A literary history of Persia - The Literary History of Persia, Volume 3

“Sharafu'd-Dín,” says Rieu, “attained a position of great eminence, no less by his learning and piety than by the rare elegance of his style, and was for a long time the favourite companion of Sháh-rukh and of his son Mírzá Ibráhím Sulṭán. It is related in the Ta'ríkh-i-Rashídí ^364a that the former entrusted to his keeping and able tuition Yúnus Khán, the young Khán of the Moghuls, who had been captured in 832/1428-9 by Mírzá Ulugh Bey, and who stayed with Sharafu'd-Dín till the latter's death. In 846/1442-3 Mírzá Sulṭán Muḥammad, who had been appointed Governor of 'Iráq and established his residence in Qum, invited Sharafu'd-Dín, who was then teaching crowds of pupils in his native city, to his court, and kept him there as an honoured guest and trusted adviser. When some years later, in 850/1446-7, the Prince having raised the standard of rebellion, Sháh-rukh came with an army to Iṣfahán to enforce his submission, and ordered several of his ill-advised councillors for execution, Sharafu'd-Dín, who was also accused of having incited the Prince to revolt, was rescued from danger by the timely interference of Mírzá 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, who, on the plea that his father, Mírzá Ulugh Bey, required the Mawláná's assistance for his astronomical observations, despatched him to Samarqand. After the death of Sháh-rukh, Sulṭán Muḥammad, then master of Khurásán, gave him leave to go back to Yazd. Sharafu'd-Dín returned to his birthplace in 853/1449-1450, and settled in the neighbouring village of Taft. He died there in 858/1454, and was buried in the precincts of a college built by himself and called after him Sharafiyya.”

Some manuscripts of the Ẓafar-náma contain “an Introduction treating of the genealogy of the Turkish Kháns and of the history of Chingíz Khán and his descendants down to the time of Tímúr.” ^364b This was compiled in 822/1419, six years earlier than the Ẓafar-náma. It is instructive to compare parallel sections of the histories of Niẓámu'd-Dín Shámí and Sharafu'd-Dín 'Alí Yazdí, so as to see how the latter has amplified and embroidered the work of his predecessor; and, did space allow, it would not be without interest to offer side by side translations of such parallel passages, e.g. the account of the Battle of Angora (June 16, 1402), which resulted in the overthrow and capture of the Ottoman Sulṭán Báyazíd, called “the Thunder-bolt” (Yil-dirim ). Since Sharafu'd-Dín's later work, for all its faults of taste and style, probably contains all or nearly all the matter chronicled by Niẓám-i-Shámí, it is doubtful whether the work of the latter, though more desirable in itself on account of its priority, as well as of its greater simplicity and concision, will ever be published.

Before concluding this chapter, it is necessary to say The Ḥurúfí Sect something about the strange heretical sect of the Ḥurúfís (“Literalists”) invented and propagated by a certain Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád in the reign of Tímúr; a sect worthy of attention not only on account of its extraordinary doctrines and considerable literature (including not a little poetry, especially in Turkish), but on account of events of some historical importance, persecutions on the one hand and assassinations on the other, to which it gave rise. The sect does not seem to have maintained its position long in Persia, but it passed over into Turkey and there found a suitable medium for its development in the order of the Bektáshí dervishes, who are at the present day its chief if not its only representatives.

Concerning this sect and its founder the Persian historians of the period are unaccountably silent, and the only reference to it which I have met with occurs in the Mujmal of Faṣíḥí of Khwáf under the year 829/1426, and in a fuller form in the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar, ^366a which places the event described a year later. On the 23rd Rabí' ii, 829 (March 4, 1426), or on the same day of the month of the following year (Feb. 21, 1427), a certain Aḥmad-i-Lur, described as “a disciple (muríd) of Mawláná Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád,” on the usual pretence of presenting a petition to Sháh-rukh, Tímúr's son and successor, stabbed him in the stomach as he was leaving the mosque at Herát, without, however, inflicting a mortal wound. The would-be assassin was killed on the spot by one of the King's servants named 'Alí Sulṭán Qúchín; a fortunate thing for him, as he was undoubtedly saved thereby from torture, but subsequently a matter of regret to Mírzá Baysunqur and the nobles charged with the investigation of the matter, who were thus deprived of a valuable clue. However, they found in the dead man's pocket the key of a certain house, the tenants of which being examined cast suspicion on a certain Mawláná Ma'rúf, a notable calligraphist, scholar and wit, who had formerly been in the service of Sulṭán Aḥmad-i-Jalá'ir at Baghdád, and afterwards in that of Mírzá Iskandar of Shíráz, whence Sháh-rukh had brought him to Herát. Here he had associated with many men of letters, dervishes and others, and apparently amongst them with Aḥmad-i-Lur. Báysunqur Mírzá, who had a private grudge against him, wished to put him to death, but, after he had been brought beneath the gallows several times, he was finally imprisoned in a dungeon of the Castle of Ikhtiyáru'd-Dín. Others, more unfortunate, were put to death and their bodies burned. Amongst these was Khwája 'Aḍudu'd-Dín, the grandson of Faḍlu'lláh of Astar-ábád the Ḥurúfí. The poet Sayyid Qásimu'l-Anwár, of whom we shall speak in another chapter, also incurred some suspicion, and was expelled from Herát by Mírzá Báy-sunqur.

One of the few notices of Faḍlu'lláh “al-Ḥurúfí” which Account of Faḍlu'lláh the Ḥurúfí in Ibn Ḥajar's Inbá I have met with occurs in the Inbá of Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalání (died 852/1448-9) ^367a and runs as follows:

“Faḍlu'lláh, the son of Abú Muḥammad of Tabríz, was one of those innovators who subject themselves to ascetic discipline. Imbued with heretical doctrine, he finally evolved the sect known as the Ḥurúfís, pretending that the Letters [Ḥurúf] of the alphabet were metamorphoses of men, together with many other idle and baseless fancies. He invited the Amír Tímúr the Lame [Tamerlane] to adopt his heresies, but he sought to slay him. This came to the knowledge of his [Tímúr's] son [Míránsháh] with whom he [Faḍlu'lláh] had sought refuge, and he struck off his head with his own hand. When this was made known to Tímúr, he demanded his head and body and burned them both in this year 804/1401-2.”

The doctrines of Faḍlu'lláh were originally set forth in a most extraordinary book, written partly in Arabic, partly The Jáwidán -i-Kabír in Persian, and partly in a dialect of Persian, entitled Jáwidán-i-Kabír (“the Great Eternal”), of which manuscripts exist in the library of St Sofia at Constantinople, at Leyden, in the British Museum (Or. 5957), in the Cambridge University Library (EE. 1. 27), and in my own collection. The first European description of this curious book was, I believe, the brief notice of the Leyden MS. contained in vol. iv (p. 298) of the old Leyden Catalogue of 1866, the author of which observes “alternum exemplar non vidi obvium.” A much fuller account of the work was published by M. Clément Huart in the Journal Asiatique for 1889 ^367b under the title Notice d'un manuscrit pehlevi-musulman, and was based on the Constantinople MS., which was apparently labelled not by its proper title but as “Questions connected with the Qur'án.” M. Huart did not concern himself with the contents so much as with the language of this manuscript, which he did not at that time recognize as the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, or as the chief text-book of the Ḥurúfís, or as the work of Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád. In my Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge, published in 1896, I devoted a long notice (pp. 69-86) to our excellent copy of the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, which was “bought at Constantinople, Oct. 1681, price ten Lion dollars.” A feature of special interest in this manuscript is an appendix containing accounts, written in a dialect of Persian explained to some extent by interlinear glosses in red, of a series of dreams seen presumably by Faḍlu'lláh himself. Many of these are dated, the earliest in 765/1363-4, “at a time before the explanation of visions and interpretation of dreams was vouchsafed”; the latest in 796/1393-4. They thus cover a period of thirty years, and contain references to a number Persons and places mentioned in connection with Faḍlu'lláh's visions of places and persons. Amongst the former are Astarábád, Baghdád, Bákú, Burújird, Dámghán, Egypt, Fírúz-kúh, 'Iráq, Iṣfahán (especially a building there called 'Imárat-i-Ṭúkhjí or Ṭúqchí), Khwárazm, Mesopotamia (Jazíra), Qazwín, Samarqand, Tabríz, and the two celebrated strongholds of the Assassins, Rúdbár (near Astarábád) and the Fortress of Gird-i-Kúh. Amongst the latter are Amír Tímúr (Tamerlane), “King” Uways, ^368a Túqtámish Khán, ^368b Pír Páshá, Sayyid 'Imádu'd-Dín (i.e. the Turkish Ḥurúfí poet Nesímí), ^368c Sayyid Shamsu 'd-Dín, Sayyid Táju'd-Dín, Khwája Fakhru'd-Dín, Khwája Ḥasan, Khwája Báyazíd, Mawláná Kamálu'd-Dín, Mawlána Maḥmúd, Mawláná Majdu'd-Dín, Mawláná Qiwámu'd-Dín, Mawláná Ṣadru'd-Dín, Shaykh Ḥasan, Shaykh Manṣúr, Malik 'Izzu'd-Dín, Amír Shams, Darwísh Tawakkul, Dar-Wísh Musáfir, Darwísh Kamálu'd-Dín, 'Abdu'r-Raḥím, 'Ab-du'l-Qádir, Ḥusayn Kiyá, 'Umar-i-Sulṭániyya, and Yúsuf of Dámghán.

The accounts of these dreams, even with the aid of the interlinear glosses which explain most of the words in dialect, are very elliptical and difficult to understand, being apparently mere memoranda sufficient to recall the vision to the memory of the writer. They seem to form no part of the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, and do not, I think, occur in most copies of it.

On Oct. 23, 1896, soon after the publication of my Catalogue, my friend the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb called my attention in a letter to the fact that in several Turkish biographies of poets (such as those of Laṭífí and 'Áshiq Chelebi) the Turkish poet Nesímí mentioned in the last paragraph but one is described as “the Ḥurúfí,” and his connection with Faḍlu'lláh is established by some of his own verses, e.g.:

“If thou would'st gain knowledge of wisdom's lore, come hither, O sage;
Hearken to the speech of Nesímí and behold the Grace of God”
[Faḍlu'lláh]!

