death in A.H. 230 (844), at the age of forty-eight, after seventeen years of most successful administration. But although the Caliph’s name was scrupulously mentioned in Friday prayers, Khorāsān was now to all intents and purposes independent of Baghdād. The falling away of this essentially Persian province was but the first step towards the final separation of the Arabs and the Persians which was shortly to follow, after two hundred years of involuntary and unnatural association. The Tāhirides continued to rule Khorāsān and the East during a period of fifty-six years, when their last representative, Mohammad,[217] in A.H. 259 (872), was overthrown by the Saffāride Ya`kūb ibn Layth, of whom we must now speak.

CHAPTER XIV
The Saffārides and the Rise of the Sāmānides

During the Caliphate of Mutawakkil[218] the government of the province of Sīstān was usurped by a man named Sālih ibn Nasr, who, under the pretext of putting down a rising of the Khārijites, had gathered round himself a large body of adherents. The then governor of Khorāsān, Tāhir II., hearing of the disorders in Sīstān, took the field in person in order to put an end to the hostilities between the Khārijites and Sālih’s adherents. This he succeeded in doing, but scarcely had he returned to his residence when news reached him that Sālih had again taken the field. Among the lieutenants of the latter was a certain Ya`kūb ibn Layth, who was destined to play an important part in the history of his time, and to establish a powerful though short-lived dynasty. He is one of the most popular heroes of Persian history, and so many anecdotes have clustered round his name that it is difficult to separate truth from romance. His origin was certainly obscure, and he appears to have been the son of a coppersmith,[219] though authorities are divided as to whether he ever plied that trade himself.[220] Many tales are told of his reckless generosity as a boy, and his consequent popularity among his schoolfellows. His Persian biographers tell us, without apology or comment, that on reaching the age of adolescence he became a highway robber; and he was doubtless followed by those whom his masterful bearing had attached to his person during childhood. “The number and character of his followers, and the success of his enterprises, soon gave him fame and wealth, and his generous and humane usage of those whom he plundered added to his renown and popularity. In such a state of society the transition from the condition of a successful robber to that of a chief of reputation was easy and natural. A man who possessed activity and courage, and who was able to command a number of adherents, could not fail of early attaining rank and consequence.”[221] Sālih was only too glad to obtain the services of the bold highwayman, who rose so rapidly to power that the governor’s successor, Dirham ibn Nasr, in A.H. 247 (861), gave him command of his army, which henceforth became the terror of the surrounding countries. Meanwhile the Tāhirides remained inactive in Nīshāpūr, and followed a policy of laissez-faire which wrought their downfall.

Ya`kūb soon set upon a career of extended conquest, and made himself master of Herāt (A.H. 253 (867)), Kirmān, and Shīrāz. In A.H. 257 (871) he sent a message to Muwaffak, the Caliph Mu`tamid’s brother, declaring himself one of the Caliph’s most humble slaves, and proposing to pay him a visit. The Caliph, wishing at any cost to keep this redoubtable warrior at a safe distance, sent him an investiture of the government of Balkh, Tokhāristān, and all the country as far as the Indian frontier. These districts were inhabited by widely different races, and included the Turks of Kābul and their neighbours the Afghans. Ya`kūb now crossed the passes of the Hindu Kush and entered the Kābul valley. For the past hundred years or so it had never entered the mind of any Eastern governor to disturb the independence of the Turkish king of Kābul.[222] But Ya`kūb succeeded where the early Moslem conquerors had failed, for he carried off the king and all his idols, and was the first to establish Islām in a district hitherto under the influence of Buddhism. In A.H. 259 (872) he administered a crushing defeat to the last of the Tāhirides, and thus became master of Khorāsān and the East. He died in A.H. 265 (878), leaving nearly the whole of Persia to his brother `Amr, who for some years enjoyed a prosperous rule and remained obedient to the Caliph at Baghdād. But in A.H. 271 (884), owing to the complaints of the inhabitants of Khorāsān, the Caliph Mu`tamid deprived `Amr of the governorship of that province, which was apparently given to Rāfi` ibn Harthama, and sent an army to attack him. In the first encounter `Amr was defeated, and fled to his native state of Sīstān by way of Shīrāz and Kirmān. At this point we must for a time leave `Amr, and revert to the story of the Sāmānides.

