“His discernment reached such a point that in his time the accursed heretics * sought for a decision (fatwá) * on the following case which they had committed to writing: ‘What say the leaders of Religion as to a case where both plaintiff and defendant are content to abide by what is just and right, when a witness appears and bears testimony opposed alike to the claim of the plaintiff and the admission of the defendant? Can such testimony be lawfully heard, or not?’ This question, written on a piece of paper, they sent to the two Sacred Cities (Mecca and al-Madína); and the leading theologians of the Sacred Cities, Muḥammad Juwayní and Muḥammad Ghazálí, together with the Imáms of Baghdád and Syria, all wrote in reply that such testimony could not be adduced or heard. But he [i.e., ar-Rúyání], having glanced at the paper, turned his face towards the man [who had brought it], and ex­claimed, ‘O ill-starred wretch! So much thankless labour will bring calamity upon thee!’ Then he ordered him to be detained, and assembled all the judges and religious leaders. ‘This enquiry,’ said he, ‘was written by the Heretics. The plaintiff and defendant are respectively the Jews and the Christians, and the witness they mean is our Apostle (Muḥammad, on whom be the Blessings of God and His Peace; for the glorious Qu'rán bears testimony as follows: “And they neither slew Him [i.e., Jesus Christ] nor crucified Him, but it was made so to appear to them.”’ * They then enquired of the heretic, who admitted that for a whole year he had been sent hither and thither through the world to seek an answer to this enquiry. He was then stoned to death by the people of Ámul, and Fakhru'l-Islám [ar-Rúyání] enjoined the cursing of the progeny of the Heretics, until they sent [Fidá'ís, or Assassins] who treacherously slew that martyred Imám with blows of their knives at the door of one of the chapels of the Great Mosque of Ámul, on that side where stands the minaret. The knife is still preserved in his rooms in the College, where I have repeatedly seen it.”

The object of the Assassins evidently was to stultify the orthodox doctors of Islám by proving their law to be in contradiction with their theology. The Christians, who are the plaintiffs in the case, accuse the Jews, who are the defendants, of crucifying Jesus Christ. The Jews admit this, and are therefore agreed as to the facts, and are prepared to abide by the consequences. The Prophet Muḥammad, here following certain Gnostic sects, denies that Christ was really crucified by the Jews, and so “bears testimony opposed alike to the claim of the plaintiff and the admission of the defendant”; but, though all Muhammadans accept his testimony on this as on all other matters, they have, accord­ing to the decision of their own chief theologians and doctors, no justification for so doing. Ar-Rúyání's quickness in detecting the trap set by the “Heretics” for the moment confounded them, and ultimately led to his own death.

We have already sufficiently discussed that very artificial and ingenious style of composition which characterises all Maqámát,

al-Ḥarírí. whether written in Arabic, as by Badí‘u’z-Zamán al-Hamadhání and al-Ḥarírí, or in Persian, as by Ḥamídu'd-Dín of Balkh, and need not stop here to consider the work of al-Ḥarírí, who, by common consent, is the King, as Badí‘u’z-Zamán al-Hamadhání is the Pioneer of all those who devoted themselves to this species of exaggerated euphuism. Moreover, al-Ḥarírí's work has been so much discussed, com­mentated, and translated, both in the East and in Europe, that only an account thereof far lengthier than this volume could afford to give would dispense the reader who desires to look into the matter from having recourse to such materials as are given by de Sacy in his monumental edition (Paris, 1822); or by Chenery in the hundred pages of Introduction which he prefixed to the first volume of his Translation of the “Assemblies” or Maqámát (London, 1867); or to the excellent German paraphrases of the Maqáma style which will be found in Von Kremer's Culturgeschichte des Orients (vol. ii, pp. 470-476), * and other works specially devoted to Arabic literature. Zamakhsharí, of whom we shall speak very shortly, solemnly asseverates, in a verse which de Sacy cites on the title-page of his edition, that al-Ḥarírí's Maqámát deserve to be written in gold, and this is the general opinion of his countrymen and co-religionists, though not of several dis­tinguished European Orientalists. For better or worse, however, the materials available for the study of these Maqámát are singularly copious. As to their author, it is sufficient to say that he was born at Baṣra in A.D. 1054-55, and died there in A.D. 1121-22; that he was of insignificant and even displeasing appearance, and had an unpleasant trick of plucking hairs from his beard when he was engaged in thought; and that he enjoyed the friendship and patronage of the amiable and talented wazír Anúshirwán b. Khálid, at whose instigation the Maqámát were written, and to whom they were dedicated.*