Mr Gibb, following up this clue, devoted a chapter (the Gibb's researches into the history of the Turkish Ḥurúfís seventh, pp. 336-388) in the first volume of his History of Ottoman Poetry to the Ḥurúfís, and especially to two of the Turkish Ḥurúfí poets, Nesímí ^369a and Refí'í, of whom the latter was a disciple of the former. Mr Gibb was unable to trace the Ḥurúfís beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, but gives (pp. 381 et seqq.) two interesting extracts from Turkish chronicles showing the fierce persecution of which the sect was on several occasions the object. The first extract (from the Memoirs of Turkish Divines entitled Shaqá'iqu'n-Nu'-mániyya , which Gibb renders as “the Crimson Peony”) relates how the Persian Muftí of Constantinople, Fakhru'd-Dín-i-'Ajamí, a pupil of as-Sayyid ash-Sharíf al-Jurjání, ^370a seized and caused to be burned to death as heretics certain Ḥurúfís who had succeeded in gaining the confidence and favour of the reigning Sulṭán Muḥammad II, the “Conqueror” of Constantinople, who, apparently, for all his power, was unable to protect them from the fury of the 'ulamá and the fanaticism of the orthodox. It is even related that the Muftí was so carried away by his religious zeal that, in blowing the fire kindled for his victims, he singed the long beard for which he was conspicuous. The second extract (from Laṭífí's Biographies of Turkish poets) denounces the heresies and “blasphemous nonsense” of a Ḥurúfí poet named Ta-manná'í, who with others of the sect was put to death by sword and fire in the reign of Sulṭán Báyazíd, who, as we have seen above, ^370b was defeated by Tímúr at the Battle of Angora in 804/1402 and died soon after. As it was in this same year that Faḍlu'lláh the Ḥurúfí was put to death, ^370c it is evident that his doctrines had become widely diffused (from Astarábád to Adrianople) even during his life-time, and that they aroused the fiercest execration of the orthodox. Mr Gibb says that as he had failed to discover any record of later movements on the part of the Ḥurúfís, he was inclined to think that the activity of the sect did not extend much beyond the close of the fifteenth century; and that such organization as it may have possessed was probably de- The Bektáshí Order of dervishes is the present repository of Ḥurúfí doctrines stroyed in the persecutions to which it was subjected in the reign of Báyazíd. But as a matter of fact their activity continues down to the present day, the Bektáshí dervishes being still the representatives and repositories of the Ḥurúfí doctrines. As lately as 1291/1874-5 there was published a Turkish denunciation of the sect entitled “the Revealer of Mysteries and Repeller of Miscreants: a Refutation of the Doctrines and Practices of the Ḥurúfís and Bektáshís,” by Isḥáq Efendi, who is very well informed concerning the matters about which he writes and gives a clear and accurate account of the doctrines which he denounces. He divides his treatise into three chapters, of which the first treats of the origin of Faḍl[u'lláh] the Ḥurúfí, and the principles and laws of certain of the Bektáshís; the second of the blasphemies of Firishta-záda's Jáwidán; and the third of the blasphemies contained in the other Jáwidáns. He mentions a persecution of the Bektáshís by Sulṭán Maḥmúd in 1241/1825-6, in which the Turkish poet 'Árif Ḥikmat Bey acted as chief inquisitor; and says that he was moved to the compilation and publication of his work by the impudence of the Bektáshís in daring to print and publish the 'Ishq-náma, or “Book of Love,” of Firishta-záda ('Abdu'l-Majíd ibn Firishta 'Izzu'd-Dín) in 1288/1871-2. He says that “the books which these persons (i.e. the Bektáshís or Ḥurúfís) call Jáwidán are six in number, of which one was composed by their original misleader Faḍlu'lláh the Ḥurúfí, while the other five are the works of his Khalífas” (Vice-gerents or Successors). “In these five books,” he adds, “their heresies and blasphemies are very evident, and they are wont to teach and study them secretly amongst themselves”; but “Firishta-záda in his Jáwidán, entitled 'Ishq-náma, did in some measure conceal his blasphemies.”

“After a while,” continues the author, “the evil doctrines of those heretics became known amongst men, and the son of Tímúr [viz. Míránsháh] caused Faḍl the Ḥurúfí to be put to death, after which he tied a rope to his legs, had him dragged publicly through the streets and bazaars, and rid this nether world of his vile existence.

“Thereupon his Khalífas (vicars or lieutenants) agreed to disperse themselves through the lands of the Muslims, and devoted themselves to corrupting and misleading the people of Islám. He of those Khalífas who bore the title of al-'Alí al-A'lá (‘the High, the Supreme’) came to the monastery of Ḥájji Bektásh in Anatolia and there lived in seclusion, secretly teaching the Jáwidán to the inmates of the monastery, with the assurance that it represented the doctrine of Ḥájji Bektásh the saint (walí). The inmates of the monastery, being ignorant and foolish, accepted the Jáwidán, notwithstanding that its obvious purport was the denial of all divine obligations and the pandering to the lusts of the flesh; named it ‘the secret’; and enjoined the utmost reticence concerning it, to such a degree that if anyone enters their order and afterwards reveals ‘the secret,’ they consider his life as forfeit. By this their so-called ‘secret’ are meant certain blasphemous passages in the Jáwidán, hinted at by detached letters like alif (), wáw (), jím (), and zayn (), for the interpreting of which symbols they have compiled a treatise entitled ‘the Key of Life’ (Miftáḥu'l-Ḥayát). This they name ‘the Secret,’ and should one possess it he understands the Jáwidán, which without this aid is unintelligible. They were thus careful to conceal their secret for fear lest the doctors of religion ('ulamá) should obtain some inkling of its nature and should suppress it; and thus, since 800/1397-8, they have succeeded in secretly seducing many.”

The author then goes on to expose and denounce the different tricks and stratagems by which they strive to win men, both Muslims and non-Muslims, to their heresies, and adds:

“From all this it is plain that these people [the Bektáshís] are not really Shí'ites, but are essentially a polytheistic sect [Mushrikún], who, though unable to win over to themselves the Jews and Christians, however much they affirm their doctrines, do attract some of those Muslims who are partial to the Shí'ite doctrine. So when I questioned certain Bektáshí neophytes, they declared themselves to be of the Ja'farí [i.e. the Imámí or Shí'a] sect, and knew nothing of the mysteries of the Jáwidán, imagining themselves to be of the Shí'a. But when I enquired of a learned Persian traveller named Mírzá Ṣafá his opinion concerning the Bektáshís, he replied, ‘I have associated much with them, and have carefully investigated their religion, and they deny [the necessity of] actions prescribed by the Holy Law.’ He thus decisively declared their infidelity. We take refuge with God from their ignorance!”

During the Easter Vacation of 1897 I had the opportunity of examining with some care two Ḥurúfí manuscripts belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, ^372a which I described in the J.R.A.S. for 1898 (pp. 61-94) in an article entitled “Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfí Sect.” One of these MSS., dated 970/1562-3,

Nine years later, in the J.R.A.S. for 1907, I published another article on this subject entitled “Further Notes on the Literature of the Ḥurúfís and their connection with the Bektáshí Order of Dervishes,” in which I described 43 Ḥurúfí MSS. recently acquired by the British Museum, the Cambridge University Library, and myself. Concerning the manner in which these MSS. were obtained I then wrote as follows:

“The connection of the Ḥurúfís with the Bektáshís first became known to me in the following manner. About three years after the publication of the article to which I have referred above, a certain dealer in Oriental manuscripts in London, a native of Baghdád, from whom I had already purchased a number of MSS., invited me to furnish him with a list of my desiderata, in order that he might submit the same to his correspondents in the East. I did so, and mentioned in my list the Jáwidán-náma or any other Ḥurúfí books. Shortly afterwards (in Feb.-March, 1901) he forwarded to me a parcel of manuscripts in which was included a copy of this work (now in the British Museum, marked Or. 5957) besides some other books of the sort in question. The prices set on these MSS. were high, but some half-dozen were secured by the Cambridge University Library, while five or six more were purchased by the British Museum, and now bear the class-marks Or. 5957-Or. 5961.

“The comparatively high prices realized by these MSS. seem to have stimulated the search for other similar ones, and gradually, as the supply not only continued but increased, it became clear that these Ḥurúfí books existed in considerable quantities, and were still widely read and copied in the East, especially in Turkey. Prices consequently fell rapidly, and latterly few of these MSS. have fetched more than £2 or £3 in the limited market where the demand for them existed. Nor was it long before we discovered that it was from the Bektáshí dervishes that they were, in almost all cases, directly or indirectly derived, and that it is amongst the members of this Order that the Ḥurúfí doctrines flourish at the present day.”

Amongst the MSS. described in this article are two or three treatises dealing with the biography and teachings of Ḥájji Bektásh, from whom the Order in question derives its name, and who died in 738/1337-8, ^374a two years before the birth of Faḍlu'lláh the Ḥurúfí. This latter date, with five others connected with the early history of the sect, is recorded on the fly-leaf of one of the British Museum MSS. (Or. 6381) as follows:

(1) Birth of Faḍlu'lláh, 740/1339-1340.

(2) Manifestation or annunciation of his doctrine, 788/ 1386-7.

(3) Martyrdom of Faḍlu'lláh, 796/1393-4, aged 56 lunar years.

(4) Death of his Khalífa “Ḥaḍrat-i-'Aliyyu'l-A'lá,” 822/1419.

(5) Death of Tímúr's son Míránsháh (whom the Ḥurúfís called “Antichrist,” Dajjál, and “the King of Snakes,” Má-rán-sháh ), who slew Faḍlu'lláh, 803/1400-1.

From a verse on the same page it would appear that Faḍlu'lláh performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in 775/1373-4. On a page of another of these MSS. in the British Museum (Or. 6380, f. 24) is inscribed a curious document which appears to be Faḍlu'lláh's last Will and Testament. From this, of which the text and translation are printed in full in the article in question, ^374b it would appear that he was put to death at Shírwán. The article concludes with a complete index of all the books and persons mentioned in it. The titles of most of the books, whether Persian or Turkish, end in náma; e.g. Ádam-náma (“the Book of Adam”), Ákhirat- náma (“the Book of the Hereafter”), 'Arsh-náma (“the Book of the Throne”), Bashárat-náma (“the Book of Good Tidings”), etc.

In 1909 there was published in the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial” Series a volume (vol. ix) containing translations into French of several Ḥurúfí treatises, with explanatory notes, etc., by M. Clément Huart, followed by a study of the Ḥurúfí doctrines (also in French) by Dr Riẓá Tevfíq, commonly known in Turkey as “Feylesúf Riẓá” or “Riẓá the Philosopher,” a man remarkable for his attainments in the learning of both East and West, and an adept in all that appertains to the various Dervish Orders of Turkey, especially the Bektáshís. This volume, by far the most important independent work on the subject, is a rich mine of information on the strange and fantastic doctrines of a sect which, though its very name seems to have been unknown in Europe twenty years ago, played a not unimportant part in the history of Western Asia. Its characteristic doctrines, equally ingenious and grotesque, are pretty fully discussed in the books and articles mentioned above, to which such as desire fuller knowledge of them may be referred.

The century which we are now about to consider is in its latter part one of those chaotic and anarchical periods which,

When examined more closely, this period of a century is seen to fall naturally into two unequal halves, divided by The death of Sháh-rukh in 1446 divides this period into two dissimilar parts the death of Tímúr's third son Sháh-rukh in 850/1446-7. As long as he lived and reigned, he succeeded, in spite of numerous revolts on the part of his kinsmen, in maintaining almost in its integrity the empire conquered by his father, which, however, after his death underwent rapid disintegration at the hands first of the “Black” and then of the “White Sheep” Turkmáns, and lastly of the Uzbeks, until these in their turn, together with the remnants of the House of Tímúr, were swept aside by the victorious Sháh Isma'íl the Ṣafawí. But though the House of Tímúr was driven out of Persia,

From the political point of view the most important representatives of the dynasties mentioned above were Sháh-rukh of the House of Tímúr; Qára Yúsuf of the “Black Sheep” Turkmáns; Úzún Ḥasan of the “White Sheep” Turkmáns; Shaybání Khán of the Uzbeks; and, chief of all, Sháh Isma'íl the founder of the great Ṣafawí

Before considering in greater detail these Turkmán dynasties of the “Black” and “White Sheep,” the history Tímúr's sons of the House of Tímúr, so far as its connection with Persia is concerned, must be briefly traced. Tímúr had four sons and a daughter. Of his sons the eldest, Jahángír, predeceased his father by thirty years; and the second, 'Umar Shaykh Mírzá, by ten years. The third, Mírán-sháh, survived him by three years, but fell into disgrace and appears to have become affected in his reason. The fourth was Sháh-rukh, who practically succeeded his father, and had a long and prosperous reign of forty-three years (807-850/1404-1447). Tímúr's intention was that Jahángír's son Pír Muḥammad should succeed him, but he was defeated by his cousin Khalíl Sulṭán, son of Míránsháh, who succeeded Brief reign of Khalíl Sulṭán in taking possession of Samarqand and gaining the support of several powerful nobles, and was finally murdered two years after his grandfather's death by his trusted minister 'Alí Táz or Pír 'Alí. Khalíl Sulṭán, though not without parts, was undone by his infatuation for the courtesan Shád Malak, whose extravagant whims he was ever ready to gratify, to the disgust of his nobles and officers, who, headed by the two Khudá-dáds and Bardí Beg, presently rose against him, deposed him, and banished him to Káshghar. Thereupon his uncle Sháh-rukh marched in and took possession, but had sufficient kindliness to reunite the unhappy Khalíl to his beloved Shád Malak, who showed her appreciation of his devotion by stabbing herself with a poniard when he died. The two were buried together in the same tomb at Ray. ^382a Khalíl Sulṭán was not only a generous patron of poets but himself wrote verse, of which several specimens are recorded by Dawlatsháh.^382b

