CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES
1. UZBEG WOMAN
2. UZBEG
3. UZBEG
4. UZBEG
The second great migration spread simultaneously in two directions. The larger body penetrated north of the Sea of Aral into Southern Europe, where they carried all before them until their progress was stayed by Western skill at the memorable battle of Leignitz (A.D. 1241). The smaller horde was composed of Eastern Turks, who, under Mongolian leadership, drove their Western cousins out of Transoxiana in the thirteenth century.
According to the Tārīkh-i-Guzīda[271], the Turks of the tribe of Kabak, to which Seljūk belonged, passed in the year A.H. 395 (985) from Turkestān into Transoxiana, and settled in the neighbourhood of Samarkand and Bokhārā. They were a race of shepherds, and were prompted to cross the Jaxartes by the scarcity of pasturage on their own side.
They are said to have lived on peaceful terms with Sultan Mahmūd of Ghazna, who, not long afterwards, gave them permission to cross the Oxus and settle in the environs of Nisā and Abīverd. Their chief at this period was named Mikā´īl, and he had two sons named Toghrul and Chakir, who were the founders of the Seljūk dynasty.[272]
It is not within the scope of the present sketch to describe the wonderful campaigns of Sultan Mahmūd[273] in India and elsewhere, and the brilliant circle of poets and writers which he had gathered round him at Ghazna. In the year before his death, A.H. 420 (1029), he conducted a successful expedition against the Seljūks, who had invaded his Persian territories. The last of his successes was the conquest of nearly the whole of `Irāk, which, together with Ray and some other territories, he formed into a government for his son Mas`ūd, declaring at the same time his other son Mohammad heir to his throne and the rest of his possessions.[274]
On the death of Sultan Mahmūd, in A.H. 421 (1030), Mas`ūd’s whole energies were absorbed in withstanding the Ghuz hordes which invaded his province of Khorāsān in ever-increasing numbers. He tried in vain to conciliate them by granting fresh pasture-lands. In A.H. 425 (1034), while he was engaged in quelling a rebellion in India, a formidable rising against the Ghaznavides took place in Khorāsān, whose inhabitants felt that they were deserted by their chief and left at the mercy of the Ghuz. At the same time the prince of Tabaristān and Jurjān, deeming the occasion favourable, reasserted their independence. In the following year Mas`ūd marched northwards, and succeeded not only in driving back the Ghuz beyond Tūs and Nīshāpūr, but in bringing to submission the rebellious prince of Tabaristān.
CENTRAL ASIAN TYPES