A JEWISH CHILD OF BOKHĀRĀ

It has been stated above that the province of Māvarā-un-Nahr, or Transoxiana, had been held during the supremacy of the Tāhirides by various members of the house of Sāmān. At the time of the overthrow of the Tāhirides by Ya`kūb ibn Layth, Nasr ibn Ahmed was governor of Samarkand. We are told[223] that, after the fall of the Tāhirides, Muwaffak sent a regal mandate to Nasr ibn Ahmed appointing him to the government of all Transoxiana, from the banks of the Oxus to the farthest East.[224] It is not apparent how he became independent of the new masters of Khorāsān;[225] but in the year 261 we find Nasr, with the help of his brother Isma`īl, engaged in the direction of affairs in Transoxiana. Narshakhi tells us that the names of both were mentioned in the public prayers, while that of Ya`kūb ibn Layth was omitted. Nasr appears to have had a natural predilection for the town of Samarkand, and on this account, perhaps, on receiving his appointment from the Caliph, he did not proceed to the then capital, Bokhārā, but sent thither a deputy in the person of his brother Isma`īl, who was then but twenty-seven years of age. Bokhārā was at this period in a state of great disorder owing to the dissensions of political and religious factions, and partly to the rapine caused by organised robber-bands which infested the country. Isma`īl, who shone as a general and an administrator, and possessed the rarer faculty of winning men’s hearts by his justice and clemency, soon established order throughout the country, and succeeded in extirpating the banditti, whose numbers, we are told, even between Rāmtīna and Barkad, amounted to 4000.[226] All would have gone well in Nasr’s dominions had not his jealousy, or proneness to listen to the voice of slander, led him to quarrel with his brother. It is not necessary to recount the various phases of these one-sided disputes. Suffice it to say that while, on the one hand, Isma`īl always remained loyal to his brother, Nasr himself was too prudent to withdraw him abruptly from Bokhārā, where he had won the esteem and affection of the people. But in A.H. 272 (885) he succumbed to the wiles of self-interested advisers and marched against his brother, who fled from Bokhārā and called upon his friend Rāfi` ibn Harthama,[227] the viceroy of Khorāsān, for aid.[228] Nasr soon brought most of the towns of Bokhārā to submission, and forbade their citizens to furnish supplies to Isma`īl and his army, who soon felt the stress of famine. So pitiable, indeed, was their plight by the time that Rāfi` arrived, that the governor of Khorāsān, rather than embark upon so losing a venture, suddenly declared to Nasr that he was not come to make war, but peace, between the brothers. Terms were soon arrived at by which the government of Bokhārā was given to Ishak, while Isma`īl was appointed tax-collector (`āmil-i-kharāj), A.H. 273 (886). These matters being settled, Nasr returned to Samarkand, and Rāfi` to Khorāsān. But in the following year Nasr, dissatisfied with the accounts rendered by Isma`īl, and perhaps suspecting treachery on the part of Isma`īl and Ishak, again prepared to attack Bokhārā. To this end he drew large reinforcements from Farghāna. Isma`īl, determined on this occasion to be better prepared to encounter his brother, raised a powerful contingent in Khwārazm. After suffering a few slight reverses, Isma`īl, at the end of the year A.H. 275 (888), administered a crushing defeat on his brother and took him prisoner. At this crisis, as on many other occasions,[229] if we are to believe the historians, Isma`īl displayed an almost incredible degree of generosity, for he treated his fallen brother with the utmost deference and kindness, and sent him back to Samarkand without suggesting any change in their relative positions. Nasr seems from this date to have ruled peacefully until his death in A.H. 279 (893).

CHAPTER XV
The Sāmānides

On the death of Nasr ibn Ahmed, A.H. 279 (892), Isma`īl became the acknowledged lord of Transoxiana and Khwārazm, with Bokhārā as his capital. His succession was furthermore confirmed by a royal patent from the Caliph Mu`tadhid. The first recorded act of Isma`īl’s reign was the ghazā, or Holy War, which he conducted against the Christian settlement of Tarāz.[230] The undertaking, according to Narshakhi,[231] cost him no little trouble; but finally “the Amīr and many of the Dihkāns embraced Islam,” and opened the gates of Tarāz to Isma`īl, who immediately converted the principal church into a mosque and had prayers in the Caliph’s name. His troops returned to Bokhārā laden with booty.[232] In the meantime `Amr ibn Layth had reorganised his shattered forces,[233] and set out on a fresh career of conquest. In 279 Mu`tadhid, on the death of his brother, succeeded to the Caliphate. `Amr ibn Layth, who had been the late Caliph’s bitterest enemy, now offered his services to his successor, who appointed him to the governorship of Khorāsān. The Caliph doubtless thought that `Amr would act as a useful counterpoise to the Sāmānides, whose power was daily increasing in Transoxiana, and Rāfi` ibn Harthama, who was in possession of part of Khorāsān and Persian `Irāk.[234] In A.H. 283 (896) `Amr defeated Rāfi` and took possession of Nīshāpūr. Rāfi` was cruelly murdered, and his head sent as a trophy of `Amr’s successes to Baghdād. `Amr’s ambition now knew no bounds. He insisted that the Sāmānides should be removed from Transoxiana, and that the province should be added to his governorship. The Caliph, in reply to these demands, urged him to attack Isma`īl, and practically offered him the province should his expedition prove successful, while at the same time he confirmed Isma`īl in his governorship, and encouraged him to withstand `Amr.[235] He doubtless hoped, by provoking a conflict, to weaken the power of both men. These hostilities finally culminated in the siege and capture of Balkh, A.H. 288 (900), when `Amr fell into Isma`īl’s hands.[236] In this connection, again, wonderful stories are told of Isma`īl’s generosity towards his fallen enemies. It is said, indeed, that he would have kept `Amr by him, and treated him with kindness and distinction, had not the Caliph demanded that his enemy should be delivered over to him for punishment. `Amr was therefore sent to Baghdād, where he remained a close prisoner until his death by the executioner’s hand in A.H. 290 (903).[237] He was nominally succeeded by a son, Tāhir, who, however, only held his post for one year.

