[668] Ruk neddin was the eldest son of Alá-eddin; as heir presumptive he was much honored by the Ismâilahs, who made no difference between his orders and those of his father. The latter, irritated on that account, declared a younger son his successor, in spite of the people’s attachment to the eldest. Rukn-eddin, perpetually threatened by Ala-eddin’s resentment, took refuge in a well defended castle. He was suspected, and even accused by his own mother, of having been privy to the murder of his father, although he punished the murderer.
[669] Holagú was the grandson of Jengish khan. Born in 1127 A. D., Jengish khan, in the first moiety of the thirteenth century, came with six hundred thousand Tartars from the high lands between China, Siberia, and the Caspian sea, to act his formidable part in the Southern countries, already deluged with blood by the unceasing wars of the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The dominion of the Seljuk dynasty, torn asunder by the dissensions of their members, during forty years after Sinjar, their Sultan, last mentioned in the Dabistán (p. 440), terminated with Toghrul the Third, in 1193 A. D.; there remained still a vigorous branch of it in Jelál-eddin, sultan of Khorazm, who retired before the great conqueror towards India; he was overthrown in a great battle on the Indus, in 1222 A. D. Jengishkhan died in 1227, after having made a division of his immense empire: he gave the kingdoms of Khorassan and Kabul to his fourth son, Tuli khan, who died soon after his father, leaving four sons, the two eldest of whom were the above mentioned Maikú kán (Mangu khán), and Holagú khán. The former ruled in Tartary, the second proceeded to the conquest of Persia and the empire of the khalifs. It was necessary first to subdue the Ismâilahs.
Rukn-eddin, according to Mirkhond, offered submission to Holagú: it was by accident that an action took place between the Ismâilahs and the troops sent by Holagú to take possession of Alamút. Rukn-eddin, after some delay, during which he had taken his residence in the fort Maimun-diz, surrendered his person to Holagú, who had come to besiege it. With Rukn-eddin was the celebrated astronomer Nassir-eddin Túsí, who acted as ambassador and mediator; but seeing the ruin of the Ismâilahs, not, as he pretended, in the position of the heavenly bodies, but in the circumstances, he is accused of betraying his master and delivering him into the hands of the conqueror. More than forty castles, full of the Molhuds’ treasures, were destroyed in a short time; among the last were Lamsir and Alamút; the inhabitants of the latter hesitated to surrender, not being able to separate themselves at once from their accustomed glory and independence, whilst their sovereign acted as an instrument in the hands of the conquerors for delivering up his own subjects, having lost, with his good fortune, all firmness and nobleness of mind.
One of the forts only remained: it was Kirdcoh. The feeble Rukn-eddin, on his way to Mangu khan, could not prevail upon himself to give it up, and instead of ordering the garrison to surrender, as he had promised, he sent them word to resist. Proceeding towards Tartary, he was put to death by the officers of his escort, who probably had received orders to that effect from Mangú khán. A death-mandate was also executed upon Rukn-eddin’s sons, daughters, relatives, servants, and other followers all over the country; thousands of the Ismâilahs fell under the sword of the Tartars. Holagú completed the conquest of this powerful sect, which had been formidable in Asia during one hundred and sixty-six years, in the year of the Hejira 654, A. D. 1256.
But the Ismâilahs did not cease to exist in Persia, where, even in our days, some remains of them are to be found. We read in the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay (vol. II. pp. 281-294), that the parents of a Muhammed Mahdi, claiming descent from Ali, were inhabitants of Júnpúr, a town near Benares. He was born in the year of the Hejira 847 (A. D. 1443), declared himself a Mahdi, in Hejira 903 (A. D. 1491), first in Mecca, and then in Western India, in Guzerat, and Ajmír; and died in Hejira 910 (A. D. 1504), in Furuh, a city of Khorassan, not without leaving many followers, communities of whom remain, even in our days, most numerous in Sind, Guzerat, and the Deccan.
Halagú, after the overthrow of the Ismâilahs, marched towards Baghdád, it is said, at the instigation of Nassir-eddin. The celebrated seat of the khalifs was taken and destroyed in the year of the Hejira 656 (A. D. 1258), without the required efforts to defend it having been made by the thirty-seventh and last khalif of the Abbasides. This inglorious prince, fallen into the hands of his barbarous enemies, met with a cruel death, being packed up in a piece of felt, and dragged through the streets of his capital. With him perished the khalifate, a dominion once the most powerful and absolute of the world. It began with Abu Bekr in the eleventh year of the Hejira (A. D. 632), and lasted 645 lunar, or 625 solar years, during 520 of which it remained in the house of the Abbasides. The khalifate of the Fatimites in Egypt had ceased to exist in the year of the Hejirah 567 (A. D. 1171). All attempts to raise another khalifate in Asia and Africa had but a short and confined success, or none at all.
