245 The passage from his famous history, the Tārīkh-i-Jahān-Kushāy, dealing at great length with the Uïghūrs, has been translated by d’Ohsson. Cf. Histoire des Mongols, vol. i. p. 430 et seq.
246 Narshakhi (ed. Schefer, p. 233) calls this dynasty of “Turkish Khāns” the “house of Afrāsiyāb.” Afrāsiyāb is one of the most prominent figures in Firdawsi’s great epic of kings, the Shāh Namé. B.C. 700 is given as a conjectural date of the first migration of the Turks across the Oxus—as far as India and Asia Minor. According to the coins, it appears that the Turks (under what name it is not known) entered the Greek kingdom of Bactria. Cf. Reinaud, Rélations de l’Empire, Rom. avec l’Asie Centrale (Paris, 1863), p. 227. Tradition has it that Afrāsiyāb flourished about B.C. 580. He was the emperor of Tūrān, of which Turkestān was a province, and was the great foe of Īrān. During his reign Siyāwush, son of the emperor of Īrān, Kay-Kā´ūs, having incurred his father’s displeasure, fled across the Oxus, which formed the boundary between the two kingdoms, to Afrāsiyāb, who held court at Rāmtīn. Siyāwush received Afrāsiyāb’s daughter Ferengis in marriage, with the provinces of Khotan and Chīn as her dowry. Afrāsiyāb’s brother Gersīwaz, jealous of the strangers growing power, set his brother’s mind against Siyāwush, and induced him to take the field against his son-in-law, who was captured and conveyed to Rāmtīn and there put to death. Siyāwush left a posthumous son by Ferengis, named Kay-Khosrū, who became emperor of Īrān. Kay-Khosrū, bent on avenging his father’s death, besieged Rāmtīn, drove Afrāsiyāb out of his country, and occupied it for seven years; Afrāsiyāb afterwards returned and recovered his capital, but was finally defeated and slain. Kay-Khosrū now became master of Samarkand and Bokhārā; but, wishing to devote his days to religious contemplation, resigned his government to Lohrāsp, the son-in-law of Kay-Kā´ūs, who soon exacted homage from the rulers of Tartary. Thus the Persian dynasty existed till the overthrow of Darius II.
247 The accurate transcription of this name is Khitā´ī; however, for convenience the more familiar spelling of Khitāy has been retained throughout.
248 The exact position of this town, which during the tenth and eleventh centuries was the capital of the Khāns of Turkestān (see Ibn el-Athīr), is not known. Abulfeda says it was not far from Kāshghar. Juvaynī says that in the days of the Mongols it was called Gu-Balik.
249 Grigorieff, in his well-known but harsh, and indeed unjust, review of Vambéry’s Bokhara, published as an Appendix to vol. i. of Schuyler’s Turkestan, says (1) that the Ilik Khāns were not Uïghūrs, but Karlukhs, and (2) that the Kara-Khitāys were their descendants. Though he takes M. Vambéry to task for not knowing such “facts,” neither of these statements will bear the light of modern research. Vambéry was, however, wrong in calling the Kara-Khitāys Uïghūrs.
250 Klaproth (Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren) proves convincingly that the Hui-ho of the Chinese authors anterior to the Mongol period are identical with the Uïghūrs, and that the Uïghūrs are to be classed among the Eastern Turks. The term Hui-ho was, however, used by Chinese writers of the Mongol period to designate Mohammedans generally (cf. Bretschneider’s article on the Uïghūrs in his Mediæval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, to which excellent monograph most of these notes are due). Translations of the principal Chinese records of the Uïghūrs are to be found in Videlou’s supplement to d’Herbelot’s Bib. Orient.
251 The name Uïghūr is first found in Mohammedan histories at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Previously to this they seem to have been known by the name of Taghazghaz, which is doubtless a corruption. Cf. Tarikh-i-Rashidi, or, History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, by Ney Elias and E. Denison Ross, p. 94 of Introduction.
