[616] Khájah signifies “lord, professor, man of distinction” (and also a eunuch). Khájah is the title commonly prefixed to Naśir-eddin, “the defender of the faith,” which is the surname of Muhammed ben Hassan or Ben Muhammed al Túsi, born in Tús, in the year of the Hejira 597, A. D. 1200. He is acknowledged to have been the doctor who acquired among Muselmans the highest reputation in all sorts of sciences; he was a commentator of Euclid, and of the spherics of Theodosius and Menelaus. He left scientific works, duly admired, and was an astronomer, lawyer, theologian, and statesman. We shall have to touch upon the part which he took in the great events of his days. He died in the year of the Hejira 672, or, according to some, 687 (A. D. 1273 or 1285).
[617] See our [note 2], p. 400-401, relative to Sáid, under the name of Muhammed Obaid-alla, Mahdi. The friends and enemies of the Fatemites concur in the account, that he descended from Maimún, surnamed Kaddah, “the oculist,” whom some make a descendant of Ali, whilst others say that he was the son of Daísan, “the dualist,” so called because he ascribed the good to God and the evil to man, and some attribute to him an origin, not only foreign to the race of the prophet, but even connected with a Magian and Jewish lineage. Obaid-allah made Kairwan or Kurm (the ancient Cyrene) the capital of his dominion, but at the same time he laid the foundation of a new capital, which he called Mahedia, from his assumed surname Mahdi. Abu Tamim Moadd Moezzledin allah, the fourth in descent from Obaid allah, but the first acknowledged Fatimite khalif removed his seat to Cairo in Egypt: this town became then the rival of Baghdad, which continued to be the residence of the ancient line of khalifs. Moezz died in the year of the Hejira 365, A. D. 975.
[618] Abu Yazid, according to Abulfeda (Annal. Mosl., vol. II. p. 240), was a barbarian of the tribe of Zenata (one of the Berbers), son of Condad and an Ethiopian mother. He feigned sanctity, and belonged to a sect inimical to the Muselmans, whom he persecuted with relentless fury. Herbelot says, he was a chancellor of Abúl-Kasem Muhammed Kayem, the second khalif of the Fatimites, who succeeded his father Obaid-alla, in the year of the Hejira 322 (A. D. 933). Abu Yazid rose in rebellion against his master, and brought the empire to the greatest peril; but, after many successes and conquests, he was defeated, taken prisoner, and died of his wounds, in the year of the Hejira 336 (A. D. 947).
[619] Abu Yazid’s conqueror was the above mentioned Abu Teher Ismâil, son of Kayem, the third khalif of the Fatimites, who succeeded his father in the year of the Hejira 334 (A. D. 945). His surname was, besides the above stated, al Mansur ba kuvet allah, “victorious by the power of God,” to which is often substituted Mostanser billah, as in Makrisi (see Chrestom. arabe, vol I. pp. 84-91). He was succeeded by his son, in the year of the Hejira 341 (A. D. 952).
[620] We find in Herbelot’s oriental library a notice of Nasser Khosrú, an ancient Persian poet, whose animated and pious verses are often quoted by persons of a contemplative turn of mind. Baron von Hammer (Schöne Redekünste Persiens, S. 43) adduces Nassir Khosru of Ispahan, who, famous as a poet and philosopher, was persecuted on account of doubtful orthodoxy in matters of faith, and who died in the year of the Hejira 431 (A. D. 1039). A sect of Ismâilah is said (As. Res., vol. XI. p. 425) to have been called Naśariah, from Naśar, a poet and learned man.
[621] The mention made above of Hassan, and further of the Almutiahs, points to the reign of Abu Tamim Moâd Mostanser Billah, from the year of the Hejira 427 to 487, (A. D. 1035 to 1094). At the beginning of this reign, Amir Naśer Khusro, if the date of his birth be right, would have been more than sixty-six years old, and twenty years of concealment in Badakhshan extend his age beyond eighty-six years.
[622] Badakhshan is the country situated towards the head of the river Jihon, or Oxus, by which it is limited on its eastern and northern side. Balkh is the capital of Badakhshan.
[623] The author of the Dabistán has given a sufficiently explicit account of the doctrine of the Ismâilahs, but without separating the opinions belonging in particular to each of the sects into which the Ismâilahs in the course of time divided. We have already mentioned the Batenian. Another division was that of the Karmatians, founded by Hamadan, surnamed Karmata, “small and distorted,” son of Ashath. He appeared first in the year of the Hejira 278 (A. D. 891), as an adherent of Ahmed, son of Abdallah, son of Maimun Kaddah, before mentioned ([note 1], p. 418). This Ahmed was an ancestor of Sáid, or Obaid-allah, the founder of the Fatimite khalifs. Hamden Karmata recommended community of women, and released men from all moral and religious duties. In the year of the Hejira 286 (A. D. 899), Abu Sáid, surnamed Habab, at the head of the Karmatians, waged war upon the khalif Motadhet, in Syria; he took the town Hagiar, the Petra deserti of the Romans, once the capital of Arabia, and made it his residence. He was assassinated in the year of the Hejira 301 (A. D. 913). He left six sons; after the death of the last of them, Yusuf (Abu Yakub), in the year 366, (A. D. 976), the Karmatians confided their government to six seids called sadah, “pure.” This sect, after many combats, was dissipated towards the end of the tenth century of our era.—(See Chrestom. ar., vol. II. p. 126.)
The Ismâilahs are also denominated Talamites, Khurramiah, Safiah, Babeciah, Majmirah, Maknâyah, etc.—(As. Res. vol. XI. p. 421, etc.) I have no room for an account of each of them: I shall only add the name of the Druses, a sect existing in our days, upon which Silvestre de Sacy gave a particular notice drawn from their own papers, in his Chrestomathie arabe, vol II. pp. 191, 227, and undertook a detailed history of this sect. The name of the Druses is derived from دروز deroz, or درزية, derziyet, “juncture.” They are the disciples of Hamza, son of Ali, and honor as a god Hakem beamr allah, “he who governs by the order of God;” the sixth Fatimite khalif, in descent from Obaid-allah. Hakem was born in the year of the Hejira 375, A. D. 985; he was saluted khalif in 386 (A. D. 996); he disappeared, some say was assassinated, at the end of 441, A. D. 1020. The Druses give the same dates of his birth, reign, and death, but say he was the son of Ismâil, a descendant of Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, and his mother was of the race of Fatima, surnamed Zahra, the daughter of Muhammed the prophet. In short, every division of the Ismáilah appears to have its own Mahdi, “director,” but always traces his origin to Ali and Fatima. The Druses expect the return of Hakem; he is to reign over the whole earth during centuries of centuries, and the unitarian Druses with him: the other sects shall be obliged to pay homage and tribute to him. The Druses esteem the Koran very much, but the prophet not at all; they have rejected circumcision, fasting, and prayer, and indulge in drinking wine, eating pork, and marrying within the prohibited degrees.
[624] The character and life of the khalif, mentioned above and in the preceding note, exhibit a strange mixture of intelligence and folly, superstition and incredulity, simplicity and ostentation, abstemiousness and liberality, intolerance and forbearance, cruelty and mildness; all his good and bad actions were marked with something whimsical and fantastical: still more—he wanted to be God: thus he realized in himself the idea of a monstrous tyrant. To his honor be it said that he founded in Cairo the first university of the middle ages.—(See his Life, by Macrisi, in the Chrest. ar., tom, I. p. 93 et seq., and Gemäldesaal mosl., Herrsher, Band III. Seite 226, etc.)