¹ For some circumstantial evidence see below, p. 83, and notes 4 and 5.

² Unfortunately there is no critical edition of the Siyāsat-nāma; I had to judge doubtful passages by a comparison of the two printed editions. The edition of Chahārdahī, Tehran, solar A. H. 1334, reproduces Schefer's text, but contains a few notes by M. Qazwīnī.

¹ In effect Qumm was one of the main centres of Shī'ism in Persia; see Mez, A., Die Renaissance, des Islâms, pp. 56–7Google Scholar; Schwarz, [for the title see below], pp. 560–1Google Scholar; Spuler, B., Iran in frühislamischer Zeit, p. 179.Google Scholar According to Yāqūt, 11, 901 (cf. Schwarz, , pp. 757–8Google Scholar; Miles [see below, p. 62], p. 131), Rayy used to be mainly Sunnite until in 275/888–9 a certain Ahmad b. al-Hasan al-Māridānī [not otherwise known] became powerful and supported Shī'ism which since that time became very strong in Rayy. For Shī'ism in Āba see Yāqūt, I, 53, and al-Qazwīnī, II, 288 (Schwarz, , p. 543Google Scholar) though these references are late. For Qāshān see Yāqūt, IV, 15, al-Qazwīnī, II, 302 (Schwarz, pp. 569,572), also late. For Shī'ism in the Jibāl generally, see Schwarz, , pp. 853–4.Google Scholar Ṭabaristān was in the second half of the third/ninth century, as is well known, the scene for the activities of succeeding Zaydī Imams, such as al-Ḥasan b. Zayd (250–70/864–84) and his brother Muhammad b. Zayd (270–87/884–900).

² Schwarz, P., Iran im Mittelalter nach den arabischen Geographen, p. 798Google Scholar, registering the passages of al-Iṣṭakhrī and Yāqūt, adds that ‘no further information is available about Bashāwiye’. The correct reading in al-Iṣṭakhrī, as it results from the variants, is while the spelling in the Siyāsat-nāma is . Ḥamd Allāh spells the name similarly:. The district appears e.g. (in the form Feshawiye) in the map of the surroundings of Tehran by Stahl and is concisely described in the text accompanying it (see Stahl, A. F., ‘Teheran und Umgebung’, Petermanns Mitteilungen, 1900, pp. 49–54Google Scholar, and map). It is mentioned (as Fashawiya) as one of the six districts of the province of Tehran in Houtum-Schindler's article ‘Teheran’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911)Google Scholar; and also at the present day it is (under the name of Fashāp/fūya) an administrative district (dihistān) in the central division (bakhsh) of Rayy (this name has been bestowed upon Shāh ‘Abd al-'Aẓīm, near the ruins of ancient Rayy), province (shahristan) of Tehran, see Farhang-i jughrāfiyā’ī-yi Īrān, vol. I, preface and map, and the report of the national census, Census district statistics of the first national census of Iran, Aban 1335 (November 1956), vol. II (Tehran census district). The district lies some 30 miles south-south-west of Tehran, between the rivers Karaj and Rūd-i Shūr. The forms of the name are somewhat puzzling: the form given by al-Iṣṭakhrī (presumably something like Bashāwiya) fits to the form Fashāwiya, etc., which appears in some modern maps and descriptions, while Niẓām al-Mulk's Bashābūya is in accordance to the other modern form: Fashāpūya. It is noteworthy that a note of M. Qazwīnī reproduced in the edition of the Siyāsat-nāma mentioned above, p. 56, note 2, glosses the name of the district, which is erroneously printed in Schefer's text, with , and V. Minorsky, in reproducing Houtum-Schindler's list of the districts of the province of Rayy in the article ‘Teheran’ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam writes Fäshāwiya (Päshāpāya). In order to simplify things I spell the name uniformly as Pashāpūya.

