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

LIU DISRUPTION OF SELJUK EMPIRE 125
Horses," he instructed Anwari to compose a stanza calculated
to annoy his enemy and ordered it to be shot into
the town. The lines somewhat colourless in a translation
ran thus :
O King
! all the dominion of the earth is accounted thine ;
By fortune and good luck the world is thine acquisition :
Take Hazar Asp to-day with a single assault,
And to-morrow Khwarazm and a hundred thousand horses shall
be thine !
!: :'
The stanza was duly received, and the following reply,
inspired by Watwat, was shot back :
If thine enemy, O King, were Knight Rustam himself,
He could not carry off from thy Hazar Asp a single ass !
Stung by the retort, Sanjar gave orders for Watwat
to be kidnapped, and when some time afterwards he was
caught, directed that he should be cut into seven pieces,
a sentence which does little to support the Sultan's reputation
for magnanimity. However, a courtier said, " O King
!
I have a request
to prefer Watwat is a feeble little bird
;
and cannot bear to be divided into seven pieces
: order
him, then, to be merely cut in two "
! Sanjar laughed
nd the poet was pardoned.
The Revival of the Caliphate. During the heyday of
he Seljuk dynasty the Caliphs were mere puppets, but
ustarshid, who was Caliph for seventeen years from
.H.
512 (1118), took advantage of the intestine wars
en raging to aim at independence. He achieved his
bject for a while, but on being attacked by Zengi, the
mous adversary of the Crusaders, he was forced to
ubmit. In the end he was assassinated, as was also his
son and successor Rashid, but under Muktafi the independence
of the Caliphate became more marked. Nasir,
ho succeeded to the Caliphate
in A.H. 575 (1180),
opened up relations with Khwarazm, and instigated
Tekish to attack Toghril, the Seljuk ruler of Irak. The
attack succeeded, Toghril was slain, and his head was
sent to Baghdad. The victor, who handed over some
Persian provinces to the Caliph, was recognized by Nasir
as the supreme ruler of the East. But these friendly