Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/40

16 MAHMUD OF GHAZIS T I the whole of India, save the very apex of the south, owned their sway. The southerly migration of the Turks was the mas- ter-movement in the Mohammedan empire in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Hitherto the caliphate had re- mained undisturbed by armed invasion. On the fall of the Omayyad line, the seat of government had been moved from Damascus to the new capital founded by their successors the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad, and the change had been followed by a large influx of Persian ideas into the Arab system. Persian officials, better educated and shrewder men of affairs, replaced Arabs in many of the chief posts of government, and as the central authority grew weaker and more effeminate, Persian governors acquired almost independent power in the more distant provinces and began to found hered- itary dynasties, one of the most powerful and enlight- ened being that of the Samanid princes in the country about the Oxus. The increase, peaceful as it was, of Persian influ- ence, when combined with the constant jealousies and truculence of the Arab tribes settled in Mesopotamia, induced the caliphs to provide themselves with a guard of mercenaries closely attached to the throne, and for this purpose the warlike and handsome young Turks captured on the northern frontier supplied all that was desired in valour and ability. Surrounded by such prae- torians the caliphs indulged their love of luxury free from the dread of Persian usurpation or Arab revolt. But ere long the Turkish guard became the masters of