¹ Kulīn, mentioned in the form Kīlīn, by Ḥamd Allāh as a large village in Fashābūya, is still extant and is described in the Farhang-i jughrafiyā'ī-yi Īrān, I, 183: ‘a village belonging to the district of Fashāfūya , central division of Rayy, province of Teheran, 38 km. south-west of the City of Rayy, 5 km. to the east of the road of Qumrn … 555 inhabitants …’. In the census quoted in the preceding note the village is mentioned on p. 4: ‘Kalin Fashapooye, 485 inhabitants’. This Kulīn in Pashāpūya must not be confused with another village of similar name and not far away. Yāqūt, IV, 334, mentions a place called Kīlīn, near Upper Qūhadh, 6 farsakhs from Rayy. Now Qūhadh lay on the first stage on the road from Rayy to Khuwār ‘where the waters of the streams which are spread over the surroundings of Rayy are divided’ [from the Jāja Rūd, as can be easily verified on the sketch-map] (Yāqūt, IV, 205; cf. IV, 208), and this Kīlīn is therefore identical with the which according to al-Maqdisī, p. 400 (whence Yāqūt, IV, 303) was the first stage from Rayy on the pilgrims' road in the direction of Khuwār, i.e. the main Khurāsān road. W. Tomaschek (Zur historischen Topographie von Persien, I (Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philos.-hist. Kl., CII, 1), Wien, 1883, p. 221) in describing this road quite correctly says: ‘further to the south-west, in the direction of Warāmīn, was, and still is, the village of Kīlīn, ’: it appears, under the slightly different form in the Farhang-i jughrāfiyā'ī, I, 193: , a village belonging to the district of Bahnām-i Sūkhta, district of Warāmīn, province of Teheran, 18 km. north-east of Warāmīn, 2 km. to the south of the road of Khurāsān … 501 inhabitants’. This place seems to be meant by ‘Kalin Varamin’ (423 inhabitants) which follows in the census mentioned above immediately after ‘Kalin Fashapooye’; it is somewhat strange that while the Farhang has an initial g, the census writes k. Both villages appear on the quarter-inch maps (a) Survey of India, I 39 D, and (b) Geographical Section of the General Staff, 3919, The Middle East, 9 M, as well as on (c) Stahl's map [see preceding note], which together formed the basis for the adjoining sketch ‘Surroundings of Rayy’, drawn by Miss M. Potter. Their names are spelt on these maps as follows: (a) Kalin, Gulin Khalisa; (b) Kulrin [sic], Kalin; (c) Kulein, Kelin. N.B. The sketch reproduces the modern roads; the old road to Khurāsān went to the south of the present one, starting from Rayy and passing through Lower and Upper Qūhadh and Kulīn of Warāmīn.

² I cannot go into the confused problem of the various pronunciations of his name (Kulaynī, Kalīnī, Kilīnī, Kulēnī), see e.g. Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 273; Tāj al-'arūs IX, 322.Google Scholar Kulīnī, or rather Kulēnī, seems to be the most authorized form.

³ This is in accordance with Ibn Rizām's account, which in my view corresponds to the historical truth, and which says that the early Ismā'īlī missionaries preached the approaching return of Muḥammad b. Ismā'īl as the expected Mahdi rather than the continuous presence of Imams from his descendants; see below, pp. 68–9, 74–6.

¹ Massignon, L., Al-Ḥallâj, Paris, 1922, I, 77–80Google Scholar, discovers some alleged parallels between the figures of Ghiyāth and Manşūr al-Ḥallāj, but fortunately adds himself that ‘ces indices séduisants [they are not particularly seducing in my eyes] n'identifient pas encore notre al-Ḥallâj avec Ghiyâth [indeed, they do not]’.

² Ed. Schefer has ed. Khalkhālī .

³ An edition of the Kitāb al-Zīna is being published by Ḥusayn F. al-Hamdānī I have so far seen vols, I and II, Cairo, 1957–8.