As soon as `Amr arrived a prisoner in Baghdād the Caliph sent a royal patent confirming the appointment of Isma`īl to the governorship of “Khorāsān, Turkestān, Māvarā-un-Nahr, Sind, Hind, and Jurjān.”[238] Isma`īl’s government is spoken of in the highest terms, and we are expressly told by Narshakhi that throughout his rule he owed implicit obedience to the Caliph. He chose Bokhārā as his capital,[239] and appointed separate governors for all the towns in his realms.

The last campaign in which he engaged was against the Turks in the modern Hazrat-i-Turkestān, whom in A.H. 291 (903) he drove back within their own frontiers, while Isma`īl returned to Bokhārā laden with plunder.

The last four years of Isma`īl’s reign were characterised by internal peace and progress, which enabled him to devote much of his attention to the welfare of his beloved city of Bokhārā, which now became a great centre of Mohammedan learning and culture.[240] Many of the principal buildings in Bokhārā date back to the days of Amīr Isma`īl, and among her children are to be reckoned some of the greatest theologians, jurisconsults, historians, and poets of the day. Bokhārā was, moreover, the capital of an empire which included such famous and widely separated towns as Merv, Nīshāpūr, Ray, Āmul, Herat, and Balkh.[241] At this date Bokhārā fully deserved the title of Sherīf or “the Noble,” which she has retained to the present time, when the memory alone of her ancient greatness survives.

Such was the inheritance which Isma`īl, on his death[242] in A.H. 295 (907), left to his son Ahmed.

While, on the other hand, the Būyide or Daylamite dynasty was becoming daily more powerful, and was gradually absorbing the whole of Persia and trespassing on the Western possessions of the Sāmānides, the representatives of this house had become mere puppets in the hands of their ministers, many of whom were Turks, who, like their kinsmen the Mamlūks of Egypt, had risen from the position of slaves to the highest offices in the state.

Thus in the year A.H. 350 (961), on the death of `Abd el-Melik I., Mansūr I., his brother and successor, met with serious opposition from a certain Turk named Alptagin, governor of Nīshāpūr, who refused to recognise his claims. Resort was had to arms, and, after a battle at Balkh, the results of which are variously stated, Alptagin withdrew to Ghazna, where he established himself so strongly that he was able to repulse the army sent by Mansūr to attack him. On the death of Alptagin in A.H. 366 (976) the leadership of those men who had accompanied him to Ghazna passed to another Turk named Sabuktagin. The choice was fortunate, for Sabuktagin proved himself to be a general of great talent; and by means of little frontier engagements he succeeded in rapidly extending his territories, and ultimately in founding a powerful dynasty which, under his successor, was to bring Northern India, Persia, and the East under its sway. Although Sabuktagin was the nominal vassal of the Sāmānides,[243] he was in reality an independent ruler. This was, moreover, the case in a lesser or greater degree with many of the governors in Khorāsān and the neighbouring dependencies.

CHAPTER XVI
The Kara-Khānides, or Uïghūrs

While the Sāmānides were thus harassed by the powerful Daylamites in the west, by the growing power of Sabuktagin in the south, and the fear of insubordination in their own states, a force still more formidable had arisen on their northern frontier, where a Turkish state had been founded which extended from Kāshghar to the Sea of Aral. The relations of this state with its southern neighbours were at first of a peaceful and even friendly character; but when the nomads perceived that Iranian authority was on the wane they began to cast longing eyes across the Jaxartes. They probably belonged to the tribe of Uïghūr, which had been the first to separate from the main body of the Turkish race and settle down in a home on the slopes of the Tien-shan.[244]

According to the Mohammedan historian Juvaynī,[245] the Uïghūrs originally came from the valley of the Orkon River. The first king whose name has come down to us was Būkū Khān, whom tradition has identified with the great Afrāsiyāb.[246]

Būkū Khān, having learnt in a dream that he would possess the entire world, assembled his troops and sent his brothers to wage war against the Mongols, Kirghiz, Tanguts, and Khitāys.[247] They returned to their dwelling-place with great booty, and founded the city of Urdu Bālik. Būkū Khan again dreamt that a piece of jade was given him with the assurance that as long as he preserved it he would rule the world. The prospect induced him to turn his arms to the west and enter Turkestān, where he built the city of Balāsāghūn.[248] We know from Chinese sources that these Uïghūrs[249] had their abode in the seventh century in the north-west of Mongolia; that in the eighth century they dwelt near the place where, in the five hundred years later, the Mongols built Karakorum. In the ninth century their empire in Mongolia was destroyed by the Kirghiz, when they were dispersed, and apparently split into two parties. The eastern branch came into contact with Chingiz Khān. After and thenceforward they appear in the Mongol-Chinese annals as under the name of Wei-wu-rh.[250] Of the Western Uïghūrs little is known, but they may be identified with the Eastern Turks of Mohammedan authors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[251]