Sháh-rukh, who now succeeded to the throne, was born in 779/1377, and was therefore 28 years of age at the time Sháh-rukh (reigned A. D. 1404-1447) of his accession. He had been made governor of Khurásán in his twentieth year (799/1396-7), and was already practically absolute in that province and struck coins in his own name. His dominions were successively enlarged by the addition of Mázandarán (809/1406-7), Transoxiana (811/1408-9), Fárs (817/1414-5), Kirmán (819/1416-7) and Ádharbáyján (823/1420). The attempt on his life by Aḥmad-i-Lur, alluded to in the last chapter, ^382c was made in 830/1427, and he finally died at Ray in 850/1447, after a reign of 43 years at the age of 72. He waged successful wars against the rulers of the “Black Sheep” dynasty, Qára Yúsuf and his son Iskandar, but on the whole, as Sir John Malcolm says, ^382d “he desired not to extend, but to repair, the ravages committed by his father. He rebuilt the walls of the cities of Herát and Merv, and restored almost every town and province in his dominions to prosperity. This Prince also encouraged men of science and learning, and his Court was very splendid. He cultivated the friendship of contemporary monarchs, and we read in the pages of his historian a very curious account of some

SHÁH-RUKH
Add. 7468 (Brit. Mus.), f. 44
To face p. 382

embassies which passed between him and the Emperor of China.”^383a

With this estimate of Sháh-rukh's character the most recent native historian of Persia, Mírzá Muḥammad Ḥusayn Sháh-rukh's character as depicted by Furúghí Khán Zuká'u'l-Mulk, poetically surnamed Furúghí , is in complete agreement. ^383b “After Tímúr,” he says, “his son Mírzá Sháh-rukh sat in the place of his father. He was a successor who was the exact opposite of his predecessor, a peaceful and placable man, never prone to war and contention, save with seditious rebels and such as sought means to create disturbances in the empire, whom he deemed it necessary to suppress. In brief, the Empire founded by Tímúr was refined by the efforts of Mírzá Sháh-rukh, who during a long period busied himself in repairing the devastation wrought by his father, and in informing himself as to the condition of his subjects and compassing their happiness. It is an extraordinary fact that the son of one so hardhearted should be so kindly, amiable, gracious and friendly to learning, showing favour and courtesy to all, especially to scholars and men of parts. Ogotáy Khán, the son of Chingíz Khán, had a somewhat similar disposition and practice, and in particular he has left on the page of history a great reputation for generosity, so that he has been entitled ‘the Ḥátim ^383c of later days’; and we have met with many anecdotes concerning his liberality and tenderness of heart in the pages of former writers.”

Dawlatsháh ^383d is equally flattering, and, with his usual exaggeration, goes so far as to say that “from the time of Adam until this our day no age, period, cycle or moment can be indicated in which the people enjoyed such peace The same according to Dawlatsháh and tranquillity as they did in his [Sháh-rukh's] days.” He adds that such were the virtues of this Prince that he was credited with miraculous gifts and knowledge of the Unseen. Of the two instances of this which Dawlatsháh gives, one rests on the authority of his father, who was one of his familiar attendants. Ultimately, however, according to this writer, Sháh-rukh incurred the Divine displeasure by putting to death three learned and pious men of Iṣfahán whom he suspected of having encouraged his grandson Sulṭán Muḥammad Báysunqur in his revolt against him. These cursed him ere they died, and “the doors of Heaven being open, the prayers of those innocent and illustrious victims were answered; the seed of that highly-placed king was cut off, and the sovereignty returned to its original source.” Amongst the many artists, poets and men of learning contemporary with Sháh-rukh Dawlatsháh ^384a mentions four in particular as conferring special lustre on his court, namely 'Abdu'l-Qádir of Marágha the musician (who is mentioned by Munajjim-báshí ^384b as one of the eminent victims of the plague which afflicted Herát in 838/1434-5), Yúsuf of Andakán the minstrel, Qiwámu'd-Dín the engineer and architect, and Mawláná Khalíl the painter, who in skill was “second only to Mání” (Manes).

The Turkish historian Munajjim-báshí ^384c speaks not less favourably than the writers already cited of Sháh-rukh's The same according to Munajjim-báshí character. “He was,” says he, “a wise, just, prudent and benevolent king, prone to forgive and to do good, devout, temperate and pious, so that alike at home and on the march, nay, even in time of war and battle, he never neglected the morning, noon and evening prayers, while on ‘white days’ and on the first day of each month he used to fast, and on the eve of Fridays, Mondays and Thursdays he used to assemble those who knew the Qur'án by heart and cause them to recite the entire scripture in his presence. During the whole period of his life he never knowingly committed a major sin. He continually sought the society of learned and pious men, on whom he conferred the greatest benefits and favours. He never suffered defeat, but was always favoured by fortune and victorious. To whatever land he went, he first of all used to visit any shrine which might exist there.” His empire, in the words of the same writer, extended “from the confines of China to the frontiers of Rúm (Turkey in Asia), and from the remotest parts of Turkistán to the limits of India.”

Of Sháh-rukh's five sons ^385a only one, Ulugh Beg, survived to succeed him. Of the other four Báysunqur, who died of Báysunqur Mírzá drink (the curse of this family) in 837/1433 at the age of 37, was, perhaps, the most talented, ^385b and the greatest patron of art and learning, to whose court flocked poets, artists, scholars, calligraphists, miniature-painters, book-binders and illuminators from 'Iráq, Fárs, Ádharbáyján, and all parts of Persia. In connection with Persian literature he is chiefly associated with the preface prefixed to the Sháh-náma of Firdawsí in his name and composed for him in 829/1426. The following chronogram of his death is given in the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar:

“In the morning that august prince Báysunqur said to me,
‘Tell tidings of me to the people of the world:
I am gone, and this is the date of my death—
May my father's life be long in the world!’”^386a

Sháh-rukh died near Ray on March 13, 1447, and, as stated above, was succeeded, though not peaceably, by his Ulugh Beg son Ulugh Beg, who had during his father's life-time been governor of Túrán or Turkistán. It was during this period, in 824/1421, that he built at Samarqand his celebrated observatory, where, with the collaboration of four eminent men of learning, Ṣaláḥu'd-Dín Músá, called Qáḍí-Záda-i-Rúmí (“the Turkish Judge's son”); Mullá 'Alá'u'd-Dín 'Alí Qúshjí, the commentator of the Tajríd; Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Jamshíd; and Mu'ínu'd-Dín of Káshán, he compiled the notable astronomical tables known as the Zíj-i-Ulugh Beg, or Zij-i-jadíd-i-Sulṭání, which were probably completed in 841/1437-8, and concerning which full particulars are given by Rieu.^386b

Ulugh Beg, as already indicated, did not at once succeed in establishing his supremacy, which was contested by Ulugh Beg is murdered by his son 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf 'Alá'u'd-Dawla, who seized Herát and cast 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, the son of Ulugh Beg, into prison. Nor did his authority, when established, endure long, for he was killed at the instigation of his son, the above-mentioned 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, on Ramaḍán 10,853 (October 27, 1449) by a certain 'Abbás, the year of this tragic event being given by the chronogram 'Abbás killed [him] ().

'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, not content with the murder of his father, also murdered his brother 'Abdu'l-'Azíz, but did not long 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf profit by his crime, for he in turn was murdered in the ensuing year, 854/1450, by a certain Bábá Ḥusayn, this date, curiously enough, being given by the chronogram Bábá Ḥusayn killed [him] (). Mírkhwánd, in recording this event, cites the well-known dictum of the poet Niẓámí as to the short-lived prosperity of royal parricides:

“The parricide is unworthy of sovereignty:
[Even] if he attains it, he will not survive more than six months.”

“This 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf,” says the Turkish historian Munajjim Báshí, ^387a “was a talented and accomplished man, but very impetuous, blood-thirsty and pitiless, so that men's hearts were turned aside from him. With his death the succession of Ulugh Beg came to an end in Transoxiana.”

From this period onwards until its extinction in Persia the House of Tímúr rapidly declined in power, cohesion 'Abdu'lláh b. Ibráhím Sulṭán b. Sháh-rukh and territorial possessions, and even the succession of rulers is somewhat uncertain, or, to be more precise, it is uncertain which should be accounted supreme and which subordinate. Thus Stanley Lane-Poole ^387b regards 'Abdu'lláh, the son of Ibráhím Sulṭán, the son of Sháh-rukh, as the successor of 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf; while Mírkhwánd substitutes Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim Bábur (not the great Bábur), the son of Báysunqur, the son of Abu'l-Qásim Bábur b. Báysunqur Sháh-rukh. He died in 861/1456-7, having lost 'Iráq, Fárs and Kirmán four years previously to Jahánsháh, son of Qará Yúsuf of the “Black Sheep” Turkmáns, and killed his brother Sulṭán Muḥam-mad, the expelled ruler of Fárs, in battle.

Mírzá 'Alá'u'd-Dawla, another son of Báysunqur, was acting as governor of Herát at the time of his grandfather 'Alá'u'd-Dawla b. Báysunqur Sháh-rukh's death, but, after a certain show of opposition, he made peace with Ulugh Beg and Bábur, and contented himself with the government of a district extending from Khabúshán in Khurásán to Astarábád and Dámghán. In 852/1448-9 he was defeated by Ulugh Beg near Herát and driven into Badakhshán and the Plain of Qipcháq. After various vicissitudes, including sundry wars with his brothers and a period of allegiance to Jahán-sháh, the “Black Sheep” Turkmán and enemy of his House, he finally died in 875/1470-1. His son Ibráhím, having escaped from the custody of his uncle Abu'l-Qásim Bábur, fled to Murgháb and there collected a considerable Ibráhím b. 'Alá'u'd-Dawla army. He occupied Herát and defeated his cousin Mírzá Sháh Maḥmúd, whom he was preparing to crush at Astarábád when be was suddenly attacked by the redoubtable “Black Sheep” Turk-mán Jahánsháh. Abandoning Herát he fled before the invader, but returned on the withdrawal of the latter, only to suffer defeat at the hands of Sultán Abú Sa'íd. He died in 863/1458-9 on the march from Dámghán to Mashhad, and his cousin and rival, the above-mentioned Mírzá Sháh Maḥmúd, was killed in the same year.

Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd, the grandson of Míránsháh, is described by Mírkhwánd in the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá as “supreme amongst Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd b. Sulṭán Muḥammad b. Míránsháh b. Tímúr the princes of the House of Tímúr in high emprise, lofty rank and perfect discernment. He was a friend and patron of scholars, theologians and men of letters, and during the period of his rule the lands of Turkistán, Túrán, Khurásán, Zábulistán, Sístán and Mázandarán attained the zenith of prosperity.” He had in early life been attached to the court of his accomplished kinsman Ulugh Beg, whose son 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, after murdering his father as already related, cast Abú Sa'íd into prison, whence, owing to the negligence of the sentries, he escaped to Bukhárá. When 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf in turn was killed, he marched out from Bukhárá, and, after giving battle to his kinsman Abú Bakr, made himself supreme in Turkistán and Túrán. In 861/1456-7 he captured Herát and put to death Gawhar Shád Khátún. In 862/1457-8 Jahánsháh invaded Khurásán and occupied Herát, but afterwards relinquished it to Abú Sa'íd. Ten years later, in 872/1467-8, when Jahánsháh was defeated and slain by Úzún Ḥasan, of the rival clan of the “White Sheep” Turk-máns, Abú Sa'íd, hoping to profit by this circumstance, and encouraged by representations from 'Iráq, Fárs, Kirmán, Ádharbáyján and other lost provinces, marched westwards against his new rival Úzún Ḥasan, by whom he was finally defeated and taken prisoner near Mayána. After three days his captor, having decided on his destruction, handed him over to Yádigár Muḥammad, who put him to death to avenge the blood of his grandmother Gawhar Shád Khátún. The philosopher Jalálu'd-Dín Dawání, author of the wellknown ethical manual entitled Akhláq-i-Jalálí, commemorated his death in the following chronogram: ^389a

By the Venetian travellers of this period, to whom we are indebted for much interesting information and indepen- Abú Sa'íd called “Busech” by the Venetians dent chronological details, Abú Sa'íd is called “Busech”; while Úzún Ḥasan is called “Ussun Cassano,” “Assimbeo,” or “Assambei” (i.e. Ḥasan Beg), and Jahánsháh “Giansa.” The towns of 'Urfa, Isfahán, Káshán, Qum, Yazd and Kharpút appear as “Orphi,” “Spaham” or “Spaan,” “Cassan,” “Como,” “Jex” and “Carparth.” It should be noted also that, apart from such well-known general histories as the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá and Ḥabíbu's-Siyar, the hitherto unpublished Maṭla'u's-Sa'dayn

Abú Sa'íd was succeeded by two of his sons, Aḥmad and Maḥmúd, who are accounted by Stanley Lane-Poole Aḥmad and Maḥmúd, the sons of Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd the last (eighth and ninth) rulers of the House of Tímúr in Persia and Central Asia. Of these the first ruled in Transoxiana with Samarqand for his capital, and the second in Badakhshán, Khatlán, Tirmidh, etc. Both died, the latter by violence at the hands of the Uzbek Shaybáni Khán, in the last years of the fifteenth century (899/1493-4 and 905/1499-1500 respectively).