⁴ The Za'farāniyya is mentioned by the heresiographers (al-Baghdādī, ed. Muḥ. Badr, p. 197, al-Shahrastānī, p. 62) and in the Tāj al-'arūs (III, 238). Al-Maqdisī writes (p. 395, cf. also p. 38): ‘In Rayy the Ḥanafīs are in the majority; they belong to the school of al-Najjār, with the exception of the rural districts which belong to the Za'farāniyya, who abstain in the matter of the doctrine about the creation of the Qur'ān.… I have seen that Abū ‘Abd Allāh b. al-Za'farānī [i.e. the son of the founder of the school] has left the doctrine of his father and adopted that of al-Najjār and that he was therefore abandoned by the inhabitants of the country-side’. An episode of al-Za'farānī's life is told in Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-ẓāhira, under the year 313 (ed. Cairo, II, 214), another in al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-ḥuffāẓ, ed. Hyderabad, II, 270Google Scholar (quoted by Goldziher, I., ZDMG, LXII, 1908, 7Google Scholar). Massignon, , Al-Ḥallâj, p. 79Google Scholar, gives the date of al-Za‘farānī’s death as 319/931, and states that it was he who set afoot the inquisition against the Ṣūfī ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Rāzī. This would show that al-Za'farānī made it his task to persecute heretics of various descriptions. (Massignon gives no reference either for the date or for the inquisition of the Ṣūfī and until now I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to trace the passages on which he has based himself.)

¹ Warsanān or Wars(a)nīn (the two alternative forms point to the pronunciation Warsnēn) is the name of a quarter in Samarqand (Yāqūt, IV, 921; Barthold, , Turkestan, pp. 87, 88, 90)Google Scholar; this can hardly be meant here. On the other hand it is difficult to decide whether the nisba could, or could not, be related to Warzanīn, a place near Rayy (Yāqūt, , IV, 921Google Scholar; Schwarz, , 794Google Scholar), the birthplace of the leader of the Zanj revolt (al-Ṭabarī, III, 1743), as no indication about its exact localization is available. There are some other nisbas attributed to al-Rāzī. ‘Abd al-Jabbār (see below, p. 69) has which could be either al-Kallā'i (cf. Yāqūt, IV, 293) or al-Kilābī, from the Arab tribe Kilāb. (Though Abū Ḥātim says himself, al-Zīna, I, 64Google Scholar, that his mother-tongue was Persian, this would not exclude the possibility of his Arab descent.) Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalānī, Lisān al-mīzān, I, no. 253, gives him the nisbas (which is obviously a variant of al- Warsanānī) and al-Laythi, presumably from the Arab tribe Layth. It is impossible to clear up this matter with certainty. In the article ‘Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., I have given a short résumé of his biography on the basis of the texts which I analyse in the present study in detail; that article can be consulted for bibliographical references. (One of the statements made there must be corrected; owing to an oversight I have written that Abū Ḥātim went to Ṭabaristān in order to assist the ‘Alids; in fact he went there, as will be explained below, in order to take part in the movement against them.)

¹ For the first years of the Sāmānid occupation Miles's account can be supplemented. For al-Manşūr b. Isḥāq's governorship see Gardīzī, , p. 21.Google Scholar He is the person to whom Abū Bakr al-Rāzī dedicated his al-Manşūrī (cf. also below, p. 66, n. 1).

² Miles seeks to establish with various arguments that there is possibly a reference to him as governor in 298 (p. 135) and that at any rate he appears on a coin in 302 (p. 136). In fact, however, Gardīzī, p. 22, expressly states that he was made governor of Rayy in 296; he was thus the immediate successor of al-Manşūr b. Isḥāq.

³ ‘Alī b. Wahsūdān, of the Justānid family, was for some time in 307 governor of Rayy for the ‘Abbāsids, probably in succession to Waṣīf; cf. M. Qazwīnī's notes on Juwaynī, III, 434–4 (correct accordingly Miles, p. 137).

