CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HOUSE OF MANGIT

The family thus raised to royal rank by the ambition of Rahīm Bi[466] 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.[467] 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 Rahīm 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,[468] and placed Abū-l-Ghāzi Khān, the last scion of the Astrakhanides, on the throne.[469] 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,[470] none of his brethren ventured to dispute his claims to the successorship.[471] 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 Shāhs belong. This remarkable man had established himself in the chief strategical position of Central Asia in 1781.[472] 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.[473] 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.[474] The governor of these defensive works quarrelled desperately with Mahammad Khān,[475] 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´sūm, 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.[476]

Ma´sūm’s thirst for conquest was not stayed by this splendid capture. He carried his raids far into Persia, laid Khorāsān waste, and swept off so many of its wretched inhabitants that the price of Persian slaves fell in the Bokhārā bazaar to a few pence.[477] His conduct towards other princes who had the misfortune to be his neighbours was equally devoid of mercy and good faith; and at his death, in 1799,[478] the people of Khiva, Kokand, and Balkh felt that Central Asia had been delivered from a scourge almost as terrible as that wielded by Chingiz Khān. Amongst his own subjects Ma´sūm left behind him a reputation of piety and virtue. “Under his reign,” writes `Abd ul-Kerīm,[479] “the prosperity of Bokhārā excited the envy of Paradise. Religion had then taken a new lease of life. The prince was occupied only in good works, in prayers and practising devotion. He had renounced the pleasures and pomps of this world; he touched neither gold nor silver, and he spent on his own needs only the proceeds of the capitation tax levied from Jews and infidels.” Historians who are not blinded by religious prejudice give us a very different estimate of his character and the influence of his reign.

Under this cruel and hypocritical bigot Bokhārā lost the last semblance of national spirit, and succumbed to a terrorism such as that which sapped the power of Spain. Ma´sūm it was who revived the office of Rā´is-i-Sharī`at, or religious censor, which had fallen into desuetude in the rest of Islām. These officials drove the people to prayer with whips, visited neglect of outward observances with severe floggings, and, on its repetition, with death. The use of wine and tobacco was forbidden under the like penalties, and thieves and prostitutes were delivered over without trial to the executioner. Spoliation and the levy of blackmail were carried by these pests to the height of a fine art, and the sanctity of the harem itself was not respected.[480] No system can be conceived which was better calculated to repress all independence of thought and action, and encourage the growth of hypocrisy and even darker vices.

Ma´sūm had designated his son Sayyid Haydar Tūra as his successor; but the new sovereign had to reckon with three paternal uncles, `Omar Bi, Fāzil Bi, and Mahmūd Bi, who raised the standard of revolt in the northern provinces. Amīr Haydar[481] marched against them at the head of an army so powerful as to render resistance impossible. The rebels threw themselves into strong places, but were driven from these retreats by concentrated artillery fire. Two of them, `Omar Bi and Fāzil Bi, were tracked to a village by the Amīr’s troops, were captured and put to death; while Mahmūd Bi, the third, sought safety in Kokand.[482] Amīr Haydar’s store of energy was apparently exhausted by this early test. He permitted Iltuzar Khān of Khiva to ravage the suburbs of his capital, and not until the cry of his suffering subjects could no longer be disregarded did he give orders for an expedition to avenge their woes. It consisted of 30,000 Uzbegs under the command of a general of distinction named Mahammad Niyāz Bi. The avenging host followed the course of the Amū Daryā until the confines of Khiva had been reached.[483] In the meantime, Iltuzar, overjoyed at the prospect of victory, crossed the Amū Daryā in the enemy’s rear and established himself in an entrenched camp with 4000 chosen men. The invaders were on the horns of a dilemma. To leave the river was to enter a waterless desert, wherein none would emerge alive; while retreat to Bokhārā was barred by the Khivans’ entrenchments. In desperation they attacked the foe with suddenness and vigour, driving them into the Amū Daryā and securing a decisive victory. Khiva lay open to their attack, but the pusillanimous Haydar was content to rest on his vicariously won laurels, and to pass the rest of his reign in the practice of a pharisaical piety and association with priests, who ruled the people in his name with a rod of iron. As is too frequently the fate of Oriental princes, he was unable to resist the enervating influence of the harem, and lost his power of initiative by wallowing in licensed debauchery.[484] He died in 1826, after an inglorious reign of twenty-seven years.