The Nāṣirī Generations 62.1

62.1

He ascended the throne of Khurasan after Da’ud, in the year 451 H., and the territories of Khurasan, ’Ajam, with the whole of ’Irak, Khwarazm, Tabaristan, Kirman, Pars, and Sistan he brought under his sway. He also led an army into Turkistan and Turan, and the Maliks of Turkistan, and the Afrasiyabi Amirs, submitted to his authority. The vastness of his forces, the immensity of his war-material, and the military resources of his empire, attained to such extent, that the intellect of the geometrician would remain in the labyrinth of helplessness, in an attempt to compute the quantity : as a poet—in all probability the Hakim Sana’i—who, after Alb-Arsalan’s decease, composed a dirge, says of him, in the following strophe:— “Thou sawest the head of Alb-Arsalan elevated to the sublimity of the seventh heaven; Come to Marw that thou mayest see the body of Alb-Arsalan buried in the dust. Attended neither by train or guards, nor the moon-faced, dimple-chinned; Nor the steed press’d by his thighs, nor the reins within his grasp