WHEN Khwája Nurá passed into Hindustán, and I withdrew from Aksu, Rashid Sultán also returned, as has been already mentioned. During the same winter Rashid Sultán went back, with his family, to Aksu. In the spring of that year, the Khán resolved to conduct a holy war against Tibet. Previous to this, [his] Amirs had frequently invaded and plundered that country, but on account of their ignorance and folly, Islám had made no progress, and there were still numberless infidels in Tibet, besides those whom the Amirs had subdued.*

The Khán had always been animated by a desire to carry on holy wars in the path of God, and especially so now that he had just assumed the saintly ways of the Khwájas. He was always ready to devote himself to the cause of the faith, and felt that the holy war was one of the surest roads to salvation and union with God. Prompted by such pious feelings as these, at the end of the year 938* he set out to invade Tibet.

Having reached this point in my narrative, it is necessary for me to give some account of the land of Tibet, for this country is so situated that only a few travellers have been able to visit it. On account of the difficulties of the route, which from every point of view is most dangerous—whether by reason of its hills and passes, or the coldness of the air, or the scarcity of water and fuel, or the shameless and lawless highwaymen, who know every inch of the roads and allow no travellers to pass—no one has ever brought back any information concerning this country. In such standard works as the Muajjam ul Buldán, the Jám-i-Giti Numái, and the Supplement to the Surâh, Tibet is not described as other countries are; they merely mention that there is such a region, and some few facts regarding it are given. I am therefore emboldened to furnish some details about the kingdom of Tibet which are to be found in no book.