Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/108

102 of the Faith, to distinguish them from their brethren who continued in heathenism.

The Seljoukians, who were the descendents of Turkimans, and were called after the name of their leader Suljouk, established in Persia and surpassed the other Moslems of their age by fanaticism and fierce intolerance, and thereby provoked the famous crusades of the western Christian nations. After the fall of the Bagdad caliphate, Syria and Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Egyptian caliphate, but Seljouks, wresting Jerusalem for a time from the dominion of the latter, and dealing worse with the resident and pilgrim Christians, caused Europe to be armed for the deliverance of the oppressed,

3. The rise of the Ottoman or Osmanli Turks. At the death of Melik Shah, the Seljoukian sovereign, the unity of his vast dominions was ended in consequence of several candidates claiming the throne, and thus became divided into various principalities, until the irruption of the Mongols under the successors of Genghis Khan changed the entire political situation of the East and everywhere broke the power of the Seljouk Turks, and paved the way for the rise of their Ottoman successors, the present Turks.

About the middle of the thirteenth century another Turkish tribe, driven forward by the Mongol invaders, left their camping ground in Khorasan and wandered into Armenia in search of pasturage for their flocks. After seven years of exile, deeming the opportunity favorable to return, they set out to their ancient possessions; but while crossing the Euphrates the horse