Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/48

 30 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. creasing as new hordes of barbarians from the great central plains of Asia and from the surrounding countries, conquered in the name of Mahomet, were brought under its sway. Turkestan, the home of his race, including Bokhara and Samarcand, was annexed bj Malek, and the rule of the shepherd sultan was admitted at Cashgar. In addition to Persia and the countries just mentioned, his territory included at one time nearly the whole of what is now Turkey in Asia. Malek was a man of energy and ability, and a master of the art of keeping one part of his dominions in order by means of the inhabitants of another. The Arabs, who despised and hated the Turks as sheepskin-clad barbarians, were yet compelled to admit not only the power but the desire for knowledge and the appre- ciation of science which Malek showed. The country over which he ruled has long been in the most complete anarchy, and it is difficult to conceive that about the eleventh century the strongest power in the world had there its seat. The Seljukian empire, however, broke up on the death of Malek, which took place in 1092, and, after a period of civil war, was divided into four parts. During the half -century which followed the death of Malek it again for a little time flashed into fame nnder Sandjian, who won renown in the East as the second Alexander; but though the Seljukians maintained themselves for some time longer in Syria, and gave trouble to the Crusaders, the steadfast and able opposition of the empire prevented any sultan being able to reconstruct the em- pire of Malek. The only one of the divisions into which the empire split Seljukian em- ^^P ^u the death of Malek with which I am con- pire divided, corned is that which was carved out of the dominions of the Eoman empire, and of which the capital was, for the most part, at Iconium, a city which to-day, under the name of Konieh, retains somewhat of a sacred character among the Turks, because of its connection with the first sultans who ob- tained the right to be caliphs. Sultan Malek, eighteen years before his death, had prevented a quarrel with Suliman, his cousin, by consenting to allow him to be sultan of the Seljuks in the lands of the Christian empire.