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

i2 4 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
vince of Kerman, too, the Ghuzz made great havoc.
They harried in the neighbourhood of the capital, and
thence proceeded to the fertile districts of Jiruft and
Narmashir, which they laid waste. In A.H. 581 (1185)
Malik Dinaj: arrived from Khorasan, joined the Ghuzz,
and with their aid seized the province. Some years
later
he proceeded to Hormuz, where the Governor gave him
money and horses. He also extracted money from Keis,
then an emporium of great importance, which had been
visited by Benjamin of Tudela only a few years previously.
Upon the death of Malik Dinar the Ghuzz in the Kerman
province were attacked by the Shabancara 1 or Ik tribe,
who dealt them some heavy blows, and they were finally
crushed by Atabeg Sad bin Zangi.
The Escape and Death of Sultan Sanjar^ _A.H._
(1157). Sanjar remained four years a prisoner with the
Ghuzz, treated apparently with respect but closely
guarded tradition ; says that he sat on a throne by day
but was placed in a cage at night.
He contrived at last
to escape when on a hunting expedition, and it is said that
saw the ruined state of Merv he ceased to wish
when he
for life, and died heart-broken in the seventy-third year
of his age. He was buried in a splendid mausoleum
erected during his lifetime, which in its
present halfruined
state struck me as strangely impressive, recalling
as it did an illustrious puissant monarch, the last Great
Seljuk, who ended a glorious reign
as a homeless and
heart-broken fugitive.
I Its C/iar.acter^A\\ historians unite in praising
the
valour, justice, magnanimity, and kindness of Sultan
Sanjar, who was so universally beloved that his name was
read in the mosques for a full year
after his death an
unprecedented compliment. An interesting sidelight
is
thrown on his character by his enmity to the poet Rashidu-Din,
better known as Watwat, or " the Swallow," from
his diminutive stature. When Sanjar was besieging
2
Atsiz in the fortress of Hazar Asp, or
" One Thousand
1
This tribe occupied a district to the east of Shiraz, with Ik, to the north-west of
. .is their capital. Marco Polo gives Soncara, evidently a corruption of this word,
as " tin- Seventh Kingdom" of Persia.
2 Situated between Khiva and the left bank of the Oxus.