The implication contained in the beginning of the italicised portion of the above extract is in striking agreement with a passage (f. 14a) in the manuscript of the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr, where the author complains that “heretic myrmidons” abound and give rise to the distress and heavy taxation against which he protests. These heretics, he adds, come for the most part from the towns of Qum, Káshán, Ray, Ába, and Faráhán, and gain office by promising the King an increased revenue (tawfír, the very word used by the Nidhámu'l-Mulk in the passage above cited), “under which expression they cloak their exactions.” Some confirmation is hereby afforded to an incident in what I may call the classical legend of the counter-intrigues of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk and Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáh, where the latter is represented as recommending himself to the King's favour by a fiscal optimism wherein was implied a disparagement of the Nidhámu'l-Mulk's finance.*
In concluding this too brief notice of a most interesting and valuable work, I feel bound to add that, though there is no Persian prose work on which I have lectured with so much pleasure and profit to myself—and I hope also to my hearers— as this, yet the historical anecdotes must be accepted with a certain reserve, while serious anachronisms are of constant occurrence. Thus, on p. 12 of the text, Ya'qúb b. Layth is represented as threatening to bring the Fáṭimid rival of the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Mu'tamid (who reigned from A.D. 870 until 892) from Mahdiyya, which was not founded until A.D. 910 at the earliest computation, and perhaps not till ten years later, and similar errors are common, especially in what concerns the “heretics,” with whom, as though by some prophetic instinct of his doom, the author seems to have been so painfully preoccupied as almost to lose his sense of historical proportion and perspective. Indeed, it seems by no means unlikely that his vehement denunciations of their doctrines, practices, and aims may have supplied them with the strongest incentive to his assassination.
I have already briefly alluded in the previous chapter to one of the most remarkable men of this epoch whose literary work we must now consider. I mean Náṣir-i-Khusraw, the poet,
Náṣir-iKhusraw. traveller, and Isma'ílí propagandist. About his personality there has grown up a mass of legend mainly derived from the spurious autobiography prefixed to the Tabríz edition of his Díwán. This tissue of fables, mingled, apparently, with details drawn from the lives of other eminent persons, and concluding with an account, put in the mouth of Náṣir's brother, of his death at the age of 140 and his supernatural burial by the Jinn, occurs, as Ethé has pointed out, * in three recensions, of which the longest and most detailed occurs in Taqí Káshí's Khuláṣatu'l-ash'ár, and the shortest in the Haft Iqlím and the Safína, while that given by Luṭf 'Alí Beg in his Átash-kada stands midway between the two. A translation of the recension last mentioned was published by N. Bland in vol. vii of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 360 et seqq., and the substance of it (omitting the marvels) is given by Schefer in the Introduction to his edition and translation of the Safar-náma (pp. viii-xvii). As it stands it is probably, as Ethé supposes, a product of the ninth or tenth century of the hijra (fifteenth or sixteenth of the Christian era); for the Haft Iqlím is apparently the earliest work in which it occurs, and this was written in A.H. 1002 (A.D. 1593-94). But at a much earlier date many legends gathered round Náṣir-i-Khusraw, as we see from the account of him contained in al-Qazwíní's Átháru'l-Biláa (pp. 328-9, s.v. Yumgán), a geographical work composed about A.D. 1276. Here he is represented as a King of Balkh, driven out by his subjects, who took refuge in Yumgán, which he adorned with wonderful baths, gardens, and talismanic figures, whereon none might gaze without fear of losing his reason. The bath in particular, which, as the author declares, was still existing in his time, is described in great detail.Here is one of the picturesque incidents with which the Pseudo-Autobiography is adorned, and which, in all its essentials, occurs in a manuscript dated A.H. 714 (=A.D. 1314-15) preserved in the India Office Library:—*
“After much trouble we reached the city of Níshápúr, there being with us a pupil of mine, an expert and learned metaphysician.
Specimen of the PseudoAutobiography. Now in the whole city of Níshápúr there was no one who knew us, so we came and took up our abode in a mosque. As we walked through the city, at the door of every mosque by which we passed men were cursing me, and accusing me of heresy and atheism; but the disciple knew nothing of their opinion concerning me. One day, as I was passing through the bázár, a man from Egypt saw and recognised me, saying, ‘Art thou not Náṣir-i-Khusraw, and is not this thy brother Abú Sa'íd?’ In terror I seized his hand, and, engaging him in conversation, led him to my lodging. Then I said, ‘Take thirty thousand mithqáls of gold, and refrain from divulging the secret.’ When he had consented, I at once bade my familiar spirit produce that sum, gave it to him, and thrust him forth from my lodging. Then I went with Abú Sa'íd to the bázár, halted at the shop of a cobbler, and gave him my shoes to repair, that we might go forth from the city, when suddenly a clamour made itself heard near at hand, and the cobbler hurried off in the direction whence the sounds proceeded. After a while he returned with a piece of flesh on the point of his bradawl. ‘What,’ inquired I, ‘was the disturbance, and what is this piece of flesh?’ ‘Why,’ replied the cobbler, ‘it seems that one of Náṣir-i-Another fictitious episode in the Pseudo-Autobiography describes how Náṣir-i-Khusraw, having fled from Egypt to Another fiction of the PseudoAutobiography. Baghdád, is made wazír to the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Qádir bi'lláh, and sent by him as an ambassador to the Maláḥida, or “Heretics” (i.e., Assassins), of Gílán, who discover his identity with the philosopher whose works they admire, load him with unwelcome honours, and refuse to let him depart until, to secure his release, he compasses the death of their king by magical means, and afterwards, by the invocation of the planet Mars, destroys the army of his pursuers. One knows not which to admire the more, the supernatural features of this episode, or the gross anachronisms which it involves, for the Caliph al-Qádir died in A.D. 1031, while, as we have seen, the Assassins first established themselves in Gílán in A.D. 1090. One feature of this legend, however, seems to be a misplaced reminiscence of an incident which really belongs to the life of another later philosopher, Naṣíru'd-Dín of Ṭús, who, as is well known, actually did dedicate the original, or first edition, of his celebrated Ethics (the Akhláq-i-Náṣirí) to the Isma'ílí governor of Quhistán, Naṣíru'd-Dín 'Abdu'r-Raḥím b. Abí Manṣúr. Similarity of names, combined with a vague knowledge of Náṣir-i-Khusraw's connection with the Isma'ílí sect, no doubt suggested to the compiler of the Pseudo-Autobiography the idea of making Náṣir-i-Khusraw write a commentary on the Qur'án explaining the sacred text according to the heretical views of his host, which unfortunate undertaking is represented as the cause of the disaster at Níshápúr mentioned above.
Leaving the Pseudo-Autobiography, we must now proceed
to consider Náṣir-i-Khusraw's genuine works, the prose Safar-