[670] In the seventh vol. of the Asiatic Researches (p. 338, edit. of Calcutta), we find an article by T. H. Colebrooke, Esq., On the Origin and peculiar Tenets of certain Muhammedan Sects. It is there stated that: “The Ali Ilahiyahs are become numerous in India. This sect is mentioned by the author of the Dabistán, as prevalent in his time only at Uzbil, or Azbal, in the mountainous tract near Khata. It now prevails, according to the information which I have received, in a part of the dominion of Nawab Nizamu ’l mulk.” The Calcutta edition of the Dabistán reads as above, Arnil, Armál, and Bakhta: the manuscript of Oude agrees with Colebrooke’s reading, Azbíl, but has بخطا, bakhtá, and زبال, zebál, for the two other names. The celebrated Orientalist gives an abstract of the doctrine of this sect according to the Dabistán, joined to an account of the Borahs, according to the Mejálîsu ’l múmínin, composed by Núrallah of Shoster, a zealous Shiâh. The Bóhrahs are described by this author as natives of Guzerat, converted to the Muhammedan religion about three hundred years before his time, now 542 years ago. Their converter was Mullah Ali, whose tomb is still seen at the city of Combáyat. Some of this tribe are Sunnites. The party who profess the Imámiah tenets comprehended, in the year 1800, nearly two thousand families. They are chiefly occupied in trade, and transmit the fifth part of their gains to the Sayyads of Medina: they are honest, pious, and temperate.
[671] We find in the Dictionary دحيه الكلبى dihyat ol kalbi, interpreted “the ape-dog; the shape in which the Muhammedans believe the angel Jabriel to have appeared to their prophet.” This is not mentioned in the Koran. We read in a note of Sale’s Koran, vol. II. p. 401: It is said that Jabril appeared in his proper shape to none of the prophets except Muhammed, and to him only twice: once when he received the first revelation of the Koran, and a second time when he took his night-journey to heaven. According to the nineteenth chapter of the Koran, Jabril appeared to the Virgin Mary in the shape of a man, like a full grown but beardless youth, and caused her to conceive.
[672] امي ámí, “illiterate,” was the epithet which Muhammed was pleased to give to himself, not without the intention of rendering it so much more probable that the writing, which he produced as revelations from God, could not possibly be a forgery of his own; because it was not conceivable that a person who could neither read nor write should be able to compose a book of such excellent doctrine, and in so elegant a style. It was as “the illiterate” that in the 155th verse of the VIIth chapter of the Koran he causes himself to be announced by God, who is introduced speaking to Moses about the punishment deserved by the Jews for their iniquities; and says (ibid., v. 154): “My mercy extendeth over all things, and I will write down good unto those who shall fear me, and give alms, and who shall believe our signs—(v. 155): who shall follow the apostle, the illiterate prophet, whom they shall find written down (i. e. both foretold by name and certain description), with them in the law and the gospel: he will command them that which is just, and will forbid them that which is evil,” etc., etc. We can, however, scarcely doubt that Muhammed, belonging to the family of Hashem, the most illustrious tribe of the Koreish, the hereditary guardians of the temple of Mecca, and himself skilful in commerce, was not more illiterate than the Arabs of his class: he certainly proved himself a man of a lofty genius, and, although he wrote not in verse, a sublime poet.
[673] We read above the account of sectaries who deified Alí. So much is certain, that, from his most tender youth, he was the most zealous, courageous, and intelligent supporter of Muhammed. The prophet gave him the surname of “the lion of God:” he said to him: “Thou art my vizir, and my brother in this and the other world. Thou standest by me as Aaron stood by Moses; except that no prophet will come after me, I have no advantage over thee. I am the town of knowledge, and Alí the gate to it.” Alí was a poet; we have but half a dozen of his poems and one hundred of his sayings.—(See the above-quoted work of Baron Hammer, Gemäldesaal Mosl. Herrscher, Iter Band. pp. 321-323.)