Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

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THE SELJUK TURKS 113
and when representations were made that it was not
becoming for these to be handed over to the soldiery
Malik Shah pardoned
the family.
Kerman was left to
Sultan Shall, son ofKaward, who had been partially blinded
after the defeat of his father, but had escaped and returned
thither. Turan Shah, the founder of the Masjid-i-Malik
mosque of Kerman, was the next ruler, and his son, Jran
Shah, was such a " monster " that he was put to deatnV
In otKer words, he was suspected of favouring the Ismaili
tenets. Under the just and efficient rule of his cousin,
Arslan^ Shah, who reigned forty-one years, from A.H.
494 to A?H. 536 (i 100-1 141), the province attained great
prosperity.
If the chronicler is to be credited, caravans
from Asia Minor, Khorasan, and Irak passed through
it bound for Abyssinia, Zanzibar, and China. Arslan
Shah was sovereign
also of the neighbouring province
of Fars, and had his deputy in Oman. Ultimately ,the_
dynasty was destroyed by the Ghuzz, like the main branch
The Origin of the Crusades. By way of conclusion to
o */ / /
this chapter I propose to give a brief account of the
Crusades, 1 which for nearly two^ centuries con^trtytecl^^aji.
attack_by Christendom on Islam a^ yepresente4 v tne
fo
and Fatimid Empires
;
although they affected the
fortunes of Persia only indirectly,
to pass them by without
notice would leave this narrative incomplete. Pilgrimages
to Jerusalem may
be said to date from the famous
journey of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, whose
alleged discovery of the true cross in A.D. 326 marked
the beginning of pilgrim-travel and
; Beazley gives details
of St.
I
Silvia, of Jerome, and other very early pilgrims.
Of special
interest to us is the journey of St. Willibald,
the West Saxon, the earliest recorded Englishman who
visited the East. He and his companions started from
Hamble Mouth, near Southampton, with the original intention
of proceeding no farther than Rome, where they
stayed for some time. In the spring of A.D. 722, having
decided "to reach and gaze upon the walls of that delect-
1
For this section I have consulted The Crusades in the East, by W. B. Stevenson,
Beazlcy's Daiun of Modern Geography.
VOL. II
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