The first of the Uïghūr Khāns of Turkestān who plays any great part in Mohammedan history is Boghrā Khān, whose capital was Balāsāghūn, and who ruled over Kāshghar (called Urdu Kend), Khotan, Karakorum, Tarās, and Fārāb (Otrār).[252] He was contemporaneous with Nūh III., seventh of the Sāmānide line, whose reign was characterised by the utmost confusion and anarchy. Two of Nūh’s most powerful nobles—Abū `Alī Sīmjūr, governor of Khorāsān, and Fā´ik, governor of Herāt, whose insubordination had received severe but well-merited punishment at the hands of their master—made treacherous overtures to Boghrā Khān, and invited him to attack Nūh. The invitation was accepted with alacrity by the Uïghūr prince, who at once set out for Samarkand, which was delivered over to him by the faithless Fā´ik, whom Nūh had intrusted with its defence. The feeble representative of the Sāmānides, thus betrayed, fled from his capital, which Boghrā Khān shortly after entered in triumph, and became practically master of Transoxiana. But the climate of Bokhārā did not suit him. He set out for his home, when death overtook him ere he had gone many stages, A.H. 383 (993). Meanwhile Nūh re-entered Bokhārā and regained possession of his dominion. But though he was heartily welcomed by the people he did not feel secure from the treachery of his nobles, and on this account he invited the great Sabuktagin, in the year A.H. 384 (994), to come to his aid. Sabuktagin immediately hastened over the mountain passes at the head of 20,000 men, and, crossing the Oxus, joined Nūh at Kesh. Seconded by his son Mahmūd, he gained three victories over the rebel lieutenants at Herāt, Nīshāpūr, and finally at Tūs. Fā´ik had in the meanwhile fled to Ilik Khān, the son and successor of Boghrā Khān, and Bokhārā was threatened with a second Uïghūr invasion. In reply to the menace, Sabuktagin, who had quarrelled with Nūh, concluded a peace with Ilik, and appointed the rebellious Fā´ik governor of Samarkand.

In A.H. 387 (997) both Sabuktagin and Nūh died, and were respectively succeeded by the valorous and talented Mahmūd, and by Mansūr II. who exhibited qualities precisely the reverse.

Transoxiana fell into the power of Ilik Khān, while Mahmūd of Ghazna gained possession of Khorāsān. Turks had long held high office in the states of Islām in Central Asia, as well as in Baghdād and in Egypt, where they had founded a powerful dynasty. It was, therefore, no great change for them to find themselves, as a nation, masters of the extensive kingdom of which Bokhārā was the capital.

Mansūr II., after a reign of less than two years, was deprived of sight by one of his discontented courtiers named Bektuzun; and `Abd el-Melik II., a mere child, was set up in his stead. All power was now concentrated in the hands of Fā´ik and Bektuzun. When news of these events reached Ilik Khān in Kāshghar he sent a message to `Abd el-Melik to the effect that he would speedily take measures to protect him. Bektuzun immediately set out to oppose Ilik Khān, but he was unsuccessful, and in A.H. 389 (999) Ilik Khān entered Bokhārā. Instead, however, of helping the young prince, he cast him into prison, where he soon afterwards died.[253]

When, in A.H. 389 (999), Ilik Khān[254] wrested Transoxiana from the Sāmānides, their capital was removed to Bokhārā. In A.H. 398 (1007) they attempted to establish themselves south of the Oxus, but were driven back by Mahmūd of Ghazna, and henceforward their territory was restricted to Transoxiana, Kāshghar, and Eastern Tartary.[255]

About the beginning of the tenth century a prince of the hereditary house of the Khāns of Kāshghar, named Satuk Boghrā Khān,[256] became the first convert in that country to Islām, which he proceeded to force upon his subjects at the point of the sword, in the face of a determined and protracted opposition which prevented its spread beyond the limits of his own territory. It was only on the downfall of the Sāmānides that the creed of Mohammed, through proselytising zeal—of Mahmūd in the direction of Hindustān, and of Ilik Khān in that of Turkestān—received a fresh impetus, and spread north, south, and east with a rapidity only equalled by the violence employed by its propagators.[257]

According to Narshakhi,[258] Ilik Khān died in A.H. 403 (1012), and was succeeded by his brother Toghān Khān, who, a few days after his accession, was attacked by what appeared to be an incurable malady. The Sultans of Khitāy and Khotan, thinking to take advantage of his helpless state, advanced with an enormous host to attack his dominions.[259] But, on hearing of the approaching invasion, the Khān miraculously recovered his health and forthwith set out to oppose his enemies. We are told that they retreated without striking a blow as soon as they learnt that their quarry had regained his strength, but were hotly pursued and harassed by the Khān for three months.

Toghān Khān died in A.H. 408 (1018). He is spoken of in terms of the highest praise, both on account of his piety and his learning. His successor was Arslān Khān, who, however, was unable to preserve the integrity of his kingdom. Coming into conflict with Sultan Mahmūd, he was defeated and killed in the year A.H. 410 (1020).