Much more important than the two princes last mentioned, from the literary if not from the political point of Sulṭán Ḥusayn b. Mansúr b. Bayqará view, was Sulṭán Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr b. Bayqará, whose court at Herát was one of the most brilliant centres of letters, art and learning which ever existed in Persia. This prince, originally attached to and protected by Ulugh Beg, was, on the death of this ruler and his son 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, cast into prison by Abú Sa'íd, but escaped, joined Abu'l-Qásím Bábur, and fled to Khwárazm or Khiva. In 862/1457-8 he captured Astar-ábád, the capital of the province of Gurgán or Jurján (the ancient Hyrcania) and was there crowned, but recognized Abú Sa'íd as his suzerain and placed himself under his protection. A year later Abú Sa'íd again compelled him to take refuge in Khwárazm and occupied Astarábád, which, however, he shortly afterwards recovered, together with the rest of the provinces of Gurgán and Mázandarán. On the death of Abú Sa'íd, Sulṭán Ḥusayn captured Herát, and was crowned there on Ramaḍán 10, 872 (April 3, 1468), which date is regarded by Munajjim-báshí as the beginning of his 38 years' reign, terminated by his death at the age of seventy years on Monday, 11 Dhu'l-Ḥijja, 911 (May 5, 1506). During the last 20 years of this period he was partly paralysed. His talented minister Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í, who, like his master, was not only a great patron of men of learning and letters but himself a writer of distinction, both in prose and verse, especially in the Turkí language, died on the 12th of Jumáda ii, 906 (January 3, 1501) at the age of 62. An excellent monograph on his life and literary activities was published by M. Belin in the Journal Asiatique for 1861, and reprinted in the form of a separate pamphlet. ^391a Sulṭán Ḥusayn, besides his literary tastes, had a great passion for pigeons, fighting-cocks and other birds, and, like so many of his House, was much addicted to wine.

It still remains to mention one of the most notable of all the descendants of Tímúr, namely Ẓahíru'd-Dín Muḥam- Ẓahíru'd-Dín Bábur mad Bábur, who, though he never ruled in Persia, was the founder of a new and splendid Tímúrid empire in India, the representatives of which, commonly known in Europe as the “Great Moguls,” included such noble princes as Humáyún, Akbar, Jahángír, Sháh-Jahán and Awrang-Zíb 'Álamgír, and which, though gradually shorn alike of its glories and its virtues, continued to exist until the great Indian Mutiny in 1857. Until the early part of the eighteenth century their magnificent court at Delhi continued to attract a great number of eminent Persian poets and men of letters during a period when fuller appreciation and more liberal patronage of talent was to be found at Dihlí than at Iṣfahán.

Of the life of Bábur we possess singularly full and authentic details in the autobiographical memoir generally Bábur's autobiography known as the Bábur-náma, or “Book of Bábur” which he composed in the Turkí or Chaghatáy language. Of the original Turkí text of this remarkable work a printed edition was published by Ilminsky at Kazan in 1857; ^391b while a fac-simile of the then newly-discovered Ḥaydarábád codex was edited by Mrs Beveridge for the trustees of the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Fund” in 1905. ^392a This Turkí text has been translated into French by M. Pavet de Courteille, and was published at Paris in 1871. There also exists a Persian translation of the original, known as the Wáqi'át (or Túzuk)-i-Bábarí, made at the request of the great Emperor Akbar, Bábur's grandson, by his accomplished general Mírzá 'Abdu'r-Raḥím Khán-Khánán in 998/1589-90, ^392b on which Dr John Leyden and Mr William Erskine's well-known English version, published in London in 1826, is based. Besides this notable and most authoritative work, we have the very valuable and Mírzá Ḥaydar Dughlát's Memoirs illuminating Memoir of Bábur's cousin Mírzá Ḥaydar Dughlát, now accessible to the English reader in Sir E. Denison Ross's translation, edited, with Preface, Introduction, Commentary, Notes and a Map, by the late Mr Ney Elias, formerly H.B.M. Consul-General for Khurásán and Sístán, and published in London in 1898 with the title A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, being the Ta'ríkh-i-Rashídí of Mírzá Muḥammad Ḥaydar Dughlát. This book, which, as its title implies, has a much larger scope than the Bábur-náma, of which the author made use ^392c in its compilation, greatly supplements and illuminates the earlier work. ^392d Apart from these two works, which are worthy of special notice on account of the high position of their authors and their active participation in the making of the history which they narrate, the historical sources for this period are unusually full and trustworthy.

Of Bábur's life, which can be studied in detail in the above-mentioned and numerous other works, ^392e it is sufficient to say here that it falls broadly into three periods, of which the first was passed in the little principality of Farghána,

We have, however, overshot the limits of the period dealt with in this chapter; for, so far as Persia is concerned, the House of Tímúr disappears from it before the year 1500. The great empire founded by Tímúr, that ruthless man of blood, was maintained in Persia by his gentler and more enlightened son Sháh-rukh until his death in 850/1447. What follows is mainly a dismal record of fratricidal strife and invasions of Uzbeks and other barbarians, redeemed by brilliant galaxies of poets, artists and men of letters and science whom the lavish bounty and undeniable taste of these truculent and quarrelsome princes continued to attract to their various courts, in particular to Herát. The details of these wars, set out at great length by Mírkh-wánd, Khwándamír and 'Abdu'r-Razzáq, and in English by Erskine, ^393a are somewhat wearisome, being not so much between different peoples or principles, as between ambitious members of one family. Happily for our present purpose we need not go much beyond Sir John Malcolm's excellent summary of this period of Persian history. “After the death of Ulugh Beg,” says he, ^394a “we discover a crowd of the descendants of Tímúr contending for the provinces of his empire; and so great was the respect which men entertained for the blood of the hero that everyone who could boast of it in his veins found adherents who enabled him either to obtain a throne or an honourable grave.”

To the literary and artistic gifts and tastes of these princes, on the other hand, that great authority on Persian painting and miniatures, Dr F. R. Martin, bears the following eloquent testimony in his monumental work on The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey.^394b

“The Tímúrids soon began to lead a life compatible with the wealth their fathers and forefathers had amassed Dr Martin on Persian painting at this period during their wars, and tried to squander it as quickly as possible. History constantly repeats itself. The life of these rulers forms a true epic. They recall to mind the old Paladins in the Chansons de Gestes, passing in the space of a short time from the splendours of a throne to a position of the utmost decay. They were, however, the most artistic princes that ever reigned in Persia. If the conquering armies of Tímúr destroyed many a work of art, his successors brought into being works of art that would otherwise never have been created. Does not Samarqand redeem the loss of many a town destroyed by Tímúr? What he destroyed was already of itself destined to fall, and Tímúr simply gave the mortal thrust. He was not the destroyer we are accustomed to consider him, but the master who arranged matters with an iron hand. He formed a link in the chain of natural development, and from his realm arose the Persia of later times, his successors bringing Persian art to its most flourishing stage. These Tímúrids were no barbarians; indeed everything goes to show that they were highly civilized and refined men, real scholars, loving art for the sake of art alone, and without ostentation. In the intervals between their battles they enjoyed thinking of their libraries and writing poetry, many of them having composed poetry that far excels that of their court poets. Sulṭán Ḥusayn Mírzá was no bad poet, and his odes, written in Turkí, are far better than those of many celebrated poets. He also wrote in Arabic and competed with the celebrated Jámí. The most refined style of life prevailed, in certain respects calling to mind that of the European princes of the same time, or that of France during the 18th century, although it was far more literary than either.

“Báysunghur, Sháh-rukh, Ulugh Beg and Sulṭán Ḥusayn Mírzá were bibliophiles not surpassed by the Dukes of Burgundy, or by King René of Anjou, their contemporaries, and were far more illustrious than the celebrated French and Italian book-lovers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Not only did they collect books, but they created them. Báysunqur and Ḥusayn Mírzá were to Persia what William Morris was to England four hundred years later. They created a new style of book, but theirs was infinitely more aristocratic, solid and artistic. The very finest European books and manuscripts cannot, except in a very few isolated instances, bear comparison with those of the Orientals as regards the fineness of their work.

“Báysunqur was the son of Sháh-rukh and grandson to Tamerlane; he died in 837/1433, when 37 years of age,

“It was during the reigns of the Tímúrids and not during that of Sháh 'Abbás that the finest carpets were produced in Culmination of other arts at this period Persia. The finest arms and armour, and ivory-work of a minuteness surpassing all examples produced by other countries, were made at their court. All specimens of Persian art that exhibit the most refined taste and workmanship emanate from their time or from the very beginning of the Ṣafawí dynasty.

“All art produced in the East is the direct result of an impulse given by the monarch. But for Báysunqur and “All real art in the East is Court art” Sulṭán Ḥusayn Mírzá we should not have had that lovely miniature art their artists created, for it was to adorn and illustrate their own writings that they welcomed artists from all parts of their kingdom. But for Sháh 'Abbás we should not have had the splendid figured velvet, and but for Sulaymán the Magnificent there would be no magnificent Turkish faience from Izníq, and but for Sulṭán Aḥmad we should not have had the wonderful manuscripts of the Qur'án, by which their aesthetic tastes are still perpetuated. All real art in the Orient is court art, or is dependent on a Maecenas. It was so in the 'Abbásid court at Baghdád in the ninth century; it was so in Egypt and Spain; it was so everywhere. This fact must be remembered, as it explains much that would otherwise be incomprehensible.

“That an art so brilliant should entirely disappear with the ruler was not to be expected. The princes died, but Survival of this art into the sixteenth century the artists survived and entered the service of another. The impulse derived from the Tímúrids was so powerful that it lasted through a great part of the sixteenth century. It was not only the new rulers of Persia, the Ṣafawís, but also princes whose names are almost unknown to history, who continued the fashion and had manuscripts executed that were more costly than anything of the kind produced in Europe.”

It is necessary to remind the reader, who may be apt to think of far-reaching international relations as in large Communications between Persia, China and India measure a product of modern times and an outcome of modern facilities of communication, how considerable was the intercourse in the time which we are considering between Asiatic (not merely Muslim) states far removed from one another. The interesting extracts from that valuable but hitherto unpublished history, the Maṭla'u's-Sa'dayn of 'Abdu'r-Razzáq of Samar-qand, published in French by Quatremere in 1843, ^397a include the accounts of two embassies from the court of Herát, the one to China, the other to India, narrated in each case by one who had headed or accompanied the mission. The mission to China, described by Ghiyáthu'd-Dín Naqqásh (“the Painter”), left Herát on December 4, 1419, reached Pekin (Khán-báligh or “Cambaluc”) a year and ten days later, and returned to Herát on September 2, 1422. ^397b The mission to India, confided to and narrated by the abovementioned 'Abdu'r-Razzáq himself, started on January 13, 1442, and landed once more on Persian soil at Hurmuz in the Persian gulf on April 20, 1444. ^397c The activity and cosmopolitan character of that port are well indicated by the ambassador in the following descriptive paragraph:

“This Hurmuz, which they also call Jarún, is a port on the open sea ‘which has no equal on the face of the earth.’