252 For notices of these places, consult Grigorieff’s article on the Kara-Khānides, and Bretschneider’s Mediæval Researches.
253 He was not actually the last of the Sāmānides, for one member of the family named Isma`īl el-Muntazir had escaped from Ilik’s hands. His subsequent adventures would go to make an exciting story. For six years he maintained himself at the head of a faithful following. With the help of the Ghuz he twice defeated Ilik’s troops, and (in 391–1001) actually wrested Nīshāpūr from the hands of the governor, Mahmūd of Ghazna’s brother. He finally perished at the hands of a Bedouin in A.H. 395 (1005).
254 His name was Abū-l-Husayn Nasr I.
255 A tentative list of the Khāns of Turkestān is given in S. Lane-Poole’s Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 134. They ruled, according to this author’s computation, from about A.H. 320–560 (932–1165).
256 He was born in A.H. 333 (944). Cf. Tarikh-i-Rashidi, p. 287.
257 Cf. Forsyth’s Mission to Yarkand,—Dr. Bellew’s chapter on the History of Kāshghar, p. 121. The account of the first introduction of Islām into Kāshghar is given in a Turki work entitled the Tazkira Bughra Khān (which was translated from the Persian of Shaykh `Attār). Extracts from this somewhat fantastic work have been published in the original in Shaw’s Turki Grammar.
258 Ed. Schefer, p. 233.
259 They advanced within three stages of Balāsāghūn. They are spoken of as coming from Sīn (China), but they were probably not Chinese but Eastern Uïghūrs (cf. Bretschneider, i. 253).
260 His name is often given in Oriental histories as Kadr. See Raverty, Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri.
261 Cf. Narshakhi, ed. Schefer, p. 234.
262 We are told by this same author that they had caused much depredation among the Mohammedans, which seems inconsistent with what has been said of them before.
263 S. Lane-Poole gives the date of Boghrā Khān’s death as 435, and makes no mention of his son Ibrāhīm.
264 Narshakhi, ed. Schefer, reads this name Tumghāch.
265 S. Lane-Poole (loc. cit.) says Ibrāhīm died in 460, and was succeeded by his son Nasr, who died in 472. It will be seen that great confusion exists with regard to these Khāns. Major Raverty, in his translation of the Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri, furnishes a long list of Ilik Khāns; but it is hard to reconcile any two accounts, so much do the names and dates differ.
266 S. Lane-Poole (Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 135) says Mahmūd Khān II.
267 S. Lane-Poole (loc. cit.) reads Mahmūd Khān III., and from this point the list he gives no longer corresponds with Narshakhi’s account.
268 Mīrkhwānd (Vüllers, Historia Seldschukidarum, p. 176), and Vambéry following him, say that Mohammad was reinstated.
269 The modern Khiva.
270 See chap. XX.
271 This history, by Hamdullah Mustawfi, is one of the most important Persian chronicles. The whole text has never yet been published, but the portion relating to the Seljūks was edited and translated by M. Defrémery.
272 There is some confusion as to the precise origin of this branch of the Turks. Aug. Müller says that during the disorders which attended the downfall of the Sāmānides and the struggles between the Ghaznavides and the Khāns of Kāshghar, the Ghuz, through internal dissensions, became split up into subdivisions. The foremost of these was a branch who in A.H. 345 (956) settled down in Jend (east of Khwārazm). They received the name of Seljūk from their chief, who had been compelled to quit the court of his master Pighu Khān of the Kipchāk Turks. He is said to have embraced Islām (Müller, Islām, ii. 74).
273 He was the first prince to bear the title of Sultān. Cf. Gibbon, chap. 47.
274 Malcolm, op. cit. i. p. 195.
275 Cf. Müller, op. cit. ii. p. 76.
276 The son of Altuntāsh mentioned above, p. 123.
277 Gibbon (chap, lvii.) speaks of this victory as the “memorable day of Qandacan” which “founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings.” He gives the date as A.D. 1038.
