these there are named her eldest brother Khumar Tekin, who was appointed Darugha, i.e., governor of Urgendj. There also went Inaljek, the son of her father's younger brother; he became a Mussulman, and was appointed governor of Turkestan, and Muhammed ordered that he was in future to be no longer styled Inaljek but Ghair Khan (? a form of Gur Khan). Another chief named Kuk, one of the principal men among the Kankalis, also joined him and was appointed governor of Bokharah, with the title of Khan; he was styled Kuk Khan. Altogether, says Abulghazi, there were 50,000 or 60,000 Kankalis who entered the service of the Khuarezm Shah; 10,000 families of them remained on the Chui and Telash (? Taras), but on the arrival of Jingis Khan those who lived on the Telash were dispersed,* while those in the service of the Khuarezm Shah were terribly punished in the ensuing campaign. As I have said, their descendants still constitute the main portion of the Nogay Hordes. THE KARLUKS.-Like the Kankalis, the Karluks were dependents of the Gur Khans of Kara Khitai. They also formed a section of the subjects of Oghuz Khan. Their name, according to Raschid, means the men of the snows or snow lords. Abulghazi says they inhabited the mountains of Mongolia, and that they were not a numerous race, and adds that the number of their families did not, at the most flourishing period of their history, exceed 2,000 families. The accounts of the Karluks, as given by Juveni and Raschid, are not quite consistent. According to one account Almaligh was their chief town, while Juveni makes it the seat of another Turkish prince. I have small doubt that Juveni is right, and he is confirmed by Abulghazi. According to his account, when Jingis Khan returned from his campaign against Tangut in 1211, Arslan Khan of the Karluks, who was also Prince of Kayalik or Kabalik, and who had broken off his allegiance to the Gur Khan of Kara Khitai, submitted to him, and he gave him a Mongol princess in marriage.§ It was ordered also that Arslan should no longer be styled Arslan Khan but Arslan Siriaki, or Arslan the Syrian, that is, the Muhammedan.|| He accompanied Jingis Khan in his campaign against the Khuarezm Shah. ALMALIGH.-In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Turks of Turkestan were dominated over by a Grand Khan, who had his seat of empire at Kashgar, and who ruled from the borders of China to those of the Jaxartes. His power seems to have decayed and to have been much invaded by the Kankalis and Karluks, and he at last submitted to the Gur Khan of Kara Khitai, whose dependent he became. When Gushluk usurped the throne of Kara Khitai the Khan of Almaligh and Fulad was * Abulghazi, Ed. Desm., 37, 38. Erdmann's Temujin, 246. † Erdmann's Extracts, 16. § D'Ohsson, i. III. I D'Ohsson, i, 218. Note. Id., 212. Abulghazi, Ed. Desm., 108. Sind and Multan, Bhakar and Siwastan, and subsequently the territory to the north-east as far as Sursuti and Kuhram. The chiefs of the Kalladjes or Turks assumed independence in Bengal, while Lahore became the prey of its several neighbours.* Such was the position of affairs when the Mongols appeared on the Indus. Let us now travel considerably westwards beyond the limits of the Khuarezmian empire. BAGHDAD.-Irak Arab and a large portion of Khuzestan were directly subject to the Khalifs. Besides this local authority they were the supreme heads of the Moslem faith, and held the highest post in the hierarchy of Islam, in direct descent from the prophet himself. They were acknowledged as their suzerains by the various chiefs of Asia who had been converted, and when they succeeded to their several dignities of Sultan, or Malik, or Atabeg, they sent to notify the fact to the Khalifs, who in turn invested them with authority and sent them the diploma of office and the various emblems of royal dignity. They held their court at Baghdad. For six centuries the Khalifate had been in the possession of the family of the Abbasides, so named because they were descended from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammed. They displaced the Ommiades. "From an obscure residence in Syria," says Gibbon, "they secretly dispatched their agents and missionaries, who preached in the eastern provinces their hereditary indefeasible right, and Muhammed, the son of Ali, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, gave audience to the deputies of Khorassan, and accepted their free gift of 400,000 pieces of gold." The Ommiades were distinguished by their white garments, the Abassides by their black ones. It was Suffah, the son of Muhammed ben Ali, who finally vanquished Mervan, the fourteenth and last of the Ommiade Khalifs. This was in 750 A.D.