Allusion has already been made to the correspondence between Sháh-rukh and his successors and the Ottoman Relations between the Tímúrids and the Ottoman Sultans Sultans Muhammad I (1402-1421), Murád II (1421-1451), Muḥammad II (1451-1481) and Báyazíd II (1481-1512); but that this correspondence was not confined to princes and politics is shown by letters preserved by Firídún Bey ^398a exchanged between Báyazíd II on the one hand and the poet Jámí, the philosopher Jalálu'd-Dín Dawání and the theologian Aḥmed Taftázání on the other. To the first of these the Ottoman Sultan sent a gift of a thousand and to the second five hundred florins, accompanied by all manner of gracious and courtly compliments. ^399a It was at Constantinople, moreover, that Sulṭán Ḥusayn's son, Badí'u'z-Zamán, fleeing from the murderous Uzbeks, found a final refuge and a last resting-place.

Having described the waning of the House of Tímúr, we must, before tracing the growth of the Ṣafawí power,

Mention has been already made in a previous chapter of the important collection of State Papers connected with Contemporary State Papers the diplomacy of the Ottoman Empire which are contained in the Munshá'ât of Firídún Bey. ^400a A good many of these refer to the period we are now considering. Thus we have a letter to Sulṭán Báyazíd “the Thunderbolt” from Sulṭán Aḥmad Jalá'irí, written in 798/1396, describing his flight before Tímúr's advancing hordes, and the answer to it; numerous letters which passed between Sulṭán Muḥammad I (805-824/1402-1421) and Sháh-rukh, Qára Yúsuf, Iskandar and Sulṭán Khalíl of Shírwán; letters between Sulṭán Murád II (824-855/1421-1451) and Sháh-rukh; letters between Sulṭán Muḥammad II “Fátiḥ” (855-886/1451-1481) and Jahán-sháh, Ulugh Beg, Báysunqur, Bahman Sháh of India, Úzún Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr b. Bayqará; and later a voluminous correspondence with the Ṣafawí kings Sháh Isma'íl and Sháh Ṭahmásp. These letters are interesting not only for the light they throw on the historical events to which they refer, but as indicating the relations which prevailed between these rulers respectively. Thus, for example, in a letter from Sháh-rukh to the Ottoman Sulṭán Muḥammad I in 818/1416 the arrogance of tone is very noticeable, both in respect to the comparative poverty of titles accorded and the reproaches addressed to the Sulṭán for having put to death his rebellious brothers Sulaymán, Músá and 'Ísá, which, though “conformable to Ottoman practice,” is branded as “improper according to the Íl-khání custom”; and in the peremptory demand that Qára Yúsuf shall not be allowed to take refuge in Ottoman territory, should he seek to do so. Sulṭán Muḥammad's reply, on the other hand, in not only conciliatory in tone, but even humble. He accords to Sháh-rukh a whole string of high-sounding titles; apologizes for killing his brothers by quoting Sa'dí's well-known dictum that “ten dervishes can sleep in one blanket, but two kings cannot be contained in a continent”; ^401a and expresses his fear that if he exasperates Qára Yúsuf by refusing him entry into his dominions, he may endeavour to stir up trouble amongst the neighbouring rulers of the Qaramání, Ḥamídí, Isfandiyárí, Ṭúrghúdí and Dhu'l-Qadarí dynasties, and even with the Sulṭán of Egypt. In the case of the Ottoman Sulṭán and the “Black Sheep” Turkmán rulers, Qára Yúsuf and Qára Iskandar, on the other hand, the contrary holds good, the Sulṭán writing as to inferiors and the Turkmán princes as to a superior. The numerous letters and dispatches contained in this interesting volume would well repay a fuller examination than can here be accorded to them, but reference will be made to them from time to time, as occasion arises.^401b

Amír Iskandar Qára-qoyúnlú inaugurated his reign by an attack on Sháh-rukh, in which he was defeated, but soon Iskandar afterwards he re-occupied Ádharbáyján. In 828/1425 Shamsu'd-Dín, the ruler of Akhláṭ, and in 830/1427 Sultán Aḥmad the ruler of Kurdistán and 'Izzu'd-Dín Shír fell victims to his warlike prowess, and the towns of Shírwán and Sulṭániyya passed into his hands. In 832/1429 he and his brother Jahánsháh, in spite of the valour which they showed, were again defeated by Sháh-rukh. Six years later, in 838/1434-5, Sháh-rukh again advanced against Iskandar as far as Ray, where he was joined by Iskandar's brother Jahánsháh and his nephew Sháh 'Alí. Iskandar fled, and Sháh-rukh bestowed his territories on his brother Jahánsháh as a reward for his submission. Iskandar took refuge in a fortress, but while preparing to resist a siege he was murdered by his son Qubád, at the instigation of his concubine Laylá.

Jahánsháh, with the support and approval of Sháh-rukh, now succeeded to the throne vacated by his brother's death Jahánsháh in 839/1435-6, and considerably enlarged the realm which he had inherited. In 856/1452 he overran 'Iráq-i-'Ajam, made a massacre of the people of Iṣfahán, and invaded Fárs and Kirmán. In 862/1457-8 he conquered Khurásán, and in the month of Sha'bán in that year (June-July, 1458), was enthroned at Herát, and remained there for six months, when Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd, the great-grandson of Tímúr, prepared to attack him. At the same time news reached him that his son Ḥasan, who was imprisoned in Ádharbáyján, had escaped and was in rebellion against him, so he was compelled to make peace with Abú Sa'íd and hasten westwards at the average rate of twelve parasangs (some forty-five miles) a day, losing in this forced march 20,000 camels and 10,000 horses. Having subdued and expelled his son Ḥasan, he dismissed his other son Pír Budáq from the government of Fárs and transferred him to Baghdád, where he also shortly revolted. Jahánsháh thereupon besieged Baghdád for a whole year, and finally succeeded in killing Pír Budáq and replacing him by another son, Muḥammad Mírzá, after which he returned to Ádhar-báyján. His realms now extended from the Turkish frontier on the west to the two 'Iráqs, Kirmán and the shores of the Persian Gulf, thus including nearly the whole of Persia Jahánsháh killed by Úzún Ḥasan in A.D. 1467 except Khurásán and the Caspian provinces. In 871/1466-7 he attacked Ḥasan Báyandarí, better known as Úzún Ḥasan, intending to conquer his realm of Diyár Bakr, but was surprised and slain by the latter while tarrying behind his army on a hunting expedition. His two sons were taken prisoners and most of his principal nobles slain. This disaster is commemorated in the following verses:

“The army of Jahánsháh Bahádur Núyán, notwithstanding all the
materials of mastery and strength,
On the twelfth of the month of the second Rabí' perished, and the
date [of the year was] ‘Ḥasan Beg slew [him]’.”^403a

Of the character of Jahánsháh the Turkish historian Munajjim-báshí, from whom the above sketch of the Qára- Character of Jahánsháh qoyúnlú dynasty is taken, ^403b gives a most unfavourable account. According to this writer, he was “a dissolute, immoral, blood-thirsty tyrant, a malignant inclined to heresy and atheism, who paid no heed to the Sacred Law, passed his nights until dawn in revelry and vice, and slept like a dog during the day; for which reason he was called ‘the Bat.’” He died at the age of 70 after a reign of 32 years, was buried at Tabríz, and Ḥasan 'Alí was succeeded by Ḥasan 'Alí, the son whom he had cast off, and who had at one time been protected by Úzún Ḥasan. This son, whose mind is said to have been disordered by his captivity, reigned but a short while in Tabríz ere he was driven thence by Úzún Ḥasan to Hamadán, whither he was pursued and put to death by Úzún Ḥasan's son Oghúrlú Muḥammad in Extinction of the “Black Sheep” Dynasty 873/1468-9 873/1468-9. With him the Dynasty of the “Black Sheep,” or Qára-qoyúnlú, came to an end, and was replaced by that of the “White Sheep,” or Áq-qoyúnlú.

Diyár Bakr was the original centre of activity of the “White Sheep” or Báyandarí Turkmáns, of whose amírs

'Alí Beg was succeeded by his son Jahángír, who was soon displaced (857/1453) by his more resolute and capable Jahángír. Úzún Ḥasan (“Ussun Cassano” or “Assambei” of the Venetian ambassadors) brother Úzún Ḥasan (the “Ussun Cassano” or “Assambei” of Josafa Barbaro), who was by far the most powerful and celebrated of the “White Sheep” Dynasty. He was the grandson of “the Black Leech,” and succeeded to the throne at Ámid (Diyár Bakr) in the year mentioned above, which was the year in which the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople. To the fear inspired in Europe, and especially in Italy, by this fresh evidence of Ottoman power and prowess were due the efforts made by successive Venetian ambassadors to Persia to win the support of Úzún Ḥasan against the Turks, whom it was hoped he might harass on their Eastern frontier and so distract their attention from further conquests in the West. Thus once again since the Mongol Court at Qára-qorum had attracted emissaries from Rome with a similar object, the “Eastern Question” assumed a new importance, and the good will of Persia began to be assiduously sought after by European Powers. These Venetian ambassadors have left descriptions of their voyages and adventures which shed a welcome side-light on the condition of Persia and the character of Úzún Ḥasan, of whom Ramusio, in his Preface to Caterino Zeno's Travels, speaks in the highest terms, even declaring that “amongst all the kings of the East, who existed since the government was taken away from the Persians and transferred to the Greeks, there have been none who equalled the glory of Darius Hystaspes and Ussun Cassano.” “It is to be regretted,” he adds, “that some Eastern kings, great in power and intellect, have not had historians to celebrate their deeds, since among the Sultans of Egypt and among the Kings of Persia there have been men most excellent in war, and worthy not only of being compared with ancient barbarian kings famous in arms but even with the great Greek and Roman commanders in all those things which constitute able generals of armies.” ^405a He further speaks with admiration of “the manner in which this Ussun Cassano, a poor nobleman and the weakest in condition of many brothers,…not possessing more than thirty soldiers, besides a small castle, afterwards raised himself to such grandeur that he had the courage to dispute the empire of all Asia with the Ottoman House, which under Muḥammad II (A.D. 1451-1481) was a terror to the East.” Contarini, who was with Úzún Ḥasan in 1474-5,

No such vivid portrait of this remarkable man is to be found in the pages of any Oriental historian with whom I am acquainted, but the following estimate of his character by Munajjim-báshí is worth quoting:^406c

“He was a wise, just, brave, pious, religious and devout King, a friend of learned and godly men, charitable and a Munajjimbáshí's description of the same public benefactor. He built many buildings for pious uses. As has been mentioned, with but a small army he overcame two such mighty kings as Jahánsháh and Abú Sa'íd; took tribute from Georgia; and ruled over Ádharbáyján, the two 'Iráqs, Kirmán, Fárs, Diyár Bakr, Kurdistán and Armenia.”

Concerning his patronage of learned men the same historian remarks on the preceding page: “He adopted Úzún Ḥasan's patronage of men of letters Tabríz as his capital, and there assembled from the surrounding lands and provinces many learned men and doctors, who received favours and honours beyond anything which could be expected.” One of the most celebrated of those men of learning who received honour and rewards at his hands was 'Alí Qúshjí, who passed through his territories on his way home from the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Úzún Ḥasan, while still a young man and only Prince of Diyár Bakr, married a Christian wife, to wit the beautiful The Lady Despina Despina Khátún (“Lady Despina”), daughter of Kalo Joannes, ^407a the last Christian Emperor of Trebizond, of the noble family of the Comneni. She bore him a son and three daughters, one of whom, named Marta, was given in marriage to Shaykh Ḥaydar, the father of Sháh Isma'íl the founder of the Ṣafawí dynasty.

