Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/430

 254 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NISHAPUR

' The villages and the towns in the plain around Nishapur are numerous and well populated. [Their names are given, but omitted here.] In the mountains of Nishapur and Tus are mines, in which are found brass, iron, turquoises, santalum, and the precious stone called malachite; they are said to contain also gold and beryl. In former times the governors of Khurasan resided at Merv or at Balkh, but the Taharid family made Nishapur the capital, and thereafter it grew populous and rich. As is well known, many illustrious personages and learned men have come from this place.' ^

The Seljuk ruler Tughril Beg made Nishapur his capital in 1038, as did his nephew and successor, Alp Arslan (1063-1072), whose name is still kept in the mound called Tapah-i Alp Ars- lan, near the ruined site that lies east or southeast of the pres- ent city. 2 It was under Alp Arslan's son, the renowned Malik Shah (1073-1092), that the three celebrated schoolfellows of Nishapur, the poet Omar Khayyam, the statesman Nizam al- Mulk, and the founder of the band of Assassins, Hasan-i Sab- bah, are said to have taken an oath in blood that whichever of the three should first achieve success in the world would help the other two to gain higher preferment — an obligation that is said to have been dutifully fulfilled. ^ The death of Omar

A.D.*

In the year 1145 earthquakes brought havoc upon the city; and shortly afterwards, in 1153, the inroads of the Ghuzz hordes completed the devastation. It was then that the center of population shifted to the adjoining suburb of Shadiakh, which

1 Ibn Haukal, ed. De Goeje, BibL to his brother, is given by Mustaufi, Geog. Arab. pp. 310-314. For the Tdrlkh-i Guzldah., tr. Gantin, 1, 199, version of this passage from the Arabic Paris, 1903.

I am indebted to Dr. Yohannan. » xhis story is so familiar to every

Compare also Ouseley, Oriental Geog- reader of FitzGerald's version of Omar

raphy, pp. 214-215, and Le Strange, Khayyam that it does not need more

Eastern Caliphate, pp. 383-384. than an allusion here ; but on the

2 Ferrier, p. 104 ; Yate, p. 413 ; question of the dates involved and the Sykes, Sixth Journey, in Geog. Journ. authenticity of the facts presented, 37. 155. The date (Shavval 429 a.h. see Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia, 2. 190- = July, 1038 A.D.) when Tughril Beg 193.

seated himself on the throne at Nish- * Browne, op. cit. 2. 247, n. 1.

apur and entrusted the government

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