The character of his rule Gibbon gives us in a sentence: “The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of 600 miles from Taurus to Erzeroum, and the blood of 136,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.” The “valiant lion,” for that is the significance of his name, displayed at once the fierceness and generosity of a typical Oriental ruler. Christians suffered dreadful persecution. Enemies were assassinated; but the learned, the rich, and the favoured were lavishly rewarded. Arslan was a valiant warrior of the faith and as eager for the battlefield as those whom Moore describes:— “One of that saintly murderous brood To carnage and the Koran given, Who think through unbeliever’s blood Lies their directest path to heaven. One who will pause and kneel unshod In the warm blood his hand hath poured To mutter o’er some text of God Engraven on his reeking sword.” Armenia was laid waste in the cruelest manner when the capital was taken on June 6, 1064. We are told that “human blood flowed in torrents, and so great was the carnage, that the streets were literally choked up with dead bodies; and the waters of the river were reddened from the quantity of bloody corpses.” The wealthy inhabitants were tortured, the churches pillaged, and the priests flayed alive. Al-Ghazali was then six years old. In 1072 Alp Arslan was assassinated. His eldest son, Malek Shah, succeeded him. He extended the conquests of his father beyond the Oxus as far as Bokhara and Samarkand, until his name was inserted on the coins and in the prayers of the Tartar kingdom on the borders of China. “From the Chinese frontiers, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of resigning himself to the luxury of the harem, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action in the field.” Nizam Al-Mulk was his vizier, and it is largely due to his influence that the study of science and literature revived to such a remarkable degree. The calendar was reformed, schools and colleges erected, and the learned competed with each other for the favour of royalty. For thirty years Nizam Al-Mulk was honoured by the Caliph as the very oracle of religion and science. But at the age of ninety-three, the venerable statesman, to whom, as we shall see later, Al-Ghazali owed so much, was dismissed by his master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic. The last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder of Malek’s life was short and inglorious.