Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
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Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল On receipt of this letter, the Ghaznavid vizier commented ‘up to this point this has been an affair [of dealing with] shepherds . . . now they have become amirs who seize provinces’,60 but Gardizi confirms that the Türkmen’s main aim was to secure pasture. Indeed, as late as 429/1038,
when several of the leading cities of Khurasan had accepted Seljuk suzerainty, their leaders were still claiming that their ambitions were limited to pastureland.61 This may not have been wholly disingenuous. Securing pasture for his followers is one of the main tasks of a nomadic chief, for without pastures the Türkmen’s livestock would die, imperilling their own survival. Türkmen in such a position would naturally gravitate towards a new leader: ultimately, then, the question of securing pasture was also one of ensuring the con- tinuing leadership of the Seljuk family.
62 Even the promise to fight other Türkmen may have been sincere: after all, such Türkmen would present a threat to the Seljuks’ control of these new pastures, and some – such as those who remained loyal to the line of Arslan Isra’il – represented a challenge to the Mika’ilids’ leadership. There is little evidence that at this date either Tughrıl or Chaghrı, or any of their other relatives had any designs to establish their own polity.63 Mas‘ud proved unable to settle on a coherent policy.
Initially, mindful of the trouble caused by the ‘Iraqiyya whom his father Mahmud had let through, the sultan rejected the Seljuks’ demands and prepared to campaign in person against them.64 Given that Khurasan was suffering from a series of bad harvests and famine,65 the arrival of the Seljuks may have seemed like an intolerable additional burden, and a threat to the tax base of the province. আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
However, the expedition was a disaster, and Mas‘ud’s army met a humiliat- ing defeat in a Türkmen ambush at Nasa in Sha‘ban 426/June 1035.66 Following this debacle, Mas‘ud gave in to the Seljuk demands, granting them diplomas of recognition for rule over the three main towns lying in the northwest foothills of the Kopet Dagh, with the ancient Iranian title of dihqān. Chaghrı received the steppe city of Dihistan (see Figure 1.2),
Tughrıl was granted Nasa, while Farawa went to Musa Yabghu (another indication that, in fact, the Seljuk leadership was a triumvirate at this date – and Bayhaqi was in a position to know as he actually drew up the diplomas).67 There was nothing especially startling about such a move. আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
Governments throughout the Islamic world tended to be decentralised, and regions distant from the main administrative centres were easy prey to local strongmen, whom rulers often preferred to recognise rather than fight. This step emboldened the Seljuks, and in uharram 428/November 1036, they sent an embassy demanding greater prizes: the grant of the towns of Sarakhs, Abiward (Figure 1.3) and Merv itself.
The arrangement envisaged was basically a tax farm: the Seljuks wanted to keep Ghaznavid administra- tors in place, but have the taxes paid to themselves rather than to the sultan in return for military service – the offer of keeping out other, less desirable groups of Türkmen was repeated. আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
68 The Seljuks had evidently resolved not to wait for Mas‘ud’s answer, for Chaghrı was already conducting manoeuvres in Balkh hundreds of miles away from Dihistan, provoking fears that he was about to march on Ghazna itself.69 The threatened Ghaznavid response caused this Seljuk party to retreat to Farawa and Nasa,70 but it was too dilatory to deter the Türkmen, whose raids continued.
71 With almost no warning, all of Khurasan except Balkh fell to the Seljuks in 428–9/1037–8.72 The sudden Ghaznavid collapse is bewildering, not least because it is so ill- attested. The conquest of the great city of Merv, for instance, is not even distinctly recorded; the last Ghaznavid garrison is mentioned in 428/1037, but later the same year sources allude to Chaghrı’s presence there. আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
73 Nishapur, too, may have fallen as early as 428/1037, judging by the earliest extant Seljuk coin struck there bearing that date, although literary sources put the conquest firmly in the following year.74 Nonetheless, we can identify some of the main factors that contributed to the Ghaznavid collapse. Formidable though the Ghaznavid military was, it faced insuperable logistical and tactical difficulties.
Their heavy armour and their use of elephants – a tactic learned from India intended to terrify their foes – slowed them down and it made it impossible to operate in the desert
or steppe where resources were scarce. In individual battles, the Ghaznavids tended to get the upper hand, but the Seljuks usually evaporated into the steppe before a direct confrontation could take place.75 When in 431/1040 Mas‘ud finally managed to capture Tughrıl’s base at Nasa, it did him pre- cious little good for the Türkmen had merely melted away to the traditional stronghold of Mount Balkhan, far into the steppe where the Ghaznavids were incapable of following them.