¹ See Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Ta'rīkk sinī mulūk al-arḍ, ed. Gottwaldt, , p. 241Google Scholar, in the paragraph about Asfār: ‘When the rule over Ṭabaristān passed from the ‘Alids to the Daylamites it passed into the hands of the clan called Wardādāwandān [wand is the Daylamī suffix forming gentilitial nouns, ān the plural sign]: the ruler was Asfār b. Shīrawayh. They possessed the power for some time, after which it passed from them to the Jīl [viz. to Mardāwīj al-Jīlī]’. Cf. Rabino, H. L., Mázandarán and Astarábád, London, 1928, p. 41Google Scholar: ‘Asfár b. Shírúya was a native of Láriján and belonged to the Wardadáwand [sic, the second a short] clan’, quoting Ẓahīr al-Dīn al-Mar'ashī, Ta'rīkh Ṭabaristān wa-Rūyān wa-Māzandarān, ed. Dorn, , p. 313.Google Scholar There Asfār is in effect given the nisba Lārijī, but the clan is not named. Presumably Rabino also derived his information about Asfār's clan from Ḥamza al-IŞfahānī.

¹ The following is a short résumé of Asfār's early career after Ibn Isfandiyār, History of Ṭabaristān, abridged translation by E. G. Browne, pp. 209–15. Abu'l-Husayn and Abu'l-Qāsim, sons of al-Nāşir rebelled against al-Dā'ī al-Şaghīr and allied themselves with various commanders, amongst whom were Mākān b. Kākī and Asfār b. Shīrawayh: al-Dā'ī al-Şaghīr marched, with the Ispahbadh Rustam b. Sharwīn, to meet them (311/923). Abu'l-Ḥusayn died in 311/923, Abu'l-Qāsim in 312/925. The people of Jīlān and Daylam swore allegiance to Abu'l-Qāsim's nephew Abū ‘Ali; he was joined by Asfār, who was in revolt against Mākān (who had been made governor of Jurjān) and was plundering on the high roads of that province. Ere long Abū ‘Alī was killed by a fall from his horse, and was succeeded by his brother Abū Ja'far. Asfār returned to Jurjān and cast off his allegiance to Abū Ja'far. The years 314/926–7 and 315/927–8 were filled by a confused sequel of battles between Asfār and Mākān, who was now the commander of the armies of al-Dā'ī al-Ṣaghīr, which culminated in the occupation of Rayy first by Mākān and his Zaydī master, and subsequently by Asfar—events which we have mentioned above. The situation described in the Siyāsat-nāma seems to fit in best with Asfār's war against al-Dā'ī al-Ṣaghīr and Mākān in 314 and 315.

² We have seen in the preceding note that Asfār spent much time in Jurjān.

³ Al-Mas'ūdī, no doubt malevolently, states that Asfār was not a Muslim: wa-kāna lā yadīnu bi-millati'l-Islām, Murūj al-dhahab, IX, 8, and tells the story that in Qazwīn he had a muezzin, who was calling to prayer, thrown down from the top of the minaret, ibid., p. 10.

⁴ See Kraus, P., Rasā' il falsafiyya li-Abī Bakr al-Rāzī, pp. 291 ff.Google Scholar Ḥamīd al-Dīn's statement that the disputation took place ‘in the days of Mardāwīj and his presence’ is quoted by Kraus, , op. cit., p. 10.Google Scholar

¹ See ‘al-Rāzī’, in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (by P. Kraus and S. Pines). Al-Bīrūnī, a most important witness, gives the exact date of al-Rāzī's death as 5 Sha'bān 313. Al-Rāzī dedicated some of his books to various governors of Rayy. His al-Manşūrī bears even in its title a reference to al-Manşūr b. Isḥāq, governor from 290 to 296 (see above, p. 62). A book on philosophy was dedicated to [Yūsuf] b. Abi'l-Sāj (Ibn Abī Usaybi'a, p. 320, last line); a book on the sun to ‘Ali b. Wahsūdān, for whom see above, p. 62 (ibidem, last but one line; read for ). To Aḥmad b. ‘Alī himself al-Rāzī dedicated two treatises: one on diet (see Ibn Abī Uşaybi'a, p. 320, 1. 10, and the Catalogue of the Arabic MSS of the Escurial, vol. II, pt. 2, by Renaud, H.-P.-J., p. 43)Google Scholar; and another on a particular medical problem (Ibn Abī Uşaybi'a, p. 321,11. 16–18). We may quote a passage from Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, al-Imtā‘wa'l-mu’ānasa, II, 15 (in the same context which will be mentioned below, p. 70), as it may be of some relevance for Mardāwīj's relations with Ismā'īlism: ‘The same [i.e. the harmonization of philosophy and religion] was the aim of Abū Tammām al-Naysabūrī, who served the sect known as Shī'ite [ = Ismā'īlīs?; read ‘Seveners’ sab'iyya?] and took refuge with Muṭarrif b. Muḥammad, the vizier of Mardāwij al-Jīlī, in order to receive assistance from him, and be enabled to say what he wished to say about this subject. Yet this only led to his humiliation and scorn for him, and to his hiding in his house’. The passage is unfortunately not explicit enough. (For Muṭarrif b. Muḥammad, vizier of Asfār and Mardāwīj, d. 321, see Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 141, 142, 196; Ibn Isfandiyār, pp. 212, 217.)

