The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER LXXVII
THE CALiril AN-NASIR, HIS SON AND GRANDSON
575-640 A.n. I 180-1242 A.D.
We now reach an attempt to restore the Caliphate to its Nasir,
ancient /v/f among the nations; it was but the flicker of an jiso-i^-''^-
"*
expiring flame. An-Nasir, " Defender of the Faith," not A.n.
only held the Capital in strength, but extended his sway
into Mesopotamia on the one hand, and into Persia on the
other. Ambitious in his foreign policy, he looked to further
conquest; selfish and cruel at home, he caused his first two
VVazIrs in fits of jealousy to be put to death.
The grand object of his earlier }-cars was to crush the Relations
Seljuk power, and on its ruins build up his own. For this, ,-01,^1 of
he fomented rebellion, and took the part, from time to time, Kiiwaiizm,
of discontented branches of the Sultan's house. At last, the
Khwarizm Shah, Takash,at his instigation attacked the Seljuk
forces, and defeated them, leaving Toghril, last of his race,
upon the field. The head of the fallen monarch was
despatched to the Caliph to be exposed in front of the
palace at Bagdad. Takash, recognised now as supreme ruler
of the East, conferred on the Caliph certain provinces of
Persia, heretofore held b}' the Seljuks. In token of his
loyalty, An-Nasir sent by the hand of his Wazir to the 5'*' ^ 11.
conqueror a patent of rule and a dress of honour, liut by
a stupid want of tact, the Wazir so irritated the churlish
Turk, that he attacked the Caliph's troops and routed them.
Thereafter hostile relations, or at best hollow truce, prevailed
between the two for man)' >ears. The Caliph, to be rid of
an obnoxious governor of the Shah, against
w hom he dared
not lev)' open war, had him assassinated b\' an emissar\- of
the Ismailians, who having dropped their 'Alid tenets, but
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