Samarkand pdfdrive com

CHAPTER 8
Jahan recounted in great detail, and with a guilty pleasure, the matrimonial
heartbreaks of the great people of the world; having given up reprimanding her,
Omar was now lapping up her stories. When she mischievously threatened to be
quiet, he begged her to continue, backing this up with caresses, even though he
knew perfectly well how the story ended.
The Prince of Believers therefore resigned himself to saying ‘yes’, but he had
death in his soul. As soon as he received the Caliph’s response, Tughrul set out
for Baghdad, and even before reaching the city, he sent his Vizir on ahead as a
scout, so impatient was he to see what arrangements had already been planned
for the marriage.
Arriving at the Caliph’s palace, the emissary heard it plainly stated that the
marriage contract could be signed, but the union of the two spouses was out of
the question, ‘as the honour of the alliance was the crucial point and not the
match of the couple’.
The Vizir was exasperated, but he controlled himself.
‘Knowing Tughrul Beg as I do,’ he explained, ‘I can assure you beyond all
measure of doubt that the importance he gives to the union is in no way
secondary.’
In fact, in order to emphasize how ardent his desire was, the Sultan did not
hesitate to place his troops in a state of alert, to place Baghdad under close
control and to surround the Caliph’s palace. The Caliph had to back down and
the ‘union’ took place. The Princess sat on a gold-carpeted bed. Tughrul Beg
entered the room and kissed the ground in front of her. ‘Then he honoured her,’
the chronicles confirm, ‘while she did not remove the veil from her face, say a

---

word or give heed to his presence.’ He would come to see her every day with
valuable presents and he honoured her every day, but not once did she let him
see her face. A number of people awaited him as he left after every ‘meeting’,
for he was in such good humour that he granted all their requests and gave
presents out recklessly.
No child was born of this marriage of decadence and arrogance. Tughrul died
six months later. It was generally known that he had been sterile, having
repudiated his two first wives and accused them of the ill from which he
suffered. With his string of women, wives and slaves he should have faced up to
the fact that if there was any fault it was his. Astrologers, healers and shaman
had been consulted and prescribed that he swallow the foreskin of a newly
circumcised infant at full moon. But this had no result and he had to resign
himself to the truth. However, in order to prevent this infirmity lowering his
prestige amongst his men, he forged himself a solid reputation as an insatiable
lover, dragging behind him for even the shortest move of the court an amply
furnished harem. His performance was a required subject of conversation
amongst his entourage and it was not rare that officers and even foreign visitors
would ask after his prowess and, after lauding his nocturnal energy, they would
ask him for his recipes and elixirs.
Sayyida thus became a widow. Her golden bed was empty but she did not
think to complain. The void in power seemed more serious. The empire had just
been born, and, even if it bore the name of its nebulous Seljuk ancestor, its real
founder was Tughrul. Was his disappearance without issue now going to plunge
the Orient into anarchy? Brothers, nephews and cousins were legion and the
Turks did not recognize any birthright or law of succession.
Very quickly, however, a man managed to impose himself: Alp Arslan, son
of Tchagri. Within a few months he came to prevail over the members of the
clan, massacring some and buying the allegiance of others. He would soon
appear to his subjects as a great sovereign who was firm and just, but he was
nevertheless to be dogged by a rumour, nurtured by his rivals. Whereas the
sterile Tughrul was accredited with unbounded virility, Alp Arslan, the father of
nine children, by reason of his behaviour and rumours attached to him, acquired
the image of a man for whom the other sex held little attraction. His enemies
nicknamed him ‘the Effeminate’ and his courtiers avoided mentioning such an
embarrassing subject in their conversation. It was this reputation, merited or not,
which was to cause his downfall and prematurely interrupt a career which at first
had seemed so brilliant.