278 Mohammad, who, as stated above, had been nominated by his father Mahmūd to succeed him in Ghazna, had been almost immediately deposed by his brother Mas`ūd.
279 Malcolm, op. cit. i. p. 199.
280 Müller, op. cit. i. 77.
281 Vide supra, p. 112, note 1.
282 Cf. Gibbon, chap. lvii. De Guignes gives a somewhat different version of the relations between the Emperor and the Turk (vol. iii. p. 191). He says: “Constantin-Monomaque qui regnoit alors à Constantinople, ne crut pas devoir négliger l’alliance d’un prince qui faisoit trembler toute l’Asie: il lui envoya des ambassadeurs pour lui proposer de faire la paix, et Thogrulbegh y consentit.” This difference is due to the fact that Gibbon’s authorities were Byzantine, while De Guignes’ were Mohammedan.
283 It would, however, be wrong to regard these Turks as uncultured people; for though few traces of their early literature have come down to us, testimony is not wanting to the fact that they had, long before they began their westward migrations, a written language and perhaps a literature.
284 He was not received in audience by the Caliph till A.H. 451 (1059). In 455 (1063), in spite of his outward show of respect, Toghrul Beg practically forced the Caliph to give him his daughter in marriage. But, in the same year, as Toghrul was about to claim his bride, fortune suddenly deserted him, and he died at the age of seventy in Ray, where, according to Mīrkhwānd (see ed. Vüllers, p. 65), he wished to celebrate his nuptials.
285 His name is familiar to the English public through the medium of `Omar Khayyām. All who have read Fitzgerald’s admirable translation of the Rubaiyāt know the story of the three famous schoolfellows—`Omar Khayyām, the poet; Nizām ul-Mulk, the statesman; and Hasan ibn Sabbāh, “the Old Man of the Mountain.” These three, as schoolboys at Nīshāpūr, had sworn that whichever of them should rise highest in the world should help the others. Of two of them we shall have to speak below.
286 His was not actually their first expedition, for, in 1050, parts of Armenia had been laid waste and countless Christians massacred by the Turks. Cf. Gibbon, chap. xlvii.
287 We refer the reader to Gibbon’s 57th chapter for a vivid account of Alp Arslān’s dealings with the Romans (see also Malcolm, op. cit. i. 209–213).
288 This was a chief named Yūsuf, who had long held out against the Sultan in his fortress of Berzem in Khwārazm. Cf. Malcolm, op. cit. i. 213; and De Guignes, iii. 213.
289 Notably his uncle Kāwurd (see Müller, op. cit. ii. 94),—whom Vambéry calls Kurd; and Vüllers (in Mīrkhwānd’s Seljūks), Kādurd; and Malcolm (op. cit. i. 216), Cawder.
290 Müller, op. cit. ii. 94.
292 Vambéry (op. cit. p. 100) qualifies these statements as the “mere fabrications of partial Arab and Persian writers.”
293 Op. cit. ii. 95.
294 This assassin was one of the emissaries (or fadāwi) of Hasan ibn Sabbāh, Nizām ul-Mulk’s old school friend. For an account of the Assassins we refer the reader to the article under that heading in the Encyclopædia Britannica. For more than a century the devotees of the Old Man of the Mountain played a part in politics not dissimilar to that of the Jesuits at certain periods in Europe. See J. von Hammer’s Hist. de l’Ordre des Assassins (Paris, 1833); S. Guyard’s “Un Grand Maître des Assassins,” Journal Asiatique, 1877; and an article by Mr. E. G. Browne in St. Bartholomew’s Hosp. Journ., March 1897.
295 The history of the remaining Seljūk kings (of the original branch) is so admirably epitomised by Malcolm that it was considered unnecessary in this place to do more than quote from his well-known History of Persia (vol. ii. p. 222 et seq.). These sons were Berkiyāruk, Mohammad, Sanjar, and Mahmūd.
