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EXTENT OF MAHMUD'S REALM 35 to organize and consolidate was not in his scheme. He left his dominions so ill knitted together that they began to fall asunder as soon as he was no longer alive to guard them by his vigilant activity. But so long as he lived he strove to govern every part with even justice. The most sagacious and high-minded Asiatic statesman of the middle ages, the famous Seljuk vizir Mzam-al-mulk, in his treatise on the art of government, cites many anecdotes of Mahmud's conscientious exer- cise of justice and the pains he took to protect his widely scattered subjects. " Mahmud," wrote the great vizir, " was a just sovereign, a lover of learning, a man of generous nature and of pure faith."