---

Jahan and Omar did not yet know this. At the time they were chatting away
in the belvedere in Abu Taher’s garden, Alp Arslan was at thirty-eight years old
the most powerful man on earth. His empire extended from Kabul to the
Mediterranean, his power was undivided and his army faithful. As Vizir he had
the most able statesman of his time, Nizam al-Mulk. Moreover, in the little
village of Manzikart in Anatolia, Alp Arslan had just won a resounding victory
over the Byzantine empire whose army had been shattered and the emperor
captured. Preachers in all the mosques lauded his exploits and told how, at the
hour of battle, he had dressed himself in a white shroud and perfumed himself
with embalmer’s herbs, how with his own hands he had plaited his horse’s tail
and surprised Russian scouts sent by the Byzantines who were at the perimeters
of his camp and had their noses sliced off but also how he gave the imprisoned
Emperor back his liberty.
Doubtless it was a great moment for Islam, but it was a subject of grave
concern for Samarkand. Alp Arslan had always coveted the city and in the past
had even sought to seize it. Only his conflict with the Byzantines had
constrained him to conclude a truce between the two dynasties which had been
sealed by matrimonial alliances: Malikshah the oldest son of the Sultan had
obtained the hand of Terken Khatun, sister of Nasr Khan; the Khan himself had
married the daughter of Alp Arslan.
However, no one was fooled by these arrangements. Ever since he had learnt
of his brother-in-law’s victory over the Christians, the master of Samarkand had
been fearing the worst for his city. He was not wrong and events started to move
apace.
Two hundred thousand Seljuk cavalrymen were preparing to cross ‘the river’,
which at that time was named the Jayhun, which the ancients had called the
Oxus and which was later to become the Amu Darya. It took twenty days until
the last soldier had crossed it on a tottery pontoon bridge.
The throne room at Samarkand was often full, but as quiet as the house of a
deceased person. The Khan himself seemed subdued by the ordeal and had
neither fits of temper nor outbursts of shouting. His courtiers seemed
overwhelmed. His haughtiness reassured them even if they were victim to it. His
calmness unsettled them and they felt that he had resigned himself to his fate.
They judged him to be a defeated man and gave thought to their own safety.
Should they flee now, wait around or pray?
Twice a day the Khan would arise followed by his retinue and would go off

---

to inspect a mulberry patch or be acclaimed by his soldiers or the populace.
During one of these rounds some young townspeople attempted to approach the
monarch. Held at a distance by the guards, they yelled out that they were ready
to fight alongside the soldiers and to die in defence of the city, the Khan and the
dynasty. Far from rejoicing at their initiative, the sovereign was irritated, broke
off his visit to retrace his steps and ordered the soldiers to disperse them roughly.
When he was back in the palace, he addressed his soldiers:
‘When my grandfather, may God preserve in us the memory of his wisdom,
wished to capture the city of Balkh, the inhabitants took up arms in the absence
of their sovereign and killed a large number of our soldiers, forcing our army to
retreat. My grandfather then wrote a letter to Mahmoud, the master of Balkh, in
which he rebuked him: ‘I most ardently desire our troops to clash, may God
grant victory to whom he wishes, but where will we end up if the common
people start meddling in our quarrels?’ Mahmoud sided with him and punished
his subjects, forbidding them to carry arms. He fined them great amounts of gold
to make up for the destruction the clashes had caused. What was true for the
people of Balkh was even more so for those of Samarkand who are by nature
rebellious. I would rather betake myself to Alp Arslan alone and unarmed than
owe my safety to the citizenry.’
The officers all fell in with his view. They promised to repress any popular
zeal, renewed their oaths of allegiance and swore to fight like wounded wildcats.
These were not just words. The Transoxanian troops were no less brave than
those of the Seljuks. Alp Arslan had only the advantage of numbers and age. Not
his age, that is, but that of his dynasty. He belonged to the second generation
which was still animated by the ambition of empire-builders. Nasr was the fifth
of his line and much more desirous of enjoying his acquisitions than of
expansion.
During this whole period of agitation, Khayyam wanted to stay well away
from the city. Naturally he could not refrain from putting in a brief appearance at
court or at the 
qadi’s
palace from time to time without seeming to desert them in
their ordeal. However, most often he would stay shut up in his belvedere,
immersed in his works or in his secret book whose pages he was furiously
blackening as if the war only existed in the detached wisdom which was inspired
in him.
Only Jahan brought him back to the reality of the drama happening around
them. Every evening she would bring him the latest news from the front and

---

report the moods of the palace to which he would listen without obvious
enthusiasm.
On the ground, Alp Arslan’s advance was slow. He was weighted down with
excess troops, discipline was slipshod and he had to contend with illness and the
swamps as well as occasional outbreaks of fierce resistance. One man in