Kermān, and Irak with Kurdistan. Sinjar himself lost all his dominions except Khorasan in wars with the Karakitai. The sultans of Kermān were rarely independent in the full sense, but they enjoyed comparative peace and prosperity till the death of Toghrul Shah (1170), after which their power fell before the Ghuzz tribes; Kermān was finally captured in 1195 by the Khwarizm shahs. Meanwhile an independent dynasty was formed about 1136 in Azerbaijan by the governors (atabegs) appointed by the Seljuks; this dynasty was overthrown by the Khwarizm shahs in 1225. Similar dynasties existed in Laristan and Fars.
The empire of the Seljuks was essentially military. Their authority over their own officers was so precarious that they preferred to entrust the command to Turkish slaves. These officers, however, were far from loyal to their lords. In every part of the empire they gradually superseded the Seljuk princes, and the minor dynasties above mentioned all owed their existence to the ambition of the Turkish regents or atabegs. The last important dynasty in Persia prior to the Mongol invasion was that of the Salgharids in Fars, founded by the descendants of a Turkish general Salaghar, who had formerly been a Turkoman leader and ultimately became chamberlain to Toghrul Beg. The first ruler was Sonkor b. Modud, who made himself independent in Fars in 1148. The fourth, Saʽd, became tributary to the Khwarizm shahs in 1195, and the fifth acknowledged allegiance to the Mongol Ogotai and received the title Kutbegh Khan. His successors were vassals of the Mongols, and the last, the Princess ʽAbish (d. 1287), was the wife of Hulagu’s son Mangu Timur.
Before passing on to the Mongol conquerors of Persia it is necessary briefly to notice the shahs of Khwarizm, who have frequently been mentioned as overthrowing the minor dynasties which arose with the decay of the Seljuks. These rulers were descended from Anushtajin, a Turkish slave of Ghazni, who became cupbearer to the Seljuk Khwarizm. Malik Shah, and afterwards governor of Khwarizm (Khiva) in 1077. In 1138 the third of the line, Atsiz, revolted but was defeated and expelled by Sinjar. Shortly afterwards he returned, firmly established his power, and extended the Khwarizm Empire as far as Jand on the Sihun. The brief reigns of Il-Arslan and Sultan Shah Mahmud were succeeded by that of Tukush (1172–1199) and Ala ed-din Mahommed[1] (1199–1220). The former of these subdued Khorasan, Rai and Isfahan, while the latter brought practically all Persia under his sway, conquered Bokhara, Samarkand and Otrar, capital of the Karakitai, and had even made himself master of Ghazni when his career was stopped by the hordes of the Mongol Jenghiz Khan. In 1231 the last of his house, Jelal ud-din (Jalaluddin) Mangbarti, or Mango-berti, was banished, and thus the empire of the Khwarizm shahs, which for a brief period had included practically all the lands conquered by the Seljuks, passed away.
Thus from the fall of the Samanids to the invasion of the Mongols five or at most six important dynasties held sway over Persia, while some forty small dynasties enjoyed a measure of local autonomy. During the whole of this period the Abbasid caliphs had been nominally reigning throughout the Mahommedan world with their capital at Bagdad. But with hardly any exceptions they had been the merest puppets, now in the hands of Turkish ministers, now under the protection of practically independent dynasts. The real rulers of Persia during the years 874–1231 were, as we have seen, the Samanids, the Buyids, the Ghaznevids, the Selyuks, the Salgharids and the Khwarizm shahs. We now come to a new period in Persian history, when the numerous petty dynasties which succeeded the Seljuks were all swallowed up in the great Mongol invasion.