The fullest account of Úzún Ḥasan's reign to which I have had access is that contained in the Ṣaḥá'ifu'l-Akhbár of Munajjim-báshí, ^407b while another Turkish source from which much information is to be gleaned is the collection of State Papers (Munshá'át) of Firídún Bey, ^407c though the paucity of dates in the dozen despatches interchanged between Úzún Ḥasan and Sulṭán Muḥammad Fátiḥ (“the Conqueror”) is a matter for regret. The narratives of the Italian ambassadors and travellers already referred to are also of great value. The accounts of the Qára-qoyúnlú and Áq-qoyúnlú dynasties given by Mírkhwánd and other Persian historians are for the most part very meagre and inadequate.

The first three or four years of Úzún Ḥasan's reign (A.D. 1453-1456-7) were chiefly filled by repeated revolts of his brothers, especially Jahángír, against his authority. The scene of these struggles, which were repeatedly composed by Saráy Khátún, the mother of the contending brothers, lay for the most part outside Persia, round about Diyár Bakr, Mosul and especially Mardín, which suffered terrible devastation. Jahángír did not hesitate to invoke the help of the rival House of the “Black Sheep” Turkmáns, represented by Jahánsháh. ^408a Once during this period Úzún Ḥasan set out on an expedition against Khurásán, but was obliged to turn back to deal with a revolt organized by his brother Jahángír aided by Jahánsháh, who sent one of his generals, Rustam Beg, to his support. The rebels suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Úzún Ḥasan near the Euphrates, in which many of the fugitives were drowned, while five hundred prisoners, including Rustam Beg, were beheaded by Úzún Ḥasan, who, however, at the intercession of his mother, again pardoned his brothers Jahángír and Uways, but took 'Alí Khán, the son of the former, as a hostage to Erzinján.

After this victory (851/1456-7) Úzún Ḥasan's power and prestige were greatly increased, and many amírs of Asia Minor and Syria submitted to him. About 864/1459-60 he wrested from the Ayyúbí dynasty the fortress of Ḥiṣn Kayf, where he installed his son Khalílu'llah Mírzá as governor. In the same year Jahánsháh's son Ḥasan 'Alí rebelled against his father and took refuge with Úzún Ḥasan, who, however, after a while drove him away on account of certain heretical opinions ascribed to him. In or before A.D. 1461 Úzún Ḥasan sent his nephew Murád Bey ^408b on an Úzún Ḥasan sends an Embassy to the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad Fátiḥ embassy to the Ottoman Sulṭán Muḥammad II “the Conqueror” to request him not to molest his father-in-law Kalo Joannes, Emperor of Trebizond. To this request the Turkish Sulṭán paid no attention, but attacked and subdued Trebizond (where David Comnenas had recently succeeded his elder brother Kalo Joannes) and carried off this last representative of Byzantine power to Constantinople, where, according to Giovan Maria Angioletto, “he was treated honourably enough, but died before a year was over, in 1462.”^409a

The chronology of the wars waged by Úzún Ḥasan against the Ottoman Turks is somewhat confused. Munajjim-báshí speaks of a short contest immediately preceding Úzún Ḥasan's first invasion of Georgia in 871/1466-7, and of an embassy headed by Khurshíd Beg which he sent to Sulṭán Muḥammad II “the Conqueror” requesting him not to attack Trebizond, which, as we have seen, had already fallen to the Ottomans in A.D. 1461. On the first of Rabí' ii, 872 (Oct. 30, 1467), however, he defeated the “Black Sheep”

The second despatch from Úzún Ḥasan to “the Conqueror” (which, unfortunately, is undated) refers to the next important event in his career, namely the defeat of Jahán-sháh's son Ḥasan 'Alí at Marand. This prince, who, as already mentioned, had taken refuge with him some seven years previously, now attacked him to avenge the death of his father Jahánsháh. Úzún Ḥasan invoked the help of the Tímúrid Abú Sa'íd, urging the constant loyalty of his own House of the “White Sheep” to the House of Tímúr, and the disloyalty of the rival “Black Sheep.” He also offered, in return for help, to cede 'Iráq to Abú Sa'íd, provided he might keep Ádharbáyján. Abú Sa'íd, so far from accepting this proposal, immediately marched against Úzún Sulṭán Abú Sa'íd (“Busech” of the Venetians) taken prisoner and put to death by Úzún Ḥasan Ḥasan to avenge Jahánsháh's death, but was defeated and captured, together with his sons Muḥammad and Sháh-rukh, and handed over to Yádigár Muḥammad, who killed him to avenge the death of his grandmother Gawhar Shád Khátún. When the Venetian Contarini was received by Úzún Ḥasan in his palace at “Spaan” (Iṣfahán) on Nov. 6, 1474, he noticed “a painting, representing the decapitation of Soltan Busech (i.e. Abú Sa'íd), and showing how he was brought by a rope to execution by Curlumameth (i.e. Úzún Ḥasan's son Oghúrlu Muḥammad), who had caused the chamber to be made.” ^410a Abú Sa'íd's body was sent in the charge of his mother (who had also been captured) to Khur-ásán with all honour and respect. In the same despatch in which Úzún Ḥasan announces to Sulṭán Muḥammad “the Conqueror” the defeat and death of Ḥasan 'Alí and “some 3000 of his men,” he announces his capture of Ádhar-báyján, 'Iráq, Fárs and Kirmán, and his intention henceforth to fix his capital at Tabríz. This despatch appears to have been sent by the hands of an ambassador, Sayyid Aḥmad Ṭoghán-oghlu.

The third despatch from Úzún Ḥasan is still less respectful in its form of address than the preceding one, and is also undated. It mentions the arrival of an Ottoman envoy named Amír Bey, and then proceeds to narrate his negotiations and conflict with, and victory over the Tímúrid Sulṭán Ḥusayn [b. Manṣúr b.] Bayqará, and the manner in which he had divided up and assigned his domains. He also announces his conquest of Khurram-ábád in Luristán.

In a fourth despatch, also undated, in which the great Ottoman conqueror is insultingly addressed as the “most puissant Amír…Shamsu'd-Dín Muḥammad Bey,” while Shíráz, which he had recently conquered, is described as having become “the Seat of the Throne of Sovereignty and the Station of the Caliphate,” he further announces the subjugation of Khúzistán. This at last calls forth a reply which reveals a high degree of exasperation: the Ottoman “Sulṭán Muḥammad, son of Murád, son of Muḥammad, son of Báyazíd” addresses his arrogant correspondent as “thou,” warns him not to be puffed up by temporary good fortune, and threatens to march against him in the ensuing month of Shawwál. About the same time he despatched a letter to his son, Prince Muṣṭafá, governor of Qaramán, ordering him to attack Úzún Ḥasan, whom he describes as “deserving of the gibbet and the rope” (“mustaḥiqq-i-dár u rasan olán Úzún Ḥasan”); and to this letter we have Prince Muṣṭafá's reply, describing how, aided by his tutor Gedik Aḥmad Pasha, he defeated Úzún Ḥasan's army near Qonya on Saturday, 14th of Rabí' i, 877 (August 19, 1472), and killed his sons Yúsuf, Zaynal and 'Umar. The two last of this series of documents given by Firídún Bey ^411a contain Shaykh Áq Shamsu'd-Dín's interpretation of two dreams about Úzún Ḥasan, and are written in Arabic.

The accounts of Úzún Ḥasan's conflict with the Ottomans given by Caterino Zeno, ^411b Giovan Maria Angioletto, ^411c and Causes of hostility between the Ottoman government and Úzún Ḥasan the author of the Travels of a Merchant in Persia, ^411d in conjunction with those of Munajjim-báshí and 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán Sheref Bey, though not rich in chronological details, make the causes and course of the struggle pretty clear. Apart from the growing arrogance of Úzún Ḥasan, as revealed in the despatches to which reference is made above, the Ottoman Sultan had against his neighbour four principal causes of complaint, to wit: (1) his negotiations with Venice for a conjoined attack on Turkey from both East and West; (2) his attacks on Jahánsháh the “Black Sheep” Turkmán, whom he not only conquered but put to death, and on Sulṭán Ḥusayn Bayqará the Tímúrid, both of whom were in friendly relations with Sulṭán Muḥammad Fátiḥ; (3) his promise to support the Christian Emperor of Trebizond against Ottoman aggression; and (4) his protection of Pír Aḥmad (the “Pirameto” of Zeno) and other princes of the Qaramán dynasty, who were the ancient and bitter foes of the House of 'Osmán.

The ensuing war, which began in 877/1472-3 and ended in 878/1473-4, presented two phases, in the first of which War between Turks and Persians (A.D. 1472-4) the victory was to the Persians and in the second to the Turks. The first battle, which took place on the Euphrates near Malaṭya, was lost chiefly through the rashness of Murád Pasha Palaeologus, the young Beyler-bey of Rumelia (the “Asmu-rat” of Angioletto). Many Turks were drowned in the “whirlpools” of the river, besides those who were killed, and twelve thousand men, “among whom were several persons of note,” were missing when the muster was called in the evening. ^412a “Having suffered this defeat,” says Angioletto (who was with the Turkish army), “the Turk became very apprehensive, and determined to lead his army back to his country by the shortest route.” They therefore retired towards Trebizond, in a valley near which place a second great battle was fought towards the end of August, 1474, in which Defeat of Úzún Ḥasan by the Turks Úzún Ḥasan was decisively defeated and his son Zaynal killed, while much spoil fell into the hands of the victors. Prince Muṣṭafá distinguished himself greatly in this battle. “If Ussun Cassano had remained content with his first victory,” says Angioletto, “the Turk would have gone away ignominiously, and he would not have lost the territories he did.” ^412b “This battle,” says 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán Sheref Bey, ^412c “upset the cup of Úzún Ḥasan's fortune, and for twenty or thirty years assured the safety of the Sulṭán's eastern frontier.”

Úzún Ḥasan now retired to Tabríz, “where he caused games and rejoicings to be held, not caring much for his reverse, as he had lost none of his dominions.” His ease was, however, soon troubled by the rebellion of his son Oghúrlú Muḥammad, ^413a who seized Shíráz, and, on hearing that his father was advancing against him with a great army, fled to Constantinople, where he was received with much honour by the Ottoman Sulṭán, who promised “to make him king of Persia in the room of his father, who was his enemy.” Úzún Ḥasan, meeting filial ingratitude with cunning, first feigned illness and then caused a rumour of his death to be circulated.

“While thus dissembling,” says Angioletto, ^413b “a report was spread abroad to Constantinople that Ussun Cassano The stratagem whereby Úzún Ḥasan lures his son back to Persia and puts him to death had fallen dangerously ill from melancholy, on account of the rebellion of his son, and, a rumour of his having got worse having been whispered about, some of his most faithful adherents, as had been arranged, announced his death, while messengers were sent to Ugurlimehemet with letters and tokens, as is customary, giving information of the death of his father, and begging him to return and take possession of the throne before either of his brothers Halul or Jacob ^413c could do so. And in order to give greater semblance to the affair, funeral rites were paid, and his death was really believed in throughout the country. Ugurlimehemet having received three different messengers with secret messages, such as are used in affairs of state, thought it safe to go to Tauris. He arrived there in a few days with a small escort, and, on going to the palace to make himself sovereign, was taken to where his father was in perfect health, who ordered him to be confined, and afterwards put to death, without showing any consideration for his being his son.”

For his defeat by the Ottomans Úzún Ḥasan was in some degree compensated by a victory over the Egyptians, who had taken and ravaged 'Urfa, and a successful campaign in Georgia, from which he obtained a tribute of 16,000 ducats and the surrender of the city of Tiflis. He Sulṭán Khalíl finally died in 882/1477-8, and was succeeded by his son Khalíl, who, however, had only reigned six months when he was attacked and killed by his brother Ya'qúb ^414a near Khúy. This prince reigned for about thirteen years, in the course of which period he killed Ya'qúb's persecution of the Ṣafawís Shaykh Ḥaydar son of Shaykh Junayd the Ṣafawí (whose growing power and influence caused him alarm) and interned his children (including Isma'íl, the future founder of the Ṣafawí dynasty) at the old Sásánian capital of Iṣtakhr. Munajjim-báshí says that he built the beautiful summer palace of the Hasht Bihisht, or “Eight Paradises” (the “Astibisti” of the Venetians) outside Tabríz, but the Italian merchant-traveller ^414b ascribes its construction to Úzún Ḥasan. Finally, according to the same authority ^414c (for the fact is not mentioned by Mírkhwánd or Munajjim-báshí), he was poisoned by his wife under the following circumstances.

