The Ismailians, that is, the Assassins of Persia, had just killed a general to whom the Sultan had given Gandja and the lands which went with it. To inflict vengeance for this act Jelal took fire and sword to the land of those death dealing sectaries. A division of Mongols meanwhile had moved westward toward Damegan. Against this force the Sultan marched swiftly; he repulsed and then hunted it for many days in succession.
While Jelal on the east was thus occupied Hussam ud din Ali, Ashraf’s commander at Khelat, appeared in the west unexpectedly, invited to Azerbaidjan by those of the people who liked not the Sultan’s strange ways, and who were brought down to need by the greed of his warriors. Euzbeg’s former wife too was active. She had had her own way with her first husband. Fixed now to Jelal through marriage she could not endure the effacement that came from this union. She remembered the past and joining the people of Khoï took action. She invited Hussam to seize that whole region. He consented and took many places; that done, he marched back to Khelat, Jelal’s new, but dissatisfied, consort going with him.
But there was need soon to face a more serious opponent. The Mongols were moving in force toward Irak and soon appeared at its border. Jelal sent four thousand horsemen toward Rayi and Damegan to watch them. Pressed by the Mongols these four thousand fell back upon Ispahan, where the Sultan had fixed his headquarters. The enemy following stopped one day’s march from the city, and east of it. The Mongol force, made up of five divisions, was commanded by Tadji Baku, Anatogan, Taimaz and Tainal. Astrologers counseled the Sultan to wait four days before fighting; he complied and showed confidence of a kind to rouse courage in all who came near him.
At the first news of that Mongol approach his generals were alarmed and repaired to the palace in a body. He received them in the courtyard, and talked long of things which concerned not attack on the city, to show that he was in no way uneasy. Then he seated them and discoursed on the order of battle. Before the dismissal he made all take an oath not to turn from the enemy [[155]]or prefer life to the death of a hero. He took the same oath himself, and appointed a day for the struggle. Command was then given the chief judge and the Ispahan mayor to review the armed citizens.
Since Jelal did not move from the city the Mongols supposed that he had not strength or even courage to meet them, hence they prepared for a siege and sent two thousand horse into Lur to collect provisions. The Sultan hurried three thousand men after them. These took every defile in the rear of the foragers, and barred retreat; many Mongols were killed and four hundred were captured. Jelal gave some of these men to the populace, by whom they were massacred in the streets of the city. The Sultan cut off with his own hand the heads of others in the courtyard of his palace; and their bodies were hurled out to be eaten by vultures and dogs.
August 26, 1227, was the day fixed for battle—Jinghis had died in Tangut eight days earlier. While the Sultan was ranging his men for the conflict Ghiath, his own brother, betrayed him,—deserted. Jelal did not seem to take note of the defection. Even when he saw the Mongols in order of battle he thought that his men were more than sufficient to conquer such an enemy, and ordered the Ispahan guards to reënter the city. At the beginning of the conflict the two wings of the Sultan’s forces were too far from each other for mutual assistance. During a fierce onset his right wing pierced the left of the enemy, and pursued it to Kashin. The left had not yet been in action. The sun was declining and Jelal was resting at the edge of a defile. Just then Ilan Buga, an officer, approached Jelal and said with animation: “We have long implored Heaven for a day such as this to take vengeance on those outcasts. Success is now with us, and still we neglect it. To-night this vile enemy will make a long two days’ journey, and we shall repent when too late that we let them escape us. Ought we not to make this day’s victory perfect?”
Struck by these words the Sultan remounted, but hardly had he crossed the ravine when a chosen corps of the enemy hidden by a height, rushed on the left wing, rolled it back on the center and broke it. The generals of that wing now kept their oath faithfully and died weapons in hand, except three of them.
The Sultan remained in the center, which then was surrounded [[156]]completely. He had only fourteen of the guards near his person, and he slew with his own hand his standard bearer who was fleeing; then he himself cut a way through the enemy. Fugitives from the center and left rushed in every direction. Some fled toward Fars, others toward Kerman, while Azerbaidjan was a refuge for a third group. Those who had lost their horses in the battle went back on foot to the city. At the end of two days the right wing came from Kashan, believing the rest of the army victorious. When they heard of its defeat they disbanded at once.
Though the Mongols won the battle, their sufferings and losses were greater than those of the Moslems. Advancing to the gates of the city they were repulsed and pursued with such speed that in three days of flight they reached Rayi whence by the Nishapur road they fled farther. On this retreat they lost many men both in killed and in prisoners.
No one knew whither the Sultan had vanished. Some sought for his corpse on the battle-field, others thought that the enemy had captured him. At Ispahan people talked of a new sovereign, while the mob wished to seize the women and goods of the Kwaresmians. But the cadi prevailed upon all to wait a few days till the Bairam feast opened. He agreed, however, with the principal citizens that should the Sultan not come to the prayer on that feast day they would choose as ruler Togan Taissi, who through his virtues deserved supreme power before others.