In the later years of the 12th century the Mongols began their westward march and, after the conquest of the ancient kingdom of the Kajakitai, reached the borders of the territory of the Khwarizm shahs, which was at once overwhelmed. Jenghiz Khan died in 1272, and the Mongol Empire stretching from the Caspian to the Yellow Sea was Mongols. divided up among his sons. Persia itself fell partly in the domain of Jagatai and partly in that of the Golden Horde. The actual governor of Persia was Tului or Tule, whose son Hulagu or Hulaku is the first who can be rightly regarded as the sovereign of Persia. His accession occurred in 1256, and henceforward Persia becomes after 600 years of spasmodic government a national unit. Hulagu at once proceeded to destroy a number of nascent dynasties which endeavoured to establish themselves on the ruins of the Khwarizm Empire; about 1255 he destroyed the dynasty of the Assassins[2] by the capture of their stronghold of Alamut (Eagle’s Nest), and finally in 1258 captured Bagdad. The thirty-eighth and last Abbasid caliph, Mostasim, was brutally murdered, and thus the Mahommedan caliphate ceased to exist even as an emasculated pontificate. The Persian Empire under Hulagu and his descendants extended from the dominions of Jagatai on the north to that of the Egyptian dynasts on the south, and from the Byzantine Empire on the west to the conlines of China. Its rulers paid a nominal homage to the Khakhan (Great Khan) in China, and officially recognized this dependence in their title of Ilkhan, i.e. provincial or dependent khan. From 1258 to 1335 the Ilkhans were not seriously challenged. Hulagu fixed his capital at Maragha (Meragha) in Azerbaijan, where he erected an observatory for Nasir ud-din Tusi, who at his request prepared the astronomical tables known as the Zidj-i-Ilkhani. He died in 1265 and was succeeded by his son Abagha or Abaka, who married the daughter of Michael Palaeologus, the Byzantine ruler. Abagha was a peaceful ruler and endeavoured by wise administration to give order and prosperity to a country torn asunder by a long period of intestine war and the Mongol invasion. He succeeded in repelling two attacks by other Mongolian princes of the house of Jenghiz Khan; otherwise his reign was uneventful. His brother Nikudar (originally Nicolas) Ahmad Khan succeeded him in 1281. This prince was converted to Islam, an event of great moment both to the internal peace and to the external relations of Persia. His persecution of the Christians led them into alliance with the Mongols, who detested Islam; the combined forces were too strong for Nikudar, who was murdered in 1284. The external results were of more importance. The Ilkhans, who had failed in their attempt to wrest Syria from the Mameluke rulers of Egypt, had subsequently endeavoured to effect their object by inducing the European Powers to make a new crusade. The conversion of Nikudar put an end to this policy and Egypt was for some time free from Persian attack (see Egypt: History). The Mongol leaders put on the throne a son of Abagha, by name Arghun. His reign was troubled. His first minister Shams ud-din was suspected of having poisoned Abagha, and was soon put to death. His successor, the amir Bogha, conspired against Arghun and was executed. Under the third minister (1289–1291), a Jewish doctor named Saʽd addaula (ed-Dowleh), religious troubles arose owing to his persecution of the Mahommedans and his favouring the Christians. The financial administration of Saʽd was prudent and successful, if somewhat severe, and the revenue benefited considerably under his care. But he committed the tactical error of appointing a disproportionate number of Jews and Christians as revenue officials, and thus made many enemies among the Mongol nobles, who had him assassinated in 1291 when Arghun was lying fatally ill. It is possible that it was Saʽd’s diplomacy which led Pope Nicholas IV. to send a mission to Arghun with a view to a new crusade. The reign of Arghun was also disturbed by a rebellion of a grandson of Hulagu, Baidu Khan. Arghun died soon after the murder of Saʽd, and was succeeded by his brother Kaikhatu, or Gaykhatu, who was taken prisoner by Baidu Khan and killed (1295). Baidu’s reign was cut short in the same year by Arghun’s son Ghazan Mahmud, whose reign (1295–1304) was a period of prosperity in war and administration. Ghazan
- ↑ It was this prince who destroyed the Ghorid dynasty, which claimed descent from the legendary Persian monarch Zohak. Except for a brief period of submission to the Ghaznevids (1009–1099) they ruled at Ghor until 1215, when they were conquered after a fierce struggle.
- ↑ The dynasty of the Assassins or Ismaʽilites was founded in 1090 and extended its rule over much of western Persia and Syria (for the rulers see Stockvis, op. cit. i. 131, and article Assassin).