“He took as his wife a high-born lady, daughter of a Persian noble, but a most licentious woman: having fallen How Ya qúb was poisoned by his wife in love with a great lord of the Court, this wicked woman sought means to kill Jacob Sultan her husband, designing to marry her paramour and make him king, as, being closely related to Jacob, he would become so by right in default of children. Having arranged matters with him, she prepared an insidious poison for her husband, who, having gone into a perfumed bath, as was his custom, with his young son, aged eight or nine years, remained there from the twenty-second hour until sunset. On coming out he went into the harem, which was close to the bath, where he was met by his wicked wife with a cup and a gold vase containing the poison, which she had got ready while he was in the bath, knowing that it was his custom to have something to drink on coming out of the bath. She caressed him more than usual to effect her wicked purpose; but not having sufficient command over her countenance, became very pale, which excited the suspicion of Jacob, who had already began to distrust her from some of her proceedings. He then commanded her to taste it first, which, although she knew it was certain death, she could not escape and drank some; she then handed the gold cup to her husband Jacob, who, with his son, drank the rest. The poison was so powerful that by midnight they were all dead. The next morning the news was circulated of the sudden death of Jacob Sultan, his son and wife. The great lords, hearing of their king's decease, had quarrels among themselves, so that for five or six years all Persia was in a state of civil war, first one and then another of the nobles becoming Sultan. At last a youth named Alumut, aged fourteen years, was raised to the throne, which he held till the succession of Sheikh Ismail Sultan.”^415a

Munajjim-báshí describes Ya'qúb as “disposed to drink and a merry life, and very fond of poetry.” “Many poets,” he adds, “gathered at his court from all quarters, and com- Báysunqur b. Ya'qúb Rustam b. Maqṣúd posed resonant qaṣídas in his praise.” He was succeeded by his son Báysunqur, who reigned a year and eight months, when he was replaced by his cousin Rustam, the son of Maqṣúd. He marched against Badí'u'z-Zamán the Tímúrid, but ere a battle had taken place in Khurásán was compelled to turn his attention to Iṣfahán, the governor of which city had revolted against his authority. On his approach the governor fled to Qum, but was pursued and killed, and his severed head brought to Rustam. In the same year, 898/1492-3, he sent an expedition against Shírwán, which celebrated its success in the Tímúrian fashion by building pyramids of skulls. From these same Shírwánis, however, Báysunqur raised an army for the invasion of Ádharbáyján, whereupon Release of the Ṣafawí captives Rustam released Sulṭán 'Alí and the other Ṣafawí prisoners at Iṣtakhr and sent them to avenge the death of their father, Shaykh Ḥaydar, who had been slain by Báysunqur's father Ya'qúb. Sulṭán 'Alí and his followers were hospitably received at Tabríz by Rustam, and proceeded thence to Ahar, where they defeated and killed Báysunqur. Rustam, relieved of this anxiety, now grew jealous of Sulṭán 'Alí's increasing power and influence, and determined to destroy him. He sent one of his generals with 4000 horsemen after him, and a fierce battle ensued, wherein the Ṣafawís, though only 700 in number, fought valiantly—“like lions,” says Angioletto ^416a — but were eventually defeated and Sulṭán 'Alí slain, after nominating his young brother Isma'íl as his successor. He and his brother Ibráhím fled to Gílán and Mázandarán, and remained in hiding for some time at Láhíján and Lishta-Nishá, whence Ibráhím presently made his way in disguise to his mother at Ardabíl. Isma'íl remained in Gílán, pro- Activity of Isma'íl the Ṣafawi tected by its governor Kár Kiyá Mírzá 'Alí, and an active and successful Shí'ite propaganda was carried on amongst the inhabitants, amongst whom the number of “Ṣúfís of Láhiján” or “Red-heads” (Qizil-básh), as they were called, ^417a continued steadily to increase.

In 905/1499-1500 Isma'íl, then only thirteen years of age, ^417b marched forth on his career of conquest with the nine Beginning of Isma'íl's career of conquest tribes which owed him allegiance, to wit the Ustájlú, Shámlú, Takalú, Rúmlú, Wársáq, Dhu'l-Qadar, Afshár, Qájár, and the Ṣúfís of Qárabágh; and, after formally visiting the tombs of his illustrious ancestors at Ardabíl, and seeking the blessing of his aged mother, advanced by way of Qára-bágh, Gúkcha Deñiz and Erzinján on Shírwán. By this time news had spread abroad that the “Shaykh's son” was about to claim his rights, and his disciples flocked to his standard from Syria, Diyár Bakr and Síwás, so that he now found himself at the head of 7000 men. Crossing the river Kur he attacked Farrukh Yasár, the king of Shírwán and slayer of his father, near Gulistán in the neighbourhood of Shamákhá, killed him, completely routed his army, and occupied Shírwán, where he possessed himself of the royal treasure. He passed the winter at Maḥmúd-ábád near that place, and appointed the Amír Shamsu'd-Dín Zakariyyá his first Wazír, the theologian Shamsu'd-Dín Gílání his Chancellor (Ṣadr), and Ḥusayn Beg Shámlú and Abdál Beg his counsellors.

At this juncture, in 907/1501-2, when he had taken Bákú and was besieging the fortress of Gulistán, news reached The Battle of Shurúr him that Alwand Beg, son of Yúsuf Beg of the “White Sheep” Turkmán dynasty, had advanced against him to Nakhjuwán, whither he at once turned his victorious banners. A great battle took place at Shurúr, near Nakhjuwán, between the “White Sheep” Turk-máns, commanded by Amír 'Osmán ('Uthmán) of Mawṣil (Mosul), and the Ṣafawí army, commanded by Pírí Beg Qájár. The Turkmáns were utterly defeated and their general captured and put to death. Alwand Beg fled to Diyár Bakr, and Isma'íl occupied Tabríz, where he was crowned King. In the following year, 908/1502-3, he invaded 'Iráq and routed Murád Beg, the last ruler of the “White Sheep” dynasty, who fled to Shíráz, which, together with Kázarún, Kirmán and Yazd, submitted to the victorious Sháh Isma'íl Ṣafawí in the course of the next year or two. He spent the winter of A.D. 1504-5 at Iṣfahán, destined to become the glorious capital of the dynasty of which he had by now so truly and firmly laid the foundations, and here he received an ambassador from the Ottoman Sulṭán Báyazíd II. The fuller history of the origin, development and decline of this great and truly national dynasty will form the subject of the next volume.

The relations between the Tímúrids and the Ṣafawís, first between Bábur and Sháh Isma'íl and later between Relations between Tímúrids and Ṣafawís Humáyún and Sháh Ṭahmásp, will also be more fully considered in the next volume. On the whole these relations were singularly friendly, in spite of the difference of doctrine which contributed so much to isolate Persia from her Sunní neighbours after the rise of the Ṣafawí power and the definite adoption of the Shí'a creed as the national faith. Bábur and Sháh Isma'íl were united by a common fear and hatred of Shay-bání Khán and his terrible Uzbeks, at whose hands the House of Tímúr suffered so much during its last days in Khurásán and Transoxiana. The years 1501-7 were marked by a series of triumphs on the part of Shaybání Khán, who successively seized Samarqand, Farghána, Táshkand, Khwárazm, and finally Khurásán. Sulṭán Ḥusayn, of whose brilliant court at Herát we have already spoken, died in 1506, and the weakness and lack of unity of his sons and younger kinsmen made them an easy prey to Shaybání Khán, who, in the course of 1507, succeeded in defeating and killing all of them with the exception of Sulṭán Ḥusayn's son Badí'u'z-Zamán, who fled for protection first to Sháh Isma'íl and later to the Ottoman court at Constantinople, where he died. In 1510, however, Sháh Isma'íl marched Sháh Isma'íl's victory over the Uzbeks at Merv into Khurásán against the Uzbeks and utterly defeated them at the battle of Merv. Shaybání Khán was amongst the slain. His body was dismembered and his limbs distributed amongst different cities; his skull, set in gold, was made into a drinking-cup for Sháh Isma'íl; the skin of his head, stuffed with straw, was sent to the Ottoman Sulṭán Báyazíd at Constantinople; and one of his hands constituted the gruesome credentials of an envoy sent to one of his vassals, the ruler of Mázan-darán . ^419a Bábur's sister, Khán-záda Begum, who had fallen into the hands of the Uzbeks ten years before, was delivered from her long captivity by Sháh Isma'íl, and was sent with all honour to her brother, who in his Memoirs ^419b gives an interesting account of their meeting. Friendly embassies were interchanged between the two monarchs (for Bábur had already in 1508 formally assumed the title of Pádisháh or Emperor), and as Bábur's final abandonment of Trans-oxiana a year or two later, followed in 1526-9 by his successful invasion of India, which thenceforth became the seat of his government, removed all likelihood of friction between him and the Persians, the friendship thus formed was fairly stable, and was renewed in the next generation by Sháh Ṭahmásp's hospitality to Humáyún when he was temporarily expelled from his kingdom and driven into exile. Indeed the complaisance shown by Bábur towards the strong religious views of Sháh Isma'íl at one time considerably impaired his popularity amongst his subjects Literary intercourse between Persia and India during the Ṣafawí period beyond the Oxus, who then, as now, were remarkable for their extreme devotion to the Sunní doctrine, which Sháh Isma'íl relentlessly persecuted. ^419c Nor were the relations between Persia and India confined to their rulers, for during the whole Ṣafawí period, and even beyond it, we shall, in a subsequent volume, meet with a whole series of Persian poets, including some of the most eminent of later days, who emigrated from their own country to India to seek their fortune at the splendid court of the so-called Mogul Emperors, where, until the final extinction of the dynasty in the Indian Mutiny, Persian continued to hold the position not only of the language of diplomacy but of polite intercourse.

The literary and artistic wealth of the period now under review has been already summarily indicated in the pre- Enormous literary activity of this period ceding chapter, and it will be our business in this chapter to discuss in greater detail the work of some of its most eminent representatives in the world of letters. To attempt to treat, even in the briefest manner, of all its notable poets and men of learning would be impossible in any moderate compass. Thus the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar, a history specially valuable on account of the biographies of notable writers and poets added as an appendix to each reign or historical period, enumerates no less than 211 persons of this class who flourished during the Tímúrid period, of whom all save 23, who belong to the reign of Tímúr himself, represent the period now engaging our attention. ^421a The city of Herát during the reign of Sulṭán Abu'l-Ghází Ḥusayn (A.H. 878-912 = A.D. 1473-1506) may be regarded as the culminating point of this brilliant period, and it derives an additional importance from the great influence which it exercised on the development of Ottoman Turkish literature, a fact duly emphasized and fully illustrated by the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb in the second volume of his monumental History of Ottoman Poetry.

“This school,” he says (pp. 7-8), speaking of what he denotes as “the Second Period,” “which cultivated chiefly Influence of Jámí, Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í etc. on Ottoman Turkish literature lyric and romantic poetry, and which was distinguished by its love of artifice, reached its meridian in the latter half of the fifteenth century at the brilliant court of the scholarly and accomplished Sulṭán Ḥusayn [ibn] Bay-qará of Herát. Here its spirit and substance were gathered up and summarized in their manifold works by the two greatest men of letters of the day, the poet Jámí and the statesman Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í. As these two illustrious writers were the guiding stars of the Ottoman poets during the whole of the Second Period (A.D. 1450-1600), it will be well to look for a moment at their work.”

After a brief account of these two eminent men, and an admirable characterization of the school which they represent, Mr Gibb (pp. 12-13) summarizes its chief features as “subjectivity, artificialness, and conventionality, combined with an ever-increasing deftness of craftsmanship and brilliance of artistry.” “This all-absorbing passion for rhetoric,” he adds, “was the most fatal pitfall on the path of these old poets; and many an otherwise sublime passage is degraded by the obtrusion of some infantile conceit, and many a verse, beautiful in all else, disfigured by the presence of some extravagant simile or grotesque metaphor.”