Kādir[260] Khān, who now ascended the throne at Samarkand, is said to have brought the whole of Kāshghar and Khotan under his subjection. He died in A.H. 423 (1031), and was succeeded by his son Arslān Khān. During his reign he received a deputation from some Turks of Tibet, who, hearing of his justice and clemency, asked permission to settle in the neighbourhood of Balāsāghūn. He granted their request, and when they arrived he tried to compel their acceptance of Islām. This they refused, but as they were otherwise loyal and obedient he gave way and allowed them to remain in a state of heathenism.[261] Arslān Khān was overthrown in A.H. 425 (1033) by his brother Boghrā Khān, during whose reign the immigrant Turks embraced Islām (A.H. 432).[262] He died by poison in A.H. 439 (1047), and was succeeded by his son Ibrāhīm—the last chief of the house of Boghrā Khān.[263]

The kingdom of Kāshghar seems shortly afterwards to have fallen into the hands of another branch of the Eastern Uïghūrs, called by Narshakhi the Tufghāj,[264] the first of whose representatives, Ibrāhim, was killed in battle against Alp Arslān, the Seljūk, in A.H. 472 (1079), and was succeeded by his brother Khidhr Khān.[265] He apparently died in the same year, when his son Ahmed Khān came to the throne. The latter, in A.H. 482 (1089), was attacked and defeated by Melik Shāh, and sent prisoner to Isfahān; but soon afterwards he was reinstated as governor of Transoxiana. In 488 he was condemned to death by the mullās or doctors of Samarkand, on the ground that he professed heretical tenets acquired during his residence in Persian `Irāk. After him Mas`ūd Khān[266] reigned for a short period, and was succeeded by Kādir Khān, who in A.H. 495 (1101) perished in an insurrection fomented by him against Sanjar, the then governor of Khorāsān.

The next ruler of Samarkand was Mohammad Khān[267] ibn Sulaymān, who in A.H. 503 (1109) successfully defended his capital against the attack of a large Turkish force under a certain Sāghir Beg. He held this post until his death, and apparently continued in his loyalty to Sanjar, who, as we have seen, ascended the throne of the Seljūks in 511. We are not told when he died, but Narshakhi says that his son Nasr Khān was killed during a revolt in Samarkand in A.H. 523 (1128). On the death of his father, Nasr’s son Mohammad Khān wrote to inform Sanjar of what had passed. Sanjar thereupon set out with a force to establish order in Samarkand, but when he approached the town Mohammad Khān sent him an insolent message that the Sultan would do well to retreat, inasmuch as he (Mohammad) had subdued his opponents. Sanjar was much incensed, and promptly invested the city. After a protracted siege he captured Samarkand and took Mohammad prisoner, A.H. 524 (1129). A new governor was now appointed, but he died two years later, when the reins of power were given to Mahmūd Khān, the son of Mohammad.[268]

In the meanwhile another mighty host was advancing on Transoxiana; but before describing their progress we must retrace our steps and recount the downfall of the Ghaznavides and the rise of the great Seljūk dynasty of Persia.

CHAPTER XVII
The Ghaznavides and the Rise of the Seljūks

The struggles between Mahmūd of Ghazna and Ilik Khān of Kāshghar continued till the year A.H. 401 (1010), when the latter, owing to a quarrel with his brother Toghān, was obliged to withdraw his troops, and a long period of peace ensued, with but slight interruptions, during which the Oxus continued to be regarded as the frontier of their respective realms.

Before the actual downfall of the Sāmānides the province of Khwārazm,[269] which lay between the states of the Turkish Khāns and the Ghaznavides, had become practically independent. On the final overthrow of the Sāmānides, the Khwārazm Shāh,[270] as their ruler was called, had thrown in his fortunes with the Ghaznavides. In A.H. 407 (1017) the then ruler was murdered by rebels, whereupon Mahmūd marched into the country at the head of a large force and conquered it, setting up a governor of his own creation named Altuntāsh.

Great difficulties attend an attempt to define the ethnographic affinities of the Turks. A similarity of language forces one to associate the Tartars of Southern Russia, the Turkomans of the Oxus countries, and the Uzbegs of Transoxiana. This race, in the broadest sense of the word, may be divided into three groups:—

(1) The Northern Turks, comprising the Siberian nomads, such as the Yakuts, etc.

(2) The Eastern Turks, including those of Chinese Turkestān and the Uzbegs of Russian Turkestān, to whom are related the Tartars of the Crimea and the Volga.

(3) The Western Turks, comprising the Osmānlīs, or Ottoman branch, the Āzerbāyjānīs of Persia, and the Turkomans,—in fact, what we commonly in Europe understand by the word Turk.

The habitat of the original Turks was in the Altaï, whence they migrated in large numbers at an early period towards China and Turkestān. It was in this latter direction that they met with least resistance, and thither, therefore, they wandered in the greatest numbers.

But, apart from these lesser migrations, two great Turkish waves poured, at an interval of two hundred years, over Western Asia and Southern Europe—the Seljūks and the hordes of Chingiz Khān.

The former, composed of what we now call Western Turks, of whom the Ghuz and the Turkomans were the predominant element, swept over the Oxus-lands into Armenia and Asia Minor. From them sprang, at a later date, the Osmānlīs, who finally overthrew the Byzantine Empire. A portion, however, of the Seljūks either remained in the Oxus country, or were pressed across that river by the advances of the Eastern Turks into modern Turkomania.

CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES

1. UZBEG WOMAN
2. UZBEG
3. UZBEG
4. UZBEG

The second great migration spread simultaneously in two directions. The larger body penetrated north of the Sea of Aral into Southern Europe, where they carried all before them until their progress was stayed by Western skill at the memorable battle of Leignitz (A.D. 1241). The smaller horde was composed of Eastern Turks, who, under Mongolian leadership, drove their Western cousins out of Transoxiana in the thirteenth century.

