Their story now becomes intertwined with events in the neighbouring province of Khwarazm. The Khwarazm-Shah Altun-Tash had always given unswerving loyalty to the Ghaznavids, and it had been his advice which had made many of the army leaders support Mas'ud in preference to Muhammad. Yet Mas'ud's chronically suspicious nature fell on all who might possibly figure as his rivals. In Khwarazm, Altun-Tash disposed of a large army, and he had recruited large numbers of Qipchaq and other Turkmens as auxiliary troops.
These were obviously necessary for the defence of a province so exposed to external attack as was Khwarazm, but the sultan fiercely resented Altun-Tash's military strength. Accordingly, he endeavoured early in his reign to procure the Shah's assassination, but the plot misfired. The sultan feared that Altun-Tash would now be driven into the arms of the Ghaznavids' old enemy 'All-Tegin, but he nevertheless remained loyal and died fighting against 'Ali-Tegin at the battle of Dabusiya in 423/1032. Warfare with the Qarakhanid khan had flared up because Mas'ud, when preparing for a struggle with his brother after his father's death, had rashly promised to cede Khuttal to 'Ali Tegin in return for military aid.
The help had not been needed, but 'Ali-Tegin continued to claim his side of the bargain. The full effects of Mas'ud's earlier attempt to kill Altun-Tash were now seen. The latter's son Harun followed his father as effective ruler in Khwarazm, though without the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah. A breach opened up rapidly, and Khwarazm now fell away from Ghaznavid control. In 425/1034 Harun allied with 'Ali-Tegin for a joint attack on the Ghaznavid territories along the Oxus, and this was only halted when Mas'ud managed to have Harun murdered by his own ghulams.
'Ali-Tegin also died at this juncture, but the struggle against the Ghaznavids was continued from Khwarazm by Harun's brother Isma'll Khandan and from Transoxiana by 'AH-Tegin's sons. On the upper Oxus, the Kumiji tribesmen of the Buttaman Mountains were stirred up; they were further used by a Qarakhanid prince, Bori-Tegin, to harry Khuttal and Vakhsh in 429/1038. Thus Khwarazm was now totally lost, and one of the bastions against the flooding of the Tiirkmens into the Ghaznavid territories removed.
When 'Ali-Tegin died, the Saljuqs and their followers moved into Khwarazm at Harun's invitation, but there, enmity flared up between them and the head of a rival group of Oghuz, the Yabghu or traditional head of the tribe, Shah Malik of Jand and Yengi-kent (two towns near the mouth of the Syr Darya). As the Ghaznavids' ally, Shah Malik eventually reconquered the whole of Khwarazm; but by that time (432/1041), Sultan Mas'ud was dead and the power of the triumphant Saljuqs dominant in eastern Iran. In 426/1035 Shah Malik routed the Saljuqs and drove them southwards towards Khurasan.
Ten thousand Tiirkmens, under Toghril, Chaghri, Musa Yabghu and Ibrahim Inal, reached Khurasan in a desperate condition, and asked the governor Abu'1-Fadl Surl for asylum. Calling themselves "the slaves Yabghu, Toghril and Chaghri, clients of the Commander of the Faithful", they asked for the grant of Nasa and Farava, promising to act as frontier guards against further incursions from the steppes. It seems that the Saljuqs' intentions were at this time peaceable, and the sultan's civilian advisers suggested a pacific reply, at least until the Saljuqs openly showed their bad faith.
But Mas'ud and his generals were bent on destroying the Tiirkmens as quickly as possible. He sent an army against them under Begtoghdi, but was astounded to hear that the Saljuqs had defeated this army on the road to Nasa (426/1035). He was forced to yield Nasa, Farava and Dihistan to them, nominally as governors on his behalf, and in a fruitless attempt to attach them to the Ghaznavid cause, marriage alliances were offered to the Saljuq leaders. Naturally, the latter were merely emboldened by their success, and in 428/1037 asked for the grant of Sarakhs, Ablvard and Marv, together with their revenues.
Sebuk-Tegin the Most Exalted Commander of Ghazna
