Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/177

 FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO HILDEBRAND 165 Fatimide dynasty in the latter half of the tenth century. The Abbasides found themselves obliged to rest chiefly on the support of a Persian dynasty who practically became regents at Bagdad. Then there arose in the south-eastern corner of the Saracen dominion, at Ghazni, in what is now Afghanistan, the great Sultan Mahmud, of Turkish descent, who made Mahmud of himself master of most of the far east, and began Ghazni, 1000. a series of invasions of India which resulted in the gradual subjection of a great part of that vast country to Mohammedan dynasties. Mahmud, like the Abbasides themselves, and like the kaliphs of Cordova, prided himself on encouraging litera- ture in spite of the fact that he was also a very notable warrior. This was at the beginning of the eleventh century. But the usual fate befell what is called the Ghaznavid dynasty of Mahmud. There was fierce dissension between his sons ; their dominion broke in pieces, and the definite supremacy of the Turks began with the appearance of the group The Seljuk known as the Seljuks. The Seljuks entered as Turks, conquerors ; to begin with, making themselves masters of what had been Media in the ancient days before Cyrus seized the Median throne. Then they became the champions of the kaliph, who had become a puppet in the hands of his ministers, and now became a puppet in the hands of the Turks — though he was still in theory both the spiritual and the secular head of Mohammedanism. The Seljuk armies swept over Asia, re- covered Syria and Palestine which had passed into the hands of the Egyptian Fatimides, and drove back the Greek Empire practically within the ancient confines of Lydia; establishing in fact a dominion which was almost co-extensive with the old empire of Cyrus, excluding Lydia. The unity of the Seljuk dominion however soon disappeared. The portion of it which lay in Asia Minor became practically the independent kingdom of Roum or Iconium. The Seljuks remained in Palestine long enough to bring about The Holy an important consequence of their occupation, Land. although the Fatimides recovered possession. For their treat-