296 He was himself but fourteen years of age at the time of his father’s death.
297 A.H. 487–498 (1094–1104). Malcolm throughout his otherwise excellent history scarcely ever condescends to supply the reader with a date of any kind.
298 He died of consumption at the early age of twenty-seven (perhaps even younger). Cf. Müller, op. cit. ii. 120.
299 He allowed his nephew the two `Irāks on condition that his (Sanjar’s) name should be mentioned first in the public prayers (cf. Habīb-us-Siyar).
300 The modern Khānate of Khiva.
301 The Khāns of Khiva still bear the title of Ewer-bearers to the Sultan of Constantinople.
302 About A.H. 470 (1077).
303 He was a descendant in the eighth generation of T’ai-tsu, or Apaoki, the first Liao emperor. Cf. Bretschneider, op. cit. i. 211; Visdelou, p. 28. For the various forms his name has taken, cf. Howorth on the “Kara-Khitāy,” J.R.A.S., New Series VIII. 273, 274.
304 De Guignes called him Taigir.
305 Called by the Mohammedans Churché, which corresponds to the Niuchi of Chinese historians. Cf. Bretschneider, op. cit. i. 224, note.
306 Cf. d’Ohsson, Histoire des Mongols, i. 163.
307 Some scholars have wished to identify this name with Kirmān in Persia, but this seems most improbable. Bretschneider (op. cit. i. 216, note) suggests Kerminé, which is the site of the summer quarters of the present Amīr of Bokhārā. Cf. also Howorth, loc. cit.
308 P. 134.
309 Cf. De Guignes, iii. pt. ii. p. 253.
310 Some confusion exists as to whether Kāshghar or Balāsāghūn was his residence. It seems improbable that he should have changed in so short a space.
311 A.H. 521 (1127).
312 A.H. 533 (1138).
313 Il-Kilij, the son of Atsiz, perished in the battle.
314 Cf. d’Herbelot, article “Atsiz”; and De Guignes, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 254.
315 Thus, according to Narshakhi (p. 243). The statements of historians are somewhat conflicting in this place. De Guignes, following Abulfidā, says that Ye-liu Ta-shi (whom he calls Taigir) died in 1136, when about to abandon Kāshghar and return to his ancient settlements in Tartary. The Khitāys then set upon the throne his infant son, Y-li, with his mother Liao-chi as queen-regent. Bretschneider has translated a Chinese work which gives a list of all the line of Kara-Khitāy rulers, whose dynasty became extinct about 1203. We have not thought it necessary to reproduce a list of their names in this place. It may be mentioned, however, that Bretschneider’s account does not agree with De Guignes.
316 Cf. De Guignes, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 254; Müller, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 173. Rashīd ud-Dīn tells us he had drawn auxiliaries from all parts of his dominions.
317 The Kara-Khitāys were Buddhists.
318 Cf. Müller, loc. cit.
319 A.H. 537 (1142).
320 Cf. De Guignes, loc. cit.; and Müller, ii. p. 174.
321 Cf. De Guignes, iii. pt. i. pp. 256, 257.
322 De Guignes (following Abulfidā) says A.H. 550 (1155).
323 Cf. Müller, op. cit. ii. 173.
324 Mīrkhwānd (ed. Vüllers, p. 183). Khwāndamīr (Habīb-us-Siyar) adds “Kunduz and Baklān” to the list.
325 The word used is Khānsālār, which means the “Taster,” or “Table-Decker of the Household.”
326 Mīrkhwānd (ed. Vüllers, p. 185) says that Kamāj and his son perished in this battle, but Hamdullah Mustawfi, in the Tārīkh-i-Guzīda, says they were spared.
327 De Guignes, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 256.
328 Mīrkhwānd relates (ed. Vüllers, p. 188) that when Sanjar fled with his army, and was hotly pursued by the Ghuz, a man who bore a striking resemblance to the Sultan was captured. Say what he might, the Ghuz would not be convinced that this was not Sanjar, and paid him all the respect due to royalty, until finally some one recognised him as the son of Sanjar’s cook, whereupon he was beheaded.
