Note 19 — PART II.

The power of the Chalîfs, successors of Mohammed, had fallen about the middle of the eleventh century. The Turks, a Tataric nation, seized Iconium, and most of Asia Minor, about 1074. Twenty years after, Aleppo and Damascus became separate sovereignties under the grandsons of Elf Arslân; the former city had been long subject to the Chalîfs of Egypt.