Port Arthur town of Knights of Round Table

Throughout the Abbasid era

(750-1258),

Merv

remained the capital and most important city of

Khurasan.

During this time,

the Arab historian

Al-Muqaddasi

(c. 945/946 - 991) called

Merv "delightful, fine, elegant, brilliant, extensive, and pleasant".

Merv's architecture perhaps provided the inspiration for the Abbasid re-planning of Baghdad.

The city was notable as a home for immigrants from the Arab lands

as well as for those

from Sogdia

and elsewhere in Central Asia.

In the period

from 813 to 818,

the temporary residency of

the caliph al-Ma'mun

effectively made

Merv

the capital of the Muslim world

and

highlighted Merv's importance to the Abbasids.

Merv

also became the center of a major

8th-century

Neo-Mazdakite movement led by al-Muqanna,

the "Veiled Prophet",

who gained many followers by claiming to be an incarnation of God and heir to Abu Muslim; the Khurramiyya inspired by him persisted

in Merv until the 12th century.

During this period

Merv,

like Samarkand and Bukhara, functioned as

one of the great cities of Muslim scholarship;

the celebrated historian

Yaqut (1179-1229) studied in its libraries.

Merv

produced a number of scholars in various branches of knowledge,

such as

Islamic law, hadith, history, and literature.

Several scholars

have the name

Marwazi

designating them as

hailing from Merv,

including the famous

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal

(780-855).

The city continued to have

a substantial

Christian community.

In 1009

the Archbishop of Merv

sent a letter to the Patriarch at Baghdad

asking that the Keraites be allowed to fast less than other

Nestorian Christians.

As the caliphate weakened,

Arab rule in Merv was replaced by that of the

Persian general Tahir b. al -Husayn and his

Tahirid dynasty in 821.

The Tahirids ruled

Merv

from 821 to 873,

followed by the Saffarids (873-),

then the Samanids

and later the Ghaznavids.

Turks in Merv

In 1037,

the Seljuks,

a clan of

Oghuz Turks

moving from the steppes east of the Aral Sea, peacefully took over

Merv under the leadership of Toghril Beg-the Ghaznavid sultan Masud was extremely unpopular in the city. Togrul's brother Cagry stayed in Merv as the Seljuk domains grew to include the rest of Khurasan and Iran, and it subsequently became a favorite city of the Seljuk leadership. Alp Arslan (Sultan: 1063-1072) and his descendant Sultan Sanjar (died 1157) were both buried at Merv.

During this period

Merv expanded to its greatest size-Arab and Persian geographers termed it

"the mother of the world", the "rendezvous of great and small", the "chief city of Khurasan" and the capital of the eastern Islamic world.

Written sources also attest to a large library and madrasa founded by

Nizam al-Mulk (Vizier: 1064-1092), as well as many other major cultural institutions.

Merv was "the best of the major cities of Iran and Khurasan" (Herrmann 1999).

Sanjar's rule, marked by conflict with the Kara-Khitai and Khwarazmians,

ended

in 1153 when

Turkish Ghuzz nomads from beyond the Amu Darya pillaged the city.

Subsequently,

Merv changed hands between the Khwarazmians of Khiva, the Ghuzz, and the Ghurids -

it began to lose importance relative to Khurasan's other major city,

Nishapur.

Mongols in Merv

In 1221

Merv opened its gates to Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, chief of the Mongols, on which occasion

most of the inhabitants are said to have been butchered.

The Persian historian Juvayni, writing a generation after the destruction of Merv, wrote

"The Mongols

ordered that, apart from four hundred artisans. ..,

the whole population,

including

the women and children,

should be killed, and no one, whether woman or man, be spared.

To each [Mongol soldier] was allotted the execution of three or four hundred Persians.

So many had been killed by nightfall that the mountains became hillocks, and the plain was soaked with the blood of the mighty."

Some historians[who?] believe that

over one million

people died in the aftermath of the city's capture,

including hundreds of thousands of refugees from elsewhere,

making it one of the most bloody captures of a city in world history.

Excavations revealed drastic rebuilding of the city's fortifications in the aftermath, but the prosperity of the city had passed.

The Mongol invasion spelt the eclipse of Merv and indeed of other major centres for more than a century.

After the Mongol conquest,

Merv

became part of the

Ilkhanate

and was consistently looted by

Chagatai Khanate.

In the early part of the 14th century