² Ibn al-Athīr, under the year 321, VIII, 195. In an earlier campaign, conducted soon after the occupation of Rayy, he mainly fought against Mākān b. Kākī (Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 145).

¹ ‘Arīb, p, 145; Défrémery, Journal Asiatique, IV^e Sér., x, 1847, 436.

¹ For a short account of him see my article ‘Ab'qūb al-Sijistānī’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.

¹ Quoted in Lewis, B., Origins of Ismā'īlism, Cambridge, 1940, 87.Google Scholar I have collated the original text, MS Istanbul, Shehīd ‘Alī Pasha 1575, fol. 177v.

² The translation given by Lewis: ‘Abū Muslim b. Ḥammād al-Mawşilī, Abū Bakr, and his brother Abū Hātim, etc.’ is erroneous.

³ The reading of the nisba is uncertain, see above, p. 61, n. 1.

⁴ See Strange, G. Le, Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate, 218.Google Scholar

¹ I have no information about this person.

² For the history of the dynasty see V. Minorsky's article ‘Musāfirids’ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam and the studies quoted in the bibliography of that article; add Minorsky, V., Studies in Caucasian history, London, 1953, 159–66.Google Scholar

¹ For Daysam see the study by Bykov, A. A., Epigrafika Vostoka, 1955, 14–37.Google Scholar

² According to Ibn Hawqal (ed. Kramers, , p. 354Google Scholar) ‘Alī b. Ja'far was first employed as financial secretary by Yūsuf b. Abi'l-Sāj. Ibn Ḥawqal reproduces a survey, drawn up in 344/955–6 by ‘Alī b. Ja'far, of the revenues drawn by al-Marzubān from his vassals. This text is commented on in detail by Minorsky, V., in BSOAS, xv, 3, 1953, 515 ff.Google Scholar

¹ The coin was shown to Dr. Miles in 1947 by its owner, Mr. Benjamin F. Hamilton, of Milford, Connecticut, with whose permission a plaster cast of it was made at that time (here reproduced as Plate I).

¹ These two terms are synonyms, though the second seems to be more common among the Ismā'īlīs; I use both terms indiscriminately.

² Ed. Ritter, H., p. 62.Google Scholar (For the authorship of the book cf. Oriens, VII, 1, 1954, p. 204.)Google Scholar

³ Ḥusayn F. al-Hamdānī, The genealogy of the Fatimids, Cairo, 1958.Google Scholar I give a detailed commentary on this text in a forthcoming article.

¹ Ed. de Goeje, , p. 210Google Scholar, ed. Kramers, , p. 295.Google Scholar The interpretation of Ibn Ḥawqal's passage is complicated by the fact that we do not have his own text, but two later versions, one of which has been shortened, while the other was disfigured by an anti-Ismā'īlī reviser. For a detailed discussion see Early Ismā'īlism.

² Al-Muntaẓam, ed. Hyderabad, VI, 195.Google Scholar The text had been published previously by de Goeje in an appendix of his Mémoire sur les Carmathes du Bahraïn et les Fatimides, Leiden, 1886, pp. 215–16Google Scholar, while a short summary is to be found on p. 88.