§ Almansor, the brother of Salah, laid the foundations of Baghdad in 762 A.D., which became the capital of the Moslem world. The rule of the Abassides was a protracted one, and lasted until they were finally destroyed by the Mongols, as I shall describe in the following pages, but for a long period their authority was chiefly spiritual, and the reins of power were in the hands of the several dynasties who ruled in Persia, the Buyeds, the Sultans of Ghazni, the Seljukian Turks, and the Khuarezmians. More or less dependent upon the Khalifs were several small districts governed by various dynasties of Atabegs, a name which answers to Mayors of the Palace or Tutors, and which was granted in the early days of the Arabian prosperity to various provincial governors, who retained this title when they became independent princes. Among these the chief was MOSUL. At the time of Khulagu's invasion its ruler was Bedr ud din Tabakat i Nasiri and Raverty's note, 529, 560. ↑ D'Ohsson, iii. 209. Op. cit., vi. 390. § Id., vi., 392. Lulu, who had been a slave of Nur ud din Arslan Shah, of the dynasty of the Sunkars, chiefs of Diar Bekr, who on his death appointed him Tutor (Atabeg) to his son Massud, with the government of the principality of Mosul. On the death of Massud in 1218, and of his two young sons who followed him to the grave within the next two years, Bedr ud din Lulu became independent sovereign of Mosul, and was sovereign of it thirty-seven years later when Khulagu invaded the country.* Besides Mosul there were other petty principalities feudally dependent on the Khalifs. At Diarbekr and Mardin were small dynasties of the family of the Beni Ortok, descended from a Turkoman chief named Ortok, who was in the service of the Seljuki, and under them had possession of Jerusalem. Other small dynasties dependent on the Khalif ruled at Erbil and Sindshar. We will now go farther west again towards Egypt and Syria. EGYPT was at the time of the Mongol invasion subject to the Beni Ayub or Ayubits, who were made famous in history by the exploits of their great chief Saladin. They were descended from the Malek Ayub, son of Shadi, who was a Kurdish chief. Shadi left two sons, Najm ud din Ayub and Asad ud din Sher i koh. Ayub's third son was the famous Salah ud din, generally known as, Saladin, who, having been appointed Vizier to Nur ud din, the ruler of Egypt, succeeded on the death of that prince in usurping the throne of Egypt. In the sonorous words of Gibbon, "He despoiled the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabegs of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekr. Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protection. His brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia ; and at the time of his death his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia."§ On his death, in 1193, he was succeeded in Egypt by his son Aziz. Aziz was succeeded by Adil, the brother of Saladin, about the year 1200. Adil was succeeded by his son Kamil, who was the greatest of the family after Saladin, and ruled over the greater part, if not all, the dominions of that conqueror. He died in 1239, and was succeeded by his son Salih. Saladin had a body guard of Kurdish slaves, who were known as Mameluks. Salih especially favoured these Mameluks, who from having their barracks on the river (Bahr) were known as Bahrits. Salih died in 1249 at Mansura, while St. Louis was at Damietta. His son Muazzam Turanshah was assassinated by his father's Mameluks. After which they swore allegiance to a widow of Salih's named Shejer ud din, and having raised one of their chiefs named Eibeg to the command of the army, he married the Sultana, who three months later resigned the * D'Ohsson, iii. 258. † Von Hammer's Ilkhans, i. 73. Gibbon, vii. 177. crown to him. He thus became the founder of the first Mameluk dynasty, namely, of that of the Bahrits. This was in 1250.* SYRIA. Saladin was succeeded in Syria, whose capital was Damascus, by his eldest son Afzal. He was displaced by his brother Aziz, the Sultan of Egypt, who appropriated his territory, and who was succeeded, as I have said, by his uncle Adil. On Adil's death Syria became the portion of his second son Muazzam. On whose death in 1230 the throne of Damascus fell to his son Nassir. Nassir was deprived the following year by his uncle Kamil, the ruler of Egypt, who appointed his own brother Ashraf to the government of Syria. Ashraf was the ruler of Syria when the Mongols appeared on its borders in pursuit of the Khuarezm Shah Jelal ud din Muhammed. After some years the throne of Damascus was appropriated by Ashraf's nephew Salih, the Sultan of Egypt. On the assassination of Salih's son Turanshah by the Mameluks, Nassir Saladin Yusuf, the prince of Aleppo, seized the throne. Although he was master of Syria from the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, there were several petty princes within its borders who before his aggrandisement were doubtless his peers, and who belonged to the Ayubit family. Among these was first, the prince of Hims, who at the time of Khulagu's invasion was named Ashraf, he was the grandson of the Melik Esed ud din Shirkuh. He had been deprived of his principality by Nassir about 1248, and had been given in exchange the district of Telbashir.