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Updated: May 16, 2025
The remains of the sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: "O ye who have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the dust." The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself, more forcibly proclaims the instability of human greatness.
Such was the state of Western Asia in the middle of the eleventh century. I have said there were three great Sultans of the race of Seljuk, by whom the conquest of the West of Asia was begun and completed; their names are Togrul Beg, Alp Arslan, and Malek Shah. I have not to write their histories, but I may say a few words of their characters and their actions.
When, then, the active and sagacious governor heard that Mahomet-Mollah was preaching in Jarach a holy war against the Muscovites, and that he had erected in his house an altar before which the murids who came in from all the neighboring parts hourly prayed and said, "Moslem war against the infidel! war against the infidel! death to the Giaour!" he sent a request to Arslan, khan of the Kasi-Kumucks, in whose territory was Jarach, that he should seize upon the person of the mollah.
There was Ben Arslan, with his crimson burnous wrapped round his towering stature, from whom Moor and Jew fled, as before a pestilence the fiercest, deadliest, most voluptuous of all the Spahis; brutalized in his drink, merciless in his loves; all an Arab when once back in the desert; with a blow of a scabbard his only payment for forage, and a thrust of his saber his only apology to husbands; but to the service a slave, and in the combat a lion.
In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who doubted of his fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy sovereign.
The solid structure resisted the destroyer: but he carried away the doors of the shrine incrusted with gold and pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar saint, whose mortal frailties were now covered by the venerable rust of antiquity. The final conquest of Armenia and Georgia was achieved by Alp Arslan.
And the victorious and voluptuous Seljuks, even now they tremble at the dim mention of the distant name of Arslan. Yet I, Bostenay, and the frail remnant of our scattered tribes, still we exist, and still, thanks to our God! we prosper. But the age of power has passed; it is by prudence now that we must flourish.
So was it as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom its glories ended, is represented to us in history in colours so bright and perfect, that it is difficult to believe we are not reading the account of some mythical personage.
'Magnanimous Alp Arslan, replied Alroy in a tone of undisguised contempt; 'thinkest thou that any torture can be equal to the recollection that I have been conquered by thee? 'By my beard, he mocks me! exclaimed the Karasmian monarch, 'he defies me! Touch not my robe. I will parley with him. Ye see no farther than a hooded hawk, ye sons of a blind mother.
Your mission? What of the Viceroy? 'Sire, he bade me tell thee, that, the moment the beacon that announced the Feast of the New Moon was fired on Caucasus, the dreaded monarch of Karasmé, the great Alp Arslan, entered thy kingdom, and now overruns all Persia. 'Hah! and Abner? 'Is in the field, and prays for aid. 'He shall have it. This is indeed great news! When left you Hamadan?
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