Atabeg, not _Father of the Prince_, as it has been translated, but, _Father Prince_, or _Princely Father_, was an honorary title, first borne by the great Vizier Nisam-ol-mulk, without any claim to unlimited authority, and still less to be hereditary. Under the successors of Melekshah, this title distinguished the highest military dignity of the empire, and was given, at the court of the Bagdad khalif, to the Emir-ol-umera (i. e. _prince of princes_); and at the court of Cairo, to the Emir-ol-juyush, or _prince of the army_. But, as at a preceding epoch, the family Buje had exercised the power of the khalifat, under the title of Emir-ol-umera, and in the west that of, the Merovingian race had, under the title of _maire du palais_, passed into the hands of the Carlovingians; so the Atabegs possessed themselves of boundless authority, and raised themselves into dynasties. The principal are, besides that of the Atabegs of Irak, that of Aserbijan, that of Fars, called also the family of Salgar, and that of Loristan; all of which, in the short space of five years, made their claims to unlimited rule available.[139] Within this period, disappeared the reigning families of Kakuye, in Fars;[140] that of the sons of Togteghin, at Damascus;[141] the family Nedshah, in Yemen;[142] and that of the Gurides in Khorassan;[143] in whose stead arose the Seliki, as kings of Erzroum, and the Eyoubides, as princes of Emessa; and, three years before the death of Sandjar, the mightiest prince of his time, a still more mighty one was born,[144] Jengis Khan, the scourge of the east and the west, who afterwards converted the most fertile territories into a wilderness, and bathed the deserts with streams of blood. Cotemporaneously with the last ten years of Salgar’s reign in the east in Khorassan, Nureddin Mohammed Ben Amadeddin Sengi, Lord of the Irak Atabegs, ruled in Syria, as one of the greatest princes of the east. He was a cotemporary of Salgar, and the most powerful opponent of the Crusaders; whose historians, unceasingly employed in detailing the mischief which he caused them, cannot refuse him the just praise of his great and noble qualities. “Nureddin,” says the learned William, bishop of Tyre, a man profoundly versed in history, “was a prudent, discreet man, who feared God according to the faith of his people; fortunate and an increaser of his paternal inheritance.”[145] His budding power sorely oppressed that of the Christians; whose conquests put a term and measure to his. Raymond, Prince of Antioch, and Gosselin, Count of Tripoli, fell as the trophies of his victories; the first at the siege of Anab,[146] on the battle field; the second, as he was proceeding to the chase, from his residence, Telbasher,[147] was taken prisoner by a foraging party of Turcomans. The castles of Telbasher, Antab, Asas, Ravendan, Tellkhaled, Karss, Kafsrud, Meraash, and Nehrelhus,[148] fell into the victors’ hands, with considerable booty.