† Ashraf was reinstated by the Mongols, and became their deputy in Syria. Secondly, The princes of Hamath, who were descended from Tayeddin, the grandson of Ayub and the nephew of the great Saladin, by whom he was appointed Lord of Hamath. His son Melik Mansur the First gained considerable renown in the war with the Crusaders, and by his patronage of the learned. He was succeeded by his son Mansur the Second, who when Khulagu approached Syria fled to Egypt.‡ Thirdly, The princes of Karak and Shubek. They were descended from the Melik Aadil' Scifeddin Ebubekr, who was given this appanage by his brother the great Saladin. His great grandson Melik Moghis Fetheddin Omar ruled over it at the invasion of Khulagu.§ Besides their possessions in Syria, the Ayubits still retained a small portion of Saladin's dominions in Mesopotamia. This consisted of the principality of Mayafarkin. It was governed by a dynasty descended from Melikol Aadil, the brother of Saladin. At the time of Khulagu's invasion it was subject to the Melik Kamil, who was its fifth ruler. He was killed by the Mongols.] * D'Ohsson, iii. 287-290. † D'Ohsson, iii. 326. Von Hammer's Ilkhans, i. 74, 75. THE CRUSADERS.-While the greater part of Syria was in the hands of the Ayubits the Christians retained a few places on the coast. Saladin had taken Jerusalem from them in 1187, but they held Acre or Polemais which had been conquered by Philip Augustus of France and Richard the First of England about 1191. They also held Tyre, Cæsarca, and Tripoli on the coast of Syria.* RUM.-At the time of the great Mongol invasion the empire of the Seljuki in Persia and Khorassan had been extinguished and replaced by that of the Khuarezm Shahs. The Seljuki, however, still retained their hold upon Asia Minor. The dynasty of the Seljuki of Rum or Asia Minor was founded by Soliman Shah, a cousin of Malik Shah, the ruler of Persia, by whom he was sent westwards at the head of 80,000 tents of Ghuz Turks or Turkomans, from Transoxiana, to conquer the country He conquered the central part of Asia Minor from the Byzantines, and made Nicæa, the chief town of the ancient Bithynia, his capital. His dominions were called Rum by Eastern writers, and were bounded on the east by Great Armenia and a part of Georgia, on the north by the Black Sea, on the south by Little Armenia, a part of Cilicia, and the sea opposite Cyprus; and on the west extended as far as Attalia on the sea. It included the ancient Lycaonia, Cappadocia, Isauria, Phrygia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, and the country round Trebizond. Soliman died in 1086, after reducing Antioch and its dependent cities. It was these Seljukian Turks with whom the early Crusaders came in contact. In 1096 they captured their capital Nicæa, and so broke their power that the Greek Emperor recovered much ground which had been lost, and occupied the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Nicæa, &c., and cut the Turks off from the sea. It was then that they chose the remote and almost inaccessible Iconium as their capital. The seventh successor of Soliman, named Kai Kobad, occupied the throne of Iconium when the Mongols in 1235-7 made their first raid upon the kingdom of Rum; but it was in the reign of his successor, Ghiath ud din Kai Khosru, and in 1242, that they made a vigorous effort, under the command of Baiju to conquer it, and in fact succeeded in making it tributary.† LITTLE ARMENIA.-To the south of the Seljukian kingdom of Rum, and protected by the Taurus mountains, was a small state which had considerable intercourse with the Mongols. This was known as Little Armenia. It comprehended the ancient districts of Cilicia and Comagene, with many towns of Cappadocia and Isauria. Its capital was Sis. It originated with Rupen, a relative of Kakig the Second, the last king of Armenia proper, of the race of the Bagratids. When their power was finally destroyed, he in 1080 occupied some districts in Cilicia, where many Armenians had sought refuge from the sword of the Petis de la Croix, Jingis Khan, 157. † D'Ohsson, iii. 78-82. |