¹ ‘The township of Barāthā, a western suburb of Baghdad, was celebrated for its mosque, which to the Shi'as was a much venerated shrine. The tradition was that the Caliph ‘Alī had halted here in the year 37 (A.D. 657), when on his march to fight the Ḥarūrī rebels at Nahrawān, and it was said that ‘Alī had prayed on the spot where the mosque was subsequently built.… From this period onwards Barāthā obtained celebrity as a holy place among the Shī'as.’ (Strange, G. Le, Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate, p. 154.Google Scholar) The destruction of the mosque is also mentioned by Le Strange as well as Mez, Die Renaissance des Islâms, pp. 63–4.Google Scholar In the year 328/940 the caliph al-Rāḍī gave permission to the amīr Bajkam to rebuild the mosque for Sunnī worship, and the next caliph, al-Muttaqī, completed the work. The new mosque was opened in 329/941. To the authorities mentioned by Le Strange, p. 156, and Mez, p. 64, viz. al-Ya'qūbī, al-Iṣṭakhrī, Ibn Ḥawqal, al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Yāqūt, Ibn al-Jawzī [see VI, 317 in the printed edition], Ibn al-Athīr, Miskawayh, add also al-Ṣūlī, Akhbār al-Rāḍī wa'l-Muttaqī (ed. Dunne, Heyworth), pp. 136, 192, 198Google Scholar (and the note in M. Canard's translation, Algiers, 1946–50, I, 142, n. 2).

¹ For an account of the Muḥtājids see M. Qazwīnī's note in his edition of Niẓāmi-yi ‘Arūdi's Chahār magāla, pp. 163–6.Google Scholar For the date of Abū Bakr's governorship see especially Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 196, 267; for his son Abū ‘Alī also Barthold's article ‘Aḥmed b. Abī Bekr’ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

¹ A son of al-Ḥusayn served Yaḥyā, a brother of Naṣr b. Ahmad, who revolted in Bukhārā in 317; but subsequently he deserted and betrayed his associates. (See Gardīzī, , 30Google Scholar; Barthold, , Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, 242.Google Scholar) This son of al-Ḥusayn may also have had Ismā'īlī connexions; Ibn al-Athīr (VIII, 155, cf. Barthold) mentions among the seditious elements the ‘Shī'ites’.

² The name of the vizier is given as Abū Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Balkhī, about whom I could find no further information.

¹ See Yāqūt, , I, 604Google Scholar; al-Sam'ānī, s.v. al-Bazdawī; Barthold, W., Turkestan, 136–7.Google Scholar ‘Bazdahī’ is an error in Muḥ. Badr's edition; the correct form appears in al-Kawthari's edition, p. 176.

² Massignon, L., ‘Esquisse d'une bibliographie qarmate’, A volume of oriental studies presented to E. G. Browne, 332.Google Scholar In the first edition of his Studies in early Persian Ismailism, Leiden, 1948Google Scholar, W. Ivanow wrote (p. 117): ‘So far it has been taken that the latter nisba, Bardha'ī [’al-Bazdahī’ is read so, obviously following Massignon] belongs to the same Nasafī. It is not impossible that he really was a native of Bardha'a (in Southern Caucasus), and later became known as Nasafī, or Nakhshabī, from the scene of his activities. But it would be worth while ascertaining from reliable sources, whether this is so’. In the second edition (Bombay, 1955), p. 89, the reading ‘Bardha'ī’ and the speculation about Bardha'a is omitted, but the doubt whether ‘al Bazdahī’ is identical with al-Nasafī is even more emphasized: ‘So far it has been taken that the latter nisba belongs to the same Nasafī, but this cannot be accepted without proper verification, for which we so far have no materials’. There is, of course, no doubt that by al-Bazdawī mentioned as the author of the Kitāb al-Maḥsūl, al-Nasafī, the author of that book, is meant, and now the nisba has found its satisfactory explanation. A native of a village belonging to a great city can be called either after his village, or after the city, or after both; cf. the ‘al-Bazdawī al-Nasafī’ mentioned by al-Sam'ānī s.v. al-Bazdawī.