76 Even tracking down the lightly armed and highly mobile enemy was an enormous struggle, for the Seljuks did not aim to garrison towns. The prevailing famine in Khurasan meant that the Ghaznavid army struggled to find supplies, ‘but the Seljuks did not care about that for they are content with little’. আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
77 The Seljuks’ manoeuvrability also meant that Ghaznavid forces were massively overstretched by having to defend the whole vast region stretching from Jurjan by the Caspian to the Oxus. As a result, even important cities were left with wholly inadequate garrisons, or with no garrison at all. Some major centres lacked walls.78 Such cities were thus easy prey for the Seljuks.
In the absence of Ghaznavid authority, it was left to urban notables to decide how to react. Some towns, such as Abiward, seem to have defected to the Seljuks on the initiative of these local elites,79 and Nishapuri may well record something of the truth when he cites a letter sent by Tughrıl and Chaghrı to the caliph al-Q a’im in which they claimed that ‘the notables and famous people of Khurasan requested us to protect them’.
80 Years of over-t axation, religious oppression, and Mas‘ud’s own personal venality and incompetence meant that Ghaznavid governance was regarded with suspi- cion and sometimes outright hostility by many groups in Khurasan.81 At the same time, urban society in Khurasan was fragmented by factionalism.
82 A decision made by the elite – or one group of it – to accept Seljuk authority might be opposed by other social groups. In Merv, Herat and Nishapur, the Seljuks faced popular rebellions which seem to have been instigated by the lower social classes, and it was these, rather than Ghaznavid forces, which on occasion temporarily evicted the Seljuks.83 Ghaznavid armies continued to operate in Khurasan for two years after the Seljuk takeover of most of the region in 428–9/1037–8. Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
For the reasons outlined above, although sometimes successful in restoring Ghaznavid author- ity in areas, they were unable to secure the province. The final Ghaznavid collapse was precipitated by one of the few pitched battles in the contest for Khurasan, at the small town of Dandanqan near Merv on 8 Ramadan 431/23 May 1040.84 An army led by Mas‘ud was heading from Nishapur to Merv to seek out the Seljuks, but the Ghaznavid force was exhausted from the long desert road and the shortage of supplies, and fighting broke out between the sultan’s personal guard and the ordinary soldiers over water.
Chaghrı, mean- while, who had been shadowing the army’s march across the desert, pounced just as these Ghaznavid forces were setting about each other. The defeat was total, and Mas‘ud fled southwards to save what he could of his empire. He was killed soon afterwards, toppled in a court coup on his way to India to try to recruit forces with which to fight the Seljuks. Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল
85 In an oft quoted passage, Mirkhwand claimed that the Seljuks had made Khurasan ‘ruinous, like the dishevelled tresses of the fair ones or the eyes of the loved ones, and it became devastated by the pasturing of [the Türkmen’s] flocks’.86 Gardizi tells us how Ghaznavid officials in Khurasan ‘were continu- ally sending letters [to Mas‘ud] with the information that the violence and evildoing of the Türkmen had gone beyond all measure’.
87 Without denying the damage cause by the Türkmen and their livestock, they cannot have been solely to blame. The deployment of large Ghaznavid armies across the province for several years must have placed a massive burden on Khurasan’s already stretched resources.88 As Ghaznavid authority ebbed away, urban militias (‘ayyārs) proliferated, terrorising the population,89 while rivalries between cities also led to strife, with the people of Tus and Abiward ganging up to try to sack Nishapur.
Alparslan Buyuk Seljuk Episode 05 English Subtitle Free | আল্প আর্সালান বুয়ুক সেলজুক ভলিউম ০৫ বাংলা সাবটাইটেল 90 Pro- Seljuk narratives emphasise Tughrıl’s role in restoring order and cracking down on the ‘ayyārs,91 but even hostile sources suggest Seljuk rule was welcomed by some. The Ismaili poet Nasir-i Khusraw, a vigorous opponent of the new rulers, was moved to berate the population of Khurasan for their predilection for Seljuk rule: Why are you deceived by the rule of the Turk (i.e. the Seljuks)? Remember the glory and strength of Mahmud of Zavulistan (i.e. Mahmud of Ghazna).92
