The History of the Crusades (vol. 1 of 3) — John Shaqi
The History of the Crusades (vol. 1 of 3)Michaud, J. Fr. (Joseph Fr.)
History
The History of the Crusades (vol. 1 of 3)
Michaud, J. Fr. (Joseph Fr.)
Crusades
The banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates were then troubled by the
revolt of the emirs, who shared the spoils of the caliphs of Bagdad:
the caliph Cayem implored the assistance of Togrul, and promised the
conquest of Asia to the new master of Persia. Togrul, whom he had
named his temporal vicar, marched at the head of an army, dispersed
the factious and the rebellious, ravaged the provinces, and entered
Bagdad, to prostrate himself at the feet of the caliph, who proclaimed
the triumph of his liberators and their sacred claims to the empire.
In the midst of an imposing ceremony, Togrul was successively clothed
with seven robes of honour; and seven slaves born in the seven climates
of Arabia were presented to him. Two crowns were placed upon his head,
and, as an emblem of his dominion over the East and the West, they
girded him with two scimitars. This ceremony rendered the usurpation
of the Turks legitimate in the eyes of the Mussulmans. The empire
which the vicar of Mahomet pointed out to their ambition was speedily
conquered by their arms. Under the reign of Alp-Arsland, and that of
Malek-Scha, the successors of Togrul, the seven branches of the dynasty
of Seldjouc shared amongst them the largest kingdoms of Asia. Thirty
years had scarcely passed away since the Tartars conquered Persia, and
already their military and pastoral colonies extended from the Oxus to
the Euphrates, and from the Indus to the Hellespont.
One of the lieutenants of Malek-Scha carried the terror of his arms to
the banks of the Nile, and wrested Syria from the hands of the Fatimite
caliphs. Palestine yielded to the power of the Turks, and the black
flag of the Abassides floated triumphantly over the walls of Jerusalem.
The conquerors spared neither the Christians nor the children of Aly,
whom the caliph of Bagdad represented to be the enemies of God. The
Egyptian garrison was massacred, and the mosques and the churches were
delivered up to pillage. The holy city was flooded with the blood of
Christians and Mussulmans.
The possession of Jerusalem in no degree arrested the barbarous fury of
the Turks. As their empire was recent and ill-established, as they were
threatened with the armies of Cairo, and even with those of the West,
their tyranny became restless, jealous, and violent. The Christians
trembled under the hardest and most humiliating subjugation; they were
despoiled of their property, and reduced to the most frightful degree
of misery. They underwent much greater evils than they had suffered
during the reign of Hakim.
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