³ No further data about these persons seem to be available. For the office of the inspector of the army see Barthold, , Turkestan, 230Google Scholar, for that of the chamberlain, 227, for that of the wakīl, 229, 231.Google Scholar By the ‘governor’ of Īlāq probably the dihqān of Īlāq is meant, a feudal lord, about whom see Barthold, 233.

¹ The accounts of the Siyāsat-nāma and the Fihrist are discussed by Barthold, , Turkestan, 242–5.Google Scholar

² Khwān-i ikhwān, ed. Yaḥyā al-Khashshāb, Cairo 1940, p. 112.Google Scholar For Ya'qūb we must most probably read Abū Ya'qūb, pace Ivanow, who writes (Studies in early Persian Ismailism, 2nd ed., p. 89Google Scholar): ‘It is not likely that this “Ya'qūb” is really Abū Ya'qūb Sijzī’.

³ Al-Khashshāb's text has Khrl'n, for which we must no doubt read ‘Khurāsān’; the proposal of Ivanow (loc. cit.) to read Jurjān is unconvincing.

⁴ The same nickname for Abū Ya'qūb al-Sijistānī is found in al-Bustī (for whom see above, p. 70). The reading is, however, conjectural, as the MSS have no reliable diacritical points; khayshafūj would mean ‘cotton-grain’.

¹ cf. the text of al-Isfarā'īnī (below, p. 84, n. 2), according to which al-Nasafi's ‘da'wa in the country of Sijistān was led by Abū Ya'qūb’. We must not press these texts too much and should not necessarily conclude that Abū Ya'qūb was already the leader of the Sijistān da'wa in the lifetime of al-Nasafī. If the dā'l al-Ḥusayn of Sijistāu mentioned by al-Daylamī is not a mistake for Isḥāq (i.e. Abū Ya'qūb), he must have been a subordinate dā'ī of Abu Ya'qūb, or a predecessor or a successor of his.

¹ See Stern, S. M., ‘Ismā'īlī propaganda and Fatimid rule in Sind’, Islamic Culture, XXIII, 4, 1949, 299 ff.Google Scholar

² The meaning of this phrase, which puzzled Barthold (Turkestan, p. 243, n. 5Google Scholar) is that for the payment of this sum special gold pieces (of enormous size) were struck (or rather cast), each of which contained gold of the value of a thousand ordinary dīnārs.

¹ i.e. Ahmad, the son of Khalaf ‘the cotton-dresser’.

² According to Niẓām al-Mulk Ghiyāth was succeeded by an anonymous son of Khalaf. I assume that it is merely by an oversight that Ibn al-Nadīm calls him son of Ghiyāth.

³ i.e. Abū Ja'far, son of the grandson of Khalaf.

⁴ As I shall show on another occasion (in a study on Ibn Rizām and Akhū Muḥsin), it is a particular feature of Akhū Muḥsin's account (he was probably following Ibn Rizām in this respect too) that the founders of the Ismā'īlī mission in al-Aḥsā’ ( = Baḥrayn) and Yaman were described as emissaries of ‘Abdān.

⁵ A detailed discussion must be reserved for the study mentioned in the preceding note.

⁶ Muḥammad Badr's edition is based on the Berlin MS, which was the only one known; al-Kawtharī had at his disposal a MS belonging to the Chelebi-zāde (the head of the Mawlawīs) and his edition is often more correct. An epitome of the text has been published by Ph. Hitti, Cairo, 1924. Al-Baghdādī's account was excerpted by al-Isfarā'īnī, al-Tabṣīr fi'l-dīn, ed. al-Kawtharī, 1st ed., Cairo, 1940, p. 84, 2nd ed., Cairo, 1955, pp. 124–5.Google Scholar

¹ This is in contradiction with the account of the Siyāsat-nāma, according to which al-Marwazī was converted by Ghiyāth, presumably long before al-Sha'rānī came to Khurāsān (cf. above, p. 77). As al-Marwazī was al-Sha'rānī's successor, it was a natural error to state that he was converted by his predecessor. N.B.: al-Isfarā'īnī adda after ‘al-Marwazī’: ‘at the time when he was governor of Harāt and Marw al-Rūdh’, and this may well have been taken from the original text of al-Baghdādī.