The high esteem in which the poet Jámí was held in Turkey and at the Ottoman Court is proved by two Persian Jámí honoured by the Ottoman Sulṭán Báyazíd II letters addressed to him by Sulṭán Báyazíd II (A.D. 1481-1512) and printed in the Munshá'át of Firídún Bey. ^422a The first, which is in a highly complimentary strain, was, as we learn from Jámí's answer, written “for no special reason and without the intervention of any demand, out of pure grace and favour, and sincere virtue and gratitude.” In his second letter Sulṭán Báyazíd expresses his gratification at receiving the poet's letter and informs him that he is sending a gift of one thousand florins, ^423a which gift is gratefully acknowledged by the poet in a second letter sent by the hand of a certain darwísh named Muḥammad Badakhshí, who, with some others, was setting out on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Unfortunately none of these four letters are dated. Two Other Persian men of letters honoured by Báyazíd II other Persian scholars, the philosopher Jalálu'd-Dín Dawání and the theologian Farídu'd-Dín Aḥmad-i-Taftázání, were similarly honoured by the same Sulṭán, but in the last case Taftázání took the initiative (October 25, 1505), while the Sulṭán's answer was not written until July 13, 1507. The great Nawá'í's influence in Turkey influence exerted on Ottoman poetry by Jámí's illustrious patron, the Minister Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í, who was equally distinguished in prose and poetry, both in Eastern Turkish and Persian, is emphasized by Mr E. J. W. Gibb; ^423b who also describes ^423c how A Turkish jurisconsult spends seven years in study at Shíráz the eminent Ottoman jurisconsult Mu'ayyad-záda 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán Chelebí (afterwards in the reign of Sulṭán Báyazíd II famous as a generous patron of letters and collector of books) being compelled in A.D. 1476-7 to flee from his country, spent seven years at Shíráz studying with the above-mentioned philosopher Jalálu'd-Dín Dawání. It was, in short, during this period which we are now considering that Persia began to exercise over Ottoman Turkish literature the profound influence which in the next period she extended to India.

From these general considerations we must now pass to a more particular examination of the most eminent prose writers of this period, deferring the consideration of the poets to another chapter.

In this, as in the preceding period, history and biography are well represented, and at least nine or ten writers on Historians and Biographers these subjects deserve at any rate a brief mention. Speaking generally they are distinctly inferior in quality to their predecessors in the Mongol period, for, while their style is often almost as florid as, though less ingenious than, that of Waṣṣáf-i-Ḥaḍrat, they fall far short of him in wealth of detail, breadth of treatment, and citation of documents of historic value, while they compare even more unfavourably with the great historical writers 'Alá'u'd-Dín 'Aṭá Malik-i-Juwayní and Rashídu'd-Dín Faḍlu'lláh. We shall now consider them briefly in chronological order.

Almost all that is known about this historian, whose name is more familiar than his works, which remain un- Ḥáfiẓ Abrú published and are very rare even in manuscript, is contained in Rieu's Persian Catalogues. ^424a His proper name (though otherwise given elsewhere, as we shall presently see) is generally assumed to have been Khwája Núru'd-Dín Luṭfu'lláh. He was born in Herát, ^424b but in what year is not recorded, and educated in Hamadán. After the death of Tímúr, who showed him marked favour, he attached himself to the court of his son and successor Sháh-rukh, and of his grandson Prince Báysunqur, for whom he wrote his great history. This history, generally known as Zubdatu't-Tawárikh (“the Cream of Histories”) but called by Faṣíḥí of Khwáf Majma'u't-Tawáríkh as-Sulṭání (“the Royal Compendium of Histories”), was concluded in A.H. 829 or 830 (A.D. 1426 or 1427), ^425a only three or four years before the author's death. It comprised four volumes, of which, unfortunately, the third and fourth, dealing with the post-Muhammadan Persian dynasties down to the date of composition, appear to be lost. ^425b Manuscripts of the first and second volumes exist at St Petersburg and are fully described by Baron V. Rosen; ^425c a copy of vol. i, formerly in the collection of the Comte de Gobineau, is now in the British Museum and is numbered Or. 2774; and I myself possess a very fine copy of vol. ii (containing the history of Muḥammad and the Caliphate down to its extinction) dated Friday, 15 Sha'bán, 829 (June 22, 1426), and copied in Herát in the very year of the work's completion.

Besides this history, Ḥáfiẓ Abrú also compiled a great geographical work, of which the first volume is represented by a manuscript (Or. 1577) in the British Museum (fully described by Rieu), ^425d and another in St Petersburg. ^425e From this work, composed in 820-823/1417-1420 for Sháh-rukh Rieu has succeeded in gleaning many particulars of the author's life, and especially of his very extensive travels. He accompanied Tímúr in several of his campaigns, and was with him at the taking of Aleppo and Damascus in 803/1400-1401. When Sháh-rukh succeeded to the throne he settled down in Herát to a life of letters not later than 818/1415-1416, but died at Zanján while returning with the royal cavalcade from Ádharbáyján, and is buried there.

“Death of Mawláná Shihábu'd-Dín 'Abdu'lláh of Khwáf, ^426a known as Ḥáfiẓ Abrú, the compiler of the Royal Compendium of Histories, on Sunday the 3rd of Shawwál, at Sarjam, at the time of the return of His Supreme and Imperial Majesty from Ádharbáyjan. He is buried at Zanján near the tomb of the Divine Doctor Akhú Abi'l-Faraj-i-Zanjání .”^426b

Free use was made of the Zubdatu't-Tawáríkh by the author's younger contemporary 'Abdu'r-Razzáq of Samar-qand, of whom we shall shortly have to speak, and half of the geographical work mentioned above consists of a historical summary of post-Muhammadan Persian history, which becomes very detailed in the latter part, down to Ramaḍán 822 (October, 1419). The author's style, so far as can be judged from vol. ii of the Zubdatu't-Tawáríkh (the only portion of his work to which I have access) is very simple and direct, and it is greatly to be desired that his works, so far as they are available, should be published.

This notable historian and biographer is known to us only by one book, the Mujmal, or “Compendium” of Faṣíḥí of Khwáf History and Biography, of which, so far as I know, only three manuscripts exist. Of these three MSS. one, belonging to the Institut des Langues Orien-tales du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères de St Pétersbourg is described by Baron V. Rosen, ^426c whose description is supplementary to the fuller and earlier one of Dorn. One of the two others belonged to the late Colonel Raverty, the Pushtú scholar, from whose widow it was purchased in 1907 by the trustees of the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial.” The third was given to me by my excellent friend Mr Guy le Strange, who bought it from the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler. It is much more modern than the Raverty MS., but is accurate and well-written, and has a lacuna of only ten years (A.H. 834-844 = A.D. 1430-1440) instead of the hundred and twenty-two (A.H. 718-840 = A.D. 1318-1437) which are wanting in the other.

In 1915 the expatriated Belgian professors of oriental languages temporarily resident in Cambridge brought out Description of Faṣíḥí's Mujmal at the University Press there a number of the Muséon, to which, at their kind invitation, I contributed an article of thirty pages on this interesting work, with numerous extracts, based on the two English manuscripts, both of which were then in my keeping. The Mujmal, as I there pointed out, consists of an Introduction, two Discourses, and a Conclusion. The Introduction epitomizes the history of the world from its creation to the birth of the Prophet Muḥammad. The first Discourse continues the history down to the hijra, or flight of the Prophet from Mecca to al-Madína. The second Discourse, which is by far the largest and most important part of the book, contains the history of the years A.H. 1-845 (A.D. 622-1442). The Conclusion, which is unfortunately missing in all known manuscripts, contains an account of the city of Herát, the author's birth-place and home, and its history in pre-Muhammadan times.

All that we know of the author, Faṣíḥí of Khwáf, is derived from this book, and I have found no mention of Biography of Faṣíḥí him elsewhere. Rosen says that he was born in 777/1375-6, but I have not been able to verify this statement from the Mujmal. In 807/1404-5 he was employed with three other persons whom he names on business connected with the Treasury. In 818/1415-6 he accompanied Sháh-rukh to Shíráz to subdue the rebellious activities of the latter's nephew Prince Bayqará. In 825/1422 he was sent to Kirmán on business connected with the Treasury. In 827/1424 he returned thence to Bádghís. In 828/1424-5 he obtained favourable notice and State employment from Prince Báysunqur. Under the year 841/1437-8 he cites some verses by Shihábu'd-Dín 'Azízu'lláh of Khwáf commemorating the birth of a son on the 24th of Dhu'l-Ḥijja (June 18, 1438). In 842/1438-9 he mentions the birth of his grandson Mughíthu'd-Dín Abú Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Maḥmúd on the 10th of Dhu'l-Qa'da (April 24, 1439). In 843/1439-40 he had the misfortune to offend and to be imprisoned by Gawhar Shád Áqá, and he was again imprisoned in 845/ 1441-2, with which year the chronicle ends (though the date 849/1445 is mentioned in a verse with which one of the MSS. concludes), and it was apparently in that year, on the 15th of Dhu'l-Ḥijja (April 26, 1442), that he presented his book to Sháh-rukh.

The detailed account of Faṣíḥí's Mujmal which I published in the Cambridge number of the Muséon to which Characteristics of Faṣíḥí's Mujmal reference has been already made absolves me from the necessity of enlarging on its contents in this place. Its two chief features are a great simplicity of style and a special attention to matters of literary interest. ^428a It is arranged in the form of a chronicle the events of each year, including the deaths of eminent persons of all sorts, being grouped together under that year, and in the necrological part it is remarkable how large is the proportion of poets and men of letters, more especially, of course, of such as belonged to Khurásán and Transoxiana. Moreover it is evident that Faṣíḥí drew his information to a large extent from sources other than those employed by later and better known biographers and historians, which fact gives a special value to his work.

Though born at Herát in 816/1413, ^428b 'Abdu'r-Razzáq is called “of Samarqand,” which was the native place of his father Mawláná Jalálu'd-Dín Isḥáq, a judge and chaplain in Sháh-rukh's army. At the age of 25, in 841/1437-8, after his father's death, 'Abdu'r-Razzáq attracted the notice of 'Abdu'r-Razzáq of Samarqand that monarch by a grammatical treatise which he had composed and dedicated to him. Four years later, in 845/1441-2, he was sent to India on a special mission to the king of Bíjánagar, which lasted three years, and of which he gives a detailed narrative in his history. In 850/1446-7 he was sent on a mission to Gílán; and, on the death of Sháh-rukh in this same year, he was successively attached to the service of Mírzá 'Abdu'l-Laṭíf, 'Abdu'lláh, Abu'l-Qásim Bábur, and lastly of Abú Sa'íd. He afterwards retired into private life, became Shaykh of the monastery or Khánqáh of Sháh-rukh in Herát in 867/1463, and died there in 887/1482. All these particulars are taken from Rieu's Persian Catalogue, ^429a and are for the most part derived either from the historian's own statements or from the notice of him contained in the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar. ^429b The fullest account of his life and work is that given by Quatremère in the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, ^429c and other references will be found in Rieu's Catalogue.

So far as is known, 'Abdu'r-Razzáq produced only one great work, to wit the history entitled Maṭla'u's-Sa'dayn

Manuscripts of the Maṭla'u's-Sa'dayn, though not very common, are to be found in most large collections, and, so Value of the Maṭla'u'sSa'dayn, and need of an edition far as I have seen, are generally above the average in point of excellence and accuracy. ^430b The work, though based to a considerable extent on the Zubdatu't-Tawáríkh of Ḥáfiẓ Abrú, is of great importance, and a critical edition of it is much needed, for it deals in a very detailed manner with a very important period of Persian history, and is the work of one who wrote at first hand and took an active part in many of the events which he describes.

Mu'ínu'd-Dín-i-Isfizárí is chiefly notable on account of his monograph on the history of Herát entitled Rawḍatu'l-