According to the Tārīkh-i-Guzīda[271], the Turks of the tribe of Kabak, to which Seljūk belonged, passed in the year A.H. 395 (985) from Turkestān into Transoxiana, and settled in the neighbourhood of Samarkand and Bokhārā. They were a race of shepherds, and were prompted to cross the Jaxartes by the scarcity of pasturage on their own side.

They are said to have lived on peaceful terms with Sultan Mahmūd of Ghazna, who, not long afterwards, gave them permission to cross the Oxus and settle in the environs of Nisā and Abīverd. Their chief at this period was named Mikā´īl, and he had two sons named Toghrul and Chakir, who were the founders of the Seljūk dynasty.[272]

It is not within the scope of the present sketch to describe the wonderful campaigns of Sultan Mahmūd[273] in India and elsewhere, and the brilliant circle of poets and writers which he had gathered round him at Ghazna. In the year before his death, A.H. 420 (1029), he conducted a successful expedition against the Seljūks, who had invaded his Persian territories. The last of his successes was the conquest of nearly the whole of `Irāk, which, together with Ray and some other territories, he formed into a government for his son Mas`ūd, declaring at the same time his other son Mohammad heir to his throne and the rest of his possessions.[274]

On the death of Sultan Mahmūd, in A.H. 421 (1030), Mas`ūd’s whole energies were absorbed in withstanding the Ghuz hordes which invaded his province of Khorāsān in ever-increasing numbers. He tried in vain to conciliate them by granting fresh pasture-lands. In A.H. 425 (1034), while he was engaged in quelling a rebellion in India, a formidable rising against the Ghaznavides took place in Khorāsān, whose inhabitants felt that they were deserted by their chief and left at the mercy of the Ghuz. At the same time the prince of Tabaristān and Jurjān, deeming the occasion favourable, reasserted their independence. In the following year Mas`ūd marched northwards, and succeeded not only in driving back the Ghuz beyond Tūs and Nīshāpūr, but in bringing to submission the rebellious prince of Tabaristān.

CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES

1. TURKOMAN
2. KIRGHIZ
3. TAJIK
4. SARI

Meanwhile events were taking place in the north which were to render these minor successes valueless,[275] for in A.H. 425 (1034) Hārūn, the Ghaznavide governor of Khwārazm,[276] profiting by the embarrassed position of Mas`ūd, threw off his allegiance. Although the immediate result of this step was an interval of disorder, during which Hārūn was murdered, his successor persisted in a policy of rebellion, and ceased to pay any regard to the court at Ghazna. This event in itself seemed of small importance, but it brought grave results in its train. We are told that the Seljūks, in A.H. 426 (1035), helped Mas`ūd to drive the rest of the Ghuz out of Khorāsān, but the alliance did not survive this campaign; and thus, while Mas`ūd was absent in Ghazna in the following year, we find his lieutenant in Khorāsān engaged in hostilities with the Seljūks. During the same year, A.H. 427 (1036), the Ghaznavide general suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Chakir Beg in the vicinity of Merv. From this event dates the rise of the Seljūks. In A.H. 428 (1037) Merv surrendered to Chakir, and in the following year Toghrul was declared master of Nīshāpūr. Khorāsān was now practically in the hands of the Seljūk brothers. Mas`ūd had been too busily employed with troubles in India to give due attention to the protection of his richest province. At length, in A.H. 431 (1040), he determined to make a final effort to retrieve his losses, and led an army in person against Merv, where he suffered a final and crushing defeat at the hands of Chakir and Toghrul.[277] He still clung to Khorāsān with all the energy of despair. Leaving his son in Balkh, he hastened to India to raise a fresh army. But his influence with his troops had gone, and no sooner had he crossed the Indian frontier than his lawless soldiers began to plunder the treasures which had been accumulated by his illustrious father. When they recovered their senses they “were seized with a dread of punishment, and came to the sudden resolution of reinstating Mohammad,[278] who was a prisoner in the camp.”[279] Mas`ūd was captured, and in the following year, A.H. 433 (1042), murdered by his own nephew. The princes of Ghazna continued to reign until A.H. 555 (1160),—in fact, they outlasted the Seljūks of Central Asia,—but no chief of the dynasty ever attained to the greatness of its earlier representatives. Their hostilities with the Seljūks were finally brought to a close by a treaty concluded in A.H. 451 (1059) between Chakir and Ibrāhīm, the then ruler of Ghazna, who thereby for ever lost the province of Khorāsān.[280]

CHAPTER XVIII
The Seljūks

Toghrul Beg’s career of conquest is admirably epitomised by Gibbon in the 57th chapter of his immortal work. After driving the Ghaznavides back to India, he overthrew the powerful dynasty of the Būyides,[281] and with their fall the whole of Persia passed into the hands of the Turks. “By the conquest of Āzerbāyjān, or Atropatene, he approached the Roman confines, and the shepherd presumed to despatch an ambassador or herald to demand the tribute and obedience of the Emperor of Constantinople.”[282]

