One Nights in Merv, and in the late eighth century Muqanna, the Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, kindled schism here against the occupying Arabs.
In the heart of its lush oasis, where the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean gathered and disgorged its luxuries and ideas, it became, after Baghdad, the second city of the Islamic world. Home to Hindu traders and Persian artisans, it swelled to a mighty cosmopolis of races and interests, with rich libraries and a celebrated observatory, and was the seat of a Christian bishopric as early as the fifth century.
But it reached its zenith under the Seljuk Turks, who filtered southwards from the Aral Sea late in the tenth century, established their capital here in 1043, and pushed their empire deep across western Asia. Under the prodigious sultan Alp Arslan their dominion stretched from Afghanistan to Egypt, and in 1071 they advanced into Asia Minor, crushed a vast and motley Byzantine army at the battle of Manzikert, and captured the emperor. Alp Arslan, âthe valiant lionâ, became a paradigm for his people. High-minded, generous and austere, he redeemed himself from sainthood by some bursts of intemperance and exorbitant quirks of dress. He accentuated his enormous height with a towering hat, and his moustaches were so long that he knotted them behind his head before hunting. On his return to the capital, at the head of a 200,000-strong army, he was about to pass judgement on a captive commander at his feet, when the man plunged a knife into his heart. âYou who have witnessed the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens,â ran his epitaph, âcome to Merv, and you will see it buried in the dust.â
But the tomb, and the inscription, have gone. In 1221 the Mongols of Genghiz Khan overswept the whole country. The terror they inspired quakes in the descriptions of Moslem writers still. The barbarians were as many as grasshoppers, they wrote: squat, foul-smelling men whose skin was tough as shoe-leather and pitted with lice. Their arrows turned the sky to a sea of reeds, and their horsesâ neighing shut the ears of heaven.
The sack of Merv was one of the most atrocious in history. Toloi, the Khanâs youngest son, granted its inhabitants their lives if they surrendered, so they opened their gates, and were driven out on to the plain. Then each Mongol soldier, it is fantastically recorded, was ordered to decapitate between 300 and 400 citizens, and within a few hours they had slaughtered over half a million. Systematically they wrecked and fired the city: irrigation works, mosques, tombs. Then they vanished with the same phantom speed as they had come. It was a frequent Mongol ruse. They did not go far. Timidly the runaway survivors crept back into their ruins, and must have wandered them in stunned hopelessness. Then, suddenly, the Mongols returned, and completed their massacre.
More than a century later, the city still lay in ruins, and the sands were flowing over it. Now the remains of the later town destroyed by the Bukhariots had flopped into dust alongside. Tramping across the debris between them, I came upon the graves of half-remembered holy men. Cemeteries covered the dunes all around in a chaotic counterpane of humped earth spiked with poles and rotting flags. The whine of flies and the slap of stiffened cloth in the wind seemed to accentuate the silence. Far from any town, people had returned here in their thousands to be buried, drawn by some atavistic memory. Many tombs had been newly restored, ringed with walls or railings, freshly confident in their faith.
I reached a mound where a building survived in twin arches, half restored. It abutted a pair of graves under little cupolas, and the signs of worship were all about. The tombs, the perimeter fence, even the bushes around it, had been knotted with thousands of rags torn from pilgrimsâ clothes in token of prayer. It was as if a great gale of rubbish had blown through, and left
In the heart of its lush oasis, where the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean gathered and disgorged its luxuries and ideas, it became, after Baghdad, the second city of the Islamic world. Home to Hindu traders and Persian artisans, it swelled to a mighty cosmopolis of races and interests, with rich libraries and a celebrated observatory, and was the seat of a Christian bishopric as early as the fifth century.
But it reached its zenith under the Seljuk Turks, who filtered southwards from the Aral Sea late in the tenth century, established their capital here in 1043, and pushed their empire deep across western Asia. Under the prodigious sultan Alp Arslan their dominion stretched from Afghanistan to Egypt, and in 1071 they advanced into Asia Minor, crushed a vast and motley Byzantine army at the battle of Manzikert, and captured the emperor. Alp Arslan, âthe valiant lionâ, became a paradigm for his people. High-minded, generous and austere, he redeemed himself from sainthood by some bursts of intemperance and exorbitant quirks of dress. He accentuated his enormous height with a towering hat, and his moustaches were so long that he knotted them behind his head before hunting. On his return to the capital, at the head of a 200,000-strong army, he was about to pass judgement on a captive commander at his feet, when the man plunged a knife into his heart. âYou who have witnessed the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens,â ran his epitaph, âcome to Merv, and you will see it buried in the dust.â
But the tomb, and the inscription, have gone. In 1221 the Mongols of Genghiz Khan overswept the whole country. The terror they inspired quakes in the descriptions of Moslem writers still. The barbarians were as many as grasshoppers, they wrote: squat, foul-smelling men whose skin was tough as shoe-leather and pitted with lice. Their arrows turned the sky to a sea of reeds, and their horsesâ neighing shut the ears of heaven.
The sack of Merv was one of the most atrocious in history. Toloi, the Khanâs youngest son, granted its inhabitants their lives if they surrendered, so they opened their gates, and were driven out on to the plain. Then each Mongol soldier, it is fantastically recorded, was ordered to decapitate between 300 and 400 citizens, and within a few hours they had slaughtered over half a million. Systematically they wrecked and fired the city: irrigation works, mosques, tombs. Then they vanished with the same phantom speed as they had come. It was a frequent Mongol ruse. They did not go far. Timidly the runaway survivors crept back into their ruins, and must have wandered them in stunned hopelessness. Then, suddenly, the Mongols returned, and completed their massacre.
More than a century later, the city still lay in ruins, and the sands were flowing over it. Now the remains of the later town destroyed by the Bukhariots had flopped into dust alongside. Tramping across the debris between them, I came upon the graves of half-remembered holy men. Cemeteries covered the dunes all around in a chaotic counterpane of humped earth spiked with poles and rotting flags. The whine of flies and the slap of stiffened cloth in the wind seemed to accentuate the silence. Far from any town, people had returned here in their thousands to be buried, drawn by some atavistic memory. Many tombs had been newly restored, ringed with walls or railings, freshly confident in their faith.
I reached a mound where a building survived in twin arches, half restored. It abutted a pair of graves under little cupolas, and the signs of worship were all about. The tombs, the perimeter fence, even the bushes around it, had been knotted with thousands of rags torn from pilgrimsâ clothes in token of prayer. It was as if a great gale of rubbish had blown through, and left
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