ABSTRACT

The family thus raised to royal rank by the ambition of Rahīm Bi 1 belonged to the great Uzbeg tribe of Mangit, which had been brought from the north-east of Mongolia by Chingiz, and had settled on the lower reaches of the Oxus and around Karshī, a Bokhāran citadel 140 miles south-east of the capital. Their warlike spirit had placed them at the head of the Uzbeg clans ; and while the Astrakhanide sovereigns retained any real power, the loyalty of the Mangits was as conspicuous as their courage. We have seen how the imbecility of the degenerate Abū-l-Fayz tempted his headstrong minister, Rahīm Bi, to throw off the mask of allegiance. The latter sealed his disloyalty by assassinating the murdered Khān’s young heir, ‛Abd ul-Mū’min, who had married his daughter. 2 By an irony of fate Rahīm Bi was destined, in his old age, to sink to the condition of a roi fainéant His vezīr, a Persian slave named Dawlat Bi, usurped all the functions of royalty, and misgoverned Bokhārā in his name. On his deathbed, having no male heirs, he designated his uncle Dāniyāl Bi as his successor—the choice having been probably dictated by his vezīr, who was acquainted with Dāniyāl’s weak and overscrupulous character, and fondly hoped to retain the mastery which he had won over the degenerate Rahim Bi. Dāniyāl was, at his nephew’s death, governor of the town of Kerminé. His modest disposition forbade him to assume the purple. He contented himself with the title of Atālik, 1 and placed Abū-l-Ghāzi Khān, the last scion of the Astrakhanides, on the throne. 2 But his son, the famous Ma‛sūm, who afterwards assumed the name of Shāh Murād, was not of a nature to brook an inferior position. Under a mask of asceticism and insensibility to the promptings of ambition, which imposed on the priesthood and the mob, he cherished deep-seated schemes of conquest. He gained unbounded influence over his doting father, and persuaded him to connive at his assassination of the vezīr, Dawlat Bi, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Then he gathered all the threads of authority in Bokhārā into his own hands, and, when the dotard Dāniyāl Bi died, in 1770, 3 none of his brethren ventured to dispute his claims to the successor- ship. 4 He was at first content to govern without reigning ; and Abū-l-Ghāzi, the grandson of Abū-l-Fayz, was permitted to retain the trappings of royalty. In 1784, however, Ma’sūm had rendered intrigue and overt opposition to his rule hopeless, and felt strong enough to deprive the forlorn descendant of Chingiz of his shadowy crown. From that year dates the commencement of the reigning house, although the founder eschewed the title of king and adopted that of “ Dispenser of Favours.” Ma‛sūm, secure at home, turned his eyes to foreign conquest. Khorāsān, the richest province of Persia, was powerless to resist his encroachments; but the road thither was blocked by Bahrām ‛Alī Khān, a Persian of the Kajar tribe to which the present Shahs belong. This remarkable man had established himself in the chief strategical position of Central Asia in 1781. 1 He had built for himself a citadel out of the ruins of Old Merv, which, even in its decay, conveys the impression of overwhelming strength ; and his stern rule had reduced his kinsmen, the Turkoman tribes, to abject submission. 2 In vain did he attempt to propitiate the ruthless Amīr by an embassy, and offering prayers for the repose of the soul of Dāniyāl Bi. In 1785 Ma‛sūm set out for Merv at the head of 6000 Uzbeg horsemen. After lulling Bahrām ‛Alī into security by one of those ruses in which he was so great an adept, he suddenly appeared before Merv, and drew its defenders into an ambuscade, in which Bahrām ‛Alī was slain. But the royal city defied his forces, secure in the wealth poured into her lap by a system of irrigation, the work of the Sultan Sanjar of the Seljūk line. Its headworks were a mighty barrage on the Murghāb, thirty miles above Merv, which was guarded by a strong castle. 3 The governor of these defensive works quarrelled desperately with Mahammad Khān, 1 the son and successor of Bahrām Khān; the causa teterrima belli being, as is generally the case, a woman. In the torments of disappointed love he had recourse to the Amīr Ma‛sum, to whom he delivered his charge. Thus Merv’s relentless foe was enabled to strike at the root of its prosperity. He destroyed the Sultan Band, as the barrage was called, and turned the most fertile spot on the world’s surface into a desert. Famine stared the inhabitants in the face, and they had no other resource but to submit to the ruthless Amīr. He obtained possession of the coveted prize without striking a blow, and transported the bulk of its population to Bokhārā, where they have left indelible traces in the population. 2