This Wazír, on account of his excellent historical mono­graph on the Seljúqs (edited by Houtsma in the recension of Anúshirwán b. Khálid. al-Bundárí as the second volume of his Recueil de Textes relatifs á l'Histoire des Seldjoucides, Leyden, 1889), deserves some mention in this place. Nearly all that is known about him has been set forth by Houtsma in his preface (pp. xi-xxx) to the above-mentioned work, but the following notice, which I found in a manuscript of the 'Uyúnu'l-Akhbár (“Primary Sources of Historical Data”) preserved in the Cambridge University Library (Add. 2,922, f. 126^a), and published at pp. 861-2 of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1902, has not, I think, hitherto been translated. It occurs under the year A.H. 532 (= A.D. 1137-38), and runs as follows:—

“And in this year died Anúshirwán b. Khálid b. Muḥammad of Káshán [who bore the kunya] Abú Naṣr, the Wazír. He was born at Ray in A.H. 459 (= A.D. 1066-67), and, after various vicissitudes, became wazír to Sulṭán Maḥmúd [b. Muḥammad b.] Maliksháh in A.H. 517 (= A.D. 1123-24), with whom he came to Baghdád, where he took up his abode. He used to live in the Precinct of Ṭáhir * in a house on the shore of the Tigris. He was dismissed from, and again restored to, his position of Minister: then the Sulṭán arrested him and cast him into bonds, but subsequently released him. The Caliph al-Mustarshid bi'lláh made him his Minister in the latter part of A.H. 526 (= A.D. 1132), and he continued his administration until he was dismissed in the year A.H. 528 (= A.D. 1134), after which he abode in his house in the Precinct of Ṭáhir, honoured by all, * until he died in this year (A.H. 532 = A.D. 1137-38). He was one of the most accomplished of public men, characterised by generosity and nobility, and a friend to men of learning. He summoned to his house Abu'l-Qásim b. al-Ḥuṣayn, in order that his sons might hear from him the Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal according to the reading of Abú Muḥammad ibnu'l-Khashsháb, and granted permission to the general public to be present at these lectures, of which permission great multitudes availed themselves. Ibn Jakíná the poet com­posed both panegyrics and satires on him, amongst the former, the following:—

“‘They asked me who was the greatest of men in worth:
I replied, “Their master, Anúshirwán;
And if he shows humility amongst us
That is but one of the signs of him whose rank is high;
For when the stars are reflected on the surface of water
It is not that they are lowly situated.”’

“The Qáḍí Náṣiḥu'd-Dín of Arraján wrote to ask him for a tent. Not having one, he sent him a purse containing five hundred dínárs, bidding him buy a tent. Al-Arrajání replied as follows:—

“‘Praise God for the bounty of such a man as Abú Khálid,
Who hath revived generosity for us after that it had departed.
I asked him for a tent wherein I might take shelter,
And he lavished on me a tent-full of gold!’

“He it was who caused the Maqámát of al-Ḥarírí to be composed, and to him does al-Ḥarírí allude at the beginning of his Maqámát where he says: ‘Then suggested to me one whose suggestion is as a decree, and obedience to whom is as a prize’ … And Anúshirwán was a Shí'ite—may God deal gently with him!”