'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎180] (215/714)

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PERSIA
History
having inflicted damages from which the province has never re
covered.
Khorasan has experienced a history of great and stormy
vicissitudes. Situated on the borders of Iran, it has been the
perpetual theatre of armed struggle, and a favourite
battle-ground of races. Its capital cities have alternately
excited by their dimensions the bewildered admiration of Arab
chroniclers, and have been swept off the earth, as though by a
tornado, by the passions of conquerors and kings. It has been
the residence of great monarchs, and the nucleus of mighty
empires. At one time its name implied a dominion that included
Kharezm (Khiva) and Merv on the north, that stretched to the
Oxus and embraced Balkh, the mother of cities, of which Herat
was a central point, and that extended beyond Kandahar. 1 Later,
as limb after limb was torn away, and independent sovereignties
were created out of the fragments, its boundaries became more
and more contracted, until the kings of Persia would sometimes
have found it difficult to say how much they really held of
Khorasan. In the early part of this century, desolated by border
warfare on the north, inhabited by turbulent chieftains and
conflicting tribes, and commonly dependent upon the fluctuating
politics and fortunes of Herat, it was the vulnerable spot of the
Kajars' dominions, a sort of Ireland to an otherwise fairly united
kingdom. Long after it had been forcibly conquered and subdued
to the Shah's authority, disorder trembled below the surface, and
events might at any moment precipitate an explosion. As late as
1 862 Mr. Eastwick wrote :—
The normal state of Khorasan is war. Petty plunderings, murders r
brigandage, small insurrections, executions of five, ten, or twenty robbers
take place weekly ; and cavalry engagements, sieges of fortresses or
towns, annually, with a considerable war every five or ten years. 2
It is not indeed till the last ten or fifteen years that Khorasan
may be said to have become thoroughly fused, in sentiment as well
as in title, with the rest of the Shah's dominions. The present
King, who, whatever his failings, has undeniably consolidated his
1 Of Malek Shah, the son of Alp Arslan, it was even said that ' prayers were
every day oifered up for his health in Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Isfahan,
lihe, Bokhara, Samarcand, Ourgunje, and Kashgar.'—Malcolm, History, vol. i.
p. 217.
2 Journal of a Diplomate, vol. ii. p. 216.