The expeditions of these fortunate brothers, Toghrul and Chakir, in their results at all events, more closely resembled the migration of entire peoples than military campaigns. By the year A.H. 440 (1048) Āzerbāyjān, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor were entirely overrun by Turkish bands. Four hundred years before this a huge wave of conquering Arabs and Persians had swept in an easterly direction over all Persia as far as the Oxus and beyond it. We now find a still vaster influx of Turks over the same country, but starting where the other had ended. The first flood-tide took the form of a religious war into the infidel countries, and brought with it the influence of culture and solid learning. The reflex wave was an irresistible migration of savage tribes, who, though well-nigh destitute of any tincture of letters,[283] were still, it must be remembered, the children of Islām. The marks left on the East by the Western wave were ethnographically slight, but psychically of great importance; while precisely the opposite is true of the second immigration. Bokhārā and Balkh became, and for centuries remained, the centres of Mohammedan lore, while Asia Minor and Āzerbāyjān were the permanent abodes of the descendants of the Seljūks. The forces of the two brothers were probably augmented by the westward flow of new bands of Turks, and victory attended them wherever they turned.

In A.H. 449 (1055) Toghrul Beg entered Baghdād, and helped to establish the Caliph Kā´im on his throne.[284]

Toghrul Beg had no male issue. On the approach of death he selected as his successor his nephew Alp Arslān, the son of his deceased brother Chakir. Thus, in the year A.H. 455 (1063), Alp Arslān became lord of a kingdom which extended from the Oxus to the Euphrates, and from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. One of his first measures was to rid himself of his uncle’s vezīr, and appoint in his stead a man who afterwards bore one of the most exalted names in the history and literature of the East. Hasan ibn `Alī, better known as Nizām ul-Mulk, or Regulator of the State, was born in Tūs in A.H. 408 (1018), and early displayed signs of administrative power. He held office first under the Ghaznavides, and later, at Balkh, under the Seljūks. The post of chief vezīr, which now fell to his lot, he continued to hold for a period of thirty years. He was celebrated alike for justice, tolerance, and literary attainments.[285]

It was under Alp Arslān that the Turks first invaded the Roman Empire.[286] Having temporarily satisfied his ambition in the West,[287] he returned to his capital, and formed the project of crossing the Oxus and invading the countries whence his ancestors had come. His career was, however, cut short in A.H. 465 (1063) by a mortal wound received at the hands of a man whom he had condemned to death.[288] He was succeeded by his son Melik Shāh, whose claims were disputed by several rivals,[289] but these were disposed of with little difficulty. In A.H. 446 (1073) he engaged in warfare with Altagin, the Turkish Khān of Samarkand, who, on hearing of the death of Alptagin, had presumed to lay siege to Tirmiz, a town included in the Seljūks’ realms, though it lay on the right bank of the Oxus.[290] He soon drove the Khān back, and forced him to sue for peace. Melik Shāh apparently remained on peaceful terms with the Turks until A.H. 482 (1089), when, in response to a call from the oppressed inhabitants of Transoxiana, he crossed the great river and made himself master of Bokhārā and Samarkand. Pushing beyond the last-named city, he threatened to invade the territory of the Khān of Kāshghar,[291] who, overcome by fear, consented to recognise the suzerainty of the Seljūks,[292] both in his coins and in the public prayers. At the zenith of his fortunes the great Sultan held sway from the frontiers of China up to the gates of Constantinople. August Müller[293] aptly compares Alp Arslān and Melik Shāh with Trajan and Hadrian. Brilliant as were the military successes of Melik Shāh, they are cast into the shade by his cultivation of the peaceful arts and his sedulous care for the development of his territories. Though five years passed by ere he was firmly established on his throne, the remaining fifteen years of his reign were attended by a degree of internal prosperity, an advance in literature and learning, which will ever associate his name with one of the most brilliant epochs in the history of Islām. There is, however, one great blot on his escutcheon: his treatment of his able and faithful minister, Nizām ul-Mulk. Influenced by lying reports brought to his ears by the enemies of the vezīr, he degraded his devoted servant and indirectly brought about his death. For, shortly after Nizām ul-Mulk’s removal from office, he was murdered by an assassin,[294] employed perhaps by his successor in office, who feared a change in the Sultan’s sentiments, A.H. 485 (1092). Melik Shāh did not long survive the fallen minister. Within a month he was seized with a violent illness, which terminated his life in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

He left four sons, who each in turn succeeded to his throne.[295] The youngest, Mahmūd, was only four years of age when his father died; but the ambition of his mother, the Sultana Khātūn Turkān, placed the crown upon his infant head, and the Caliph Muktadi was prevailed on to have his name mentioned in the public prayers. The Sultana marched to Isfahān, preceded by the corpse of Melik Shāh. Berkiyāruk, the eldest prince,[296] was residing there; but, powerless to resist, he retired to Ray, attended by Mu`ayyad ud-Dawla, the son of the late vezīr Nizām ul-Mulk, who warmly espoused his cause, with all the adherents of his family. This support enabled him to return, and Khātūn Turkān was compelled to resign a great part of her treasures as the price of permission to retain control of Isfahān. All her schemes of aggrandisement were soon afterwards terminated by her own death and that of her son, A.H. 487 (1104).