329 Professor Shukovski, of St. Petersburg, published in 1894 an excellent and exhaustive monograph on the ruins and past history of Merv, under the title Razvilini starago Merva, “The Ruins of Old Merv.”
330 Ed. Vüllers, p. 189.
331 Mīrkhwānd has in this place evidently followed Hafiz Abru (the author of the Zubdat-ut-Tawārīkh), who says that the first day of plunder was devoted to articles of gold, brass, and silver; the second to bronzes, carpets, and vases; and the third to whatever of value was left, such as cotton-stuffs, glass, wooden doors, and the like. Cf. Professor Shukovski’s Ruins of Old Merv, pp. 29, 30.
332 He is said to have been kept in a cage at night. Cf. De Guignes, iii. pt. i. 257. Mīrkhwānd has been followed in this relation, and we have seen what he considered to be the cause of the hostilities between the Ghuz and Sanjar. From Ibn el-Athīr (Tārīkh-i-Kāmil, xi. 118, as quoted by Professor Shukovski, Merv, p. 29) it would appear that the cause of the conflict was Sanjar’s refusal to give up Merv to the Ghuz, on the plea that he could not be expected to abandon his royal residence. De Guignes (iii. pt. i. p. 257) introduces this anecdote after the capture of Sanjar.
333 Many say he died of an internal malady, A.H. 552 (1157). He was in his seventy-third year.
334 The modern Chārjūy.
335 Cf. De Guignes, iii. pt. ii. p. 258.
336 Cf. De Guignes, loc. cit.
337 He entered into a union with the Khān of the Kipchāk, named Ikrān, and married his daughter, who became the mother of the famous Sultan Mohammad Khwārazm Shāh; cf. Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri, Raverty’s translation, i. 240. This Khān of the Kipchāks is called, on p. 254 of the same work, Kadr Khān, a discrepancy which escaped the notice of Major Raverty, who, however, calls attention to three different Kadr Khāns in one chapter (see op. cit. p. 267, note).
338 Cf. Habīb-us-Siyar.
339 In this account of the reign of Tekish we have followed the Habīb-us-Siyar. There is, however, a great discrepancy in this part of the history, for in one place Khwāndamīr says that the hostilities lasted only ten years (A.H. 568–578), when they were brought to a close by a treaty between the two brothers, in which Tekish granted the rule of certain towns in Khorāsān to his brother. An account of Sultan Shāh Mahmūd may be found in the Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri, trans., i. 245–249.
340 There is a misprint in d’Ohsson, op. cit. i. 180, the date being given as 1149. He also waged war on the Assassins in `Irāk and Kūhistan, and took from them their strongest fort, Arslān Kushāy.
341 Tārīkh-i-Jahān-Kushāy, as quoted by Bretschneider, op. cit. i. 229, from d’Ohsson.
342 Cf. d’Ohsson, op. cit. i. 180; and Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri, trans., i. 253–260.
343 He had solicited the hand of a daughter of the Gūr-Khān, and, having been refused, had become his secret enemy. Howorth, J.R.A.S., New Series VIII. p. 282.
344 Cf. d’Ohsson (op. cit. i. 181), who does not quote his authority.
345 Thus according to d’Ohsson. But De Guignes gives a very different account of Mohammad’s first Eastern campaign, which he dates A.H. 604 (1209). He says that Bokhārā and Samarkand were delivered over to him by the friendly Turkish princes, that on entering the Kara-Khitāy territory he gained a splendid victory. Thus the first disastrous campaign is wholly ignored. De Guignes, op. cit. i. pt. ii. pp. 266, 267.