The death of the Caliph Muktadi, which occurred about the same period, induced Berkiyāruk to go to Baghdād, where he confirmed Mostadhhir as the new Caliph, and was in return hailed by him as Sultan of the empire. He enjoyed that dignity for eleven years,[297] but his reign was a perpetual war in which his nearest relatives and all the great nobles of the state were engaged. His usual residence was Baghdād. His brother Mohammad ruled over Āzerbāyjān, while Sanjar established a kingdom in Khorāsān and Transoxiana, whence he extended his conquests over the fallen princes of Ghazna, compelling them to pay him tribute. Berkiyāruk, who appears to have had an excellent disposition, and to have been wanting neither in courage nor conduct, died on a journey from Isfahān to Baghdād,[298] A.H. 498 (1104). He felt his end approaching, and before he expired made his army take the oath of fidelity to his son Melik Shāh II. The young prince was, however, unable to resist his uncle Mohammad, who seized Baghdād treacherously and took him prisoner, A.H. 498 (1104). The reign of Mohammad, which lasted thirteen years, was remarkable only for continual civil disturbances, and for the wars which his generals carried on in Syria against the European armies engaged in their crusade to recover the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Mohammedans. He died at Isfahān in A.H. 511 (1117), and was nominally succeeded by his son Mahmūd, who was almost immediately reduced by his uncle Sanjar to the condition of a dependant.[299] Sanjar, who had been governor of Khorāsān and its dependencies for the past twenty years, now became Sultan, and as such enjoyed a reign of no less than forty years, A.H. 511–552 (1117–1157).

We must now turn our attention to Transoxiana and the East, where important events were passing.

CHAPTER XIX
Sultan Sanjar and the Kara-Khitāys

The country of Khwārazm[300] was one of the first conquests of the Seljūks. On becoming masters of Khorāsān, the `Irāks, Persia, and Syria, they chose men from among their Turkish slaves whom they placed in charge of the various provinces. The governor thus set over Khwārazm was named Balkategin, who was Tasht-dār, or Grand Ewer-bearer,[301] to Sultan Melik Shāh, who exercised paramount authority in that country. He had under him a Turkish slave whom he had purchased, named Nūshtegin, who by his conduct at his master’s court was in such esteem that on the death of Balkategin[302] he succeeded to the government of Khwārazm. He became even more powerful than his lord, but, though he is regarded as the first of the dynasty of Khwārazm-Shāhs, he remained loyal to the Seljūks. He bestowed great care in the education of his son Kutb ed-Dīn Mohammad, who succeeded him in A.H. 490 (1097) with the additional title of Khwārazm-Shāh, or emperor of Khwārazm. He was a great patron of letters, and made himself generally beloved in his province.

It was during his tenure of office that the Kara-Khitāys began to make their inroads westwards.

The empire of the Kara-Khitāys had been founded by the last prince of the Kitan or Liao dynasty,[303] whose name was Ye-liu Ta-shi.[304] On the destruction of that line by the Kin dynasty[305] in A.D. 1123, Ye-liu Ta-shi, with a following of some two hundred men, passed into the country lying to the north-west of Shen-si,[306] where he was joined by numbers of Turks. He now set out in a westerly direction and carried all before him. He conquered Kāshghar, Yarkand, Khotan, and Turkestān, and at the beginning of A.D. 1124 or 1125 he reached Ki-rh-man.[307] Here all his officers assembled and proclaimed him emperor, whereupon he assumed the title of Gūr-Khān, or “Universal Lord.”

Mahmūd, the Uïghūr Khān mentioned above,[308] was driven into Transoxiana, which shortly after became tributary to the Kara-Khitāys. Ye-liu Ta-shi, whose dominions reached from the Gobi to the Oxus, and from the mountains of Tibet to Siberia, now fixed his residence at Balāsāghūn.

Towards the end of Kutb ed-Dīn’s rule they advanced so far into Transoxiana that the Grand Ewer-bearer sent an army of 100,000 men to oppose them.[309] He, however, suffered a crushing defeat, and the prince of the Kara-Khitāys, after imposing tribute on his vanquished enemies, returned to Kāshghar, which now became his capital.[310]

Soon after his deliverance from these barbarians Kutb ed-Dīn died,[311] and was succeeded by his son Atsiz. For many years the latter remained at the court of Merv, fulfilling the office of Grand Ewer-bearer to Sultan Sanjar; and so great was his influence with the Seljūk prince that he made himself many enemies at court, and on this account he asked permission to proceed to Khwārazm, which was then suffering from anarchy. In spite of the warnings of his ministers, Sanjar allowed Atsiz to depart. As soon as the governor reached his province he rose in open revolt against his master, who was compelled to march against his too powerful vassal.[312] But the rebels were no match for the troops of Sanjar, who utterly defeated them.[313] The province was restored to obedience, and Sulaymān Shāh, Sanjar’s nephew, was appointed as its governor.[314] No sooner had Sanjar reached his capital than Atsiz, collecting the scattered remnants of his army, proceeded to attack Sulaymān Shāh. This latter, with whom Sultan Sanjar had left but a few troops, deeming resistance useless, fled to his uncle, and thus the whole of Khwārazm again fell into the hands of Atsiz.