346 Cf. De Guignes, i. pt. ii. p. 267. d’Ohsson says as far as Uzkend, op. cit. p. 182.
347 The name of this famous conqueror has been spelled in many different ways,—e.g., Genghiz (De Guignes), Gengis (Voltaire, in his tragedy of that name), Zingis (Gibbon), Tchinguiz (d’Ohsson), etc. We have adopted the one which most nearly approaches the Turkish and Persian pronunciation of the name. For authorities we would refer the reader to Sir H. Howorth’s History of the Mongols, part i. (1876); R. K. Douglas, Life of Jinghiz Khān (1877); an article by same author in the Encyclopædia Britannica; Erdmann’s Temudschin der Unerschütterliche (1862); and d’Ohsson and De Guignes (vol. iv.). The principal original sources for the history of Chingiz Khān are: (1) the Chinese account of a contemporary named Men-Hun, which has been translated into Russian by Professor Vassilief, and published in his History and Antiquities of the Eastern Part of Central Asia (see Transactions of Oriental Section of the Russian Archæological Society, vol. iv.); and (2) the Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri of Juzjānī, translated by Major Raverty. This important work comprises a collection of the accounts of Chingiz Khān written by his Mohammedan contemporaries. Other Chinese and Persian sources might be mentioned, but the above are the most important.
One very important authority for the Mongol period is the compilation, from Chinese sources, by Father Hyacinth, entitled History of the first four Khāns of the House of Chingiz, St. Petersburg, 1829. This Russian work is comparatively little known outside Russia. Both Erdmann and d’Ohsson often lay it under contribution. It may be added that Sir Henry Howorth, in his first volume on the Mongols (published in 1876), gives a complete bibliography of all the available sources for the history of Chingiz and his successors.
348 M. Barthold, of the St. Petersburg University, has devoted much time to the study of the Mongol period in Central Asia, the fruits of which he has not yet published on an extended scale, though some shorter articles of great value have appeared in Baron Rosen’s Zapiski. The expeditions of Chingiz Khān and Tamerlane were admirably treated by M. M. I. Ivanin in a work published after his death, entitled On the Military Art and Conquests of the Mongol-Tatars under Chingiz Khān and Tamerlane, St. Petersburg.
349 Since the discovery and decipherment of the Orkon inscriptions it may be regarded as certain that the form Khitan, or Kidan, is but the Chinese transcription of the word Kitai, which is the name of a people, most probably of Manchurian origin, who, as is well known, ruled over Northern China during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. It was borrowed by some of the tribes inhabiting those parts. Cf. note on p. 106 of vol. x. of Baron Rosen’s Zapiski, article by M. Barthold.
350 Precisely the same thing occurred in the case of the Yué-Chi and the Kushans.
351 This admirable summary is taken from S. Lane-Poole’s Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. vi. (also reprinted in his Mohammedan Dynasties, pp. 201, 202). It is a condensation of what may be read in great detail in Howorth’s Mongols, vol. i. pp. 27–50. Cf. also De Guignes, vol. iv. p. 1 et seq.; and d’Ohsson, vol. i. chaps. i. and ii.
352 For information with regard to this name, cf. d’Ohsson, op. cit. vol. i. pp 36, 37, note.
353 Thus according to the Chinese authorities. The Mohammedan historians give the date of his birth as A.H. 550 (1155).
354 The above remarks on the Mongols have been translated from an article in Russian by M. Barthold in Baron Rosen’s Zapiski, vol. x. (St. Petersburg, 1897) pp. 107–8.
355 Rashīd ud-Dīn, Jāmi`-ut-Tawārikh, Berezine’s ed. i. 89.
356 The Chinese and Persian authorities are here again at variance.
357 They had been converted to Christianity by the Nestorians at the beginning of the eleventh century. See very interesting note in d’Ohsson, op. cit. i. p. 48. This Toghrul received the title of Oang, or King, and called himself Oang-Khān. The similarity of this in sound to the name Johan, or Johannes (John), led to the fabulous personage so familiar in Marco Polo and other travellers, as Prester John. Cf. Yule’s Cathay and Marco Polo, passim.
358 Cf. d’Ohsson, i. p. 47.