² Al-Isfarā'īnī reads: ‘when he was killed, the leadership of the da'wa passed to Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Nasafī, the dā'ī of the inhabitants of Transoxania, known as Bazdawī, and his da'wa in the country of Sijistān was led by Abū Ya'qūb’. This also very likely contains correct readings derived from the original text of al-Baghdādī. Bandāna as a nickname of Abū Ya'qūb is only mentioned here. ‘After him’ is ambiguous—such ambiguities being natural in compressed versions of the list; we have seen other similar instances. In reality ‘him’ refers to al-Marwazī, but it is possible that al-Baghdādī himself meant it, wrongly, to refer it to al-Sha'rānī.

³ We have seen that though it is true that both al-Nasafī and Abū Ya'qūb were killed, Abū Ya'qūb died long after al-Nasafī; while the text seems to imply (and was so interpreted by various scholars) that they died at the same time. Strictly speaking, however, even the text does not necessarily mean that the two da'īs died together, though it is again possible that that is how al-Baghdādī himself understood it.

⁴ Top Kapu Saray, Ahmad III, 3013 (I), see Cahen, C., in Revue des Études Islamiques, X, 1936, 352.Google Scholar

⁵

^a So I, ed. ^bThe second half of this word is missing in ed. ^cThese two words are missing in ed. ^dSo I, ed. ^e ed. ^f These two words are missing in ed. ^g These three words are missing in ed. ^h I and ed, i Missing in ed. ^j These two words are missing in ed.

¹ i.e., most likely, Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī.

² wrote, R. Levy (p. 509)Google Scholar: ‘By a comparison of that work [Juwaynī's Ta'rīkh-i jahāngushā, completed 658/1260] with the corresponding section of the Jāmi' al-tawārākh of Rashīd al-Dīn [completed 710/1310–1] it is evident that the latter is the source from which Juwaynī drew most of his materials, and that for his compilation he used such sections of it as suited his purposes, omitting and transposing passages as he thought fit. In certain instances his omissions from the text have caused obscurities which the original version of Rashīd al-Dīn does not contain, and quite often the borrowings have been incorporated without any great effort to make them fit snugly into their context’. The main error in this statement is corrected in a note by the author himself (JRAS, 1931, 151Google Scholar) which reads as follows: ‘By an unobservant slip I said that Juwaynī had drawn his materials for his history of the Ismā'īlīs from the Jāmi' al-tawārīkh of Rashīd al-Dīn. This of course could not have been true of the original work of Juwaynī. What we have, however, appears to be a redaction, unless we are to assume that Juwaynī used very unskilfully an early work on the Ismā'īlīs, to which both he and Rashīd al-Dīn had access. The omissions in the extant text of the Ta'rīkh-i jahān-gushā make it evident at any rate that Rashīd al-Dīn did not use it as a source for his own history’. For the portions which I examined, i.e. the excerpts published by Levy and that published here, I incline to the conclusion that Rashīd al-Dīn used the extant text of Juwaynī, but used in addition some other source, or sources, from which he also derived the whole of the passage published here. A thorough examination of the whole chapter is needed before a general conclusion can be reached. It may be mentioned that H. Bowen (‘The sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā’, JRAS, 1931, see p. 771Google Scholar) assumes similarly to Levy that Rashīd al-Dīn used the first longer notes taken by Juwaynī from the biography of al-Ḥasan b. al-Ṣabbāḥ, which Juwaynī condensed in his own book. At any rate, the greater part of the contents of the passages published by Levy recurs in Juwaynī, and even those paragraphs which are not in Juwaynī, are of little or no importance; in effect the passage printed here, and which is summarized by Levy (p. 528) with the sentence: ‘The next part of the Jāmi' al-tawārīkh proceeds then to give a list of missionaries appointed to the various lands of Islam’, is the only one to contain anything new.

¹ As I have mentioned above (p. 84, n. 4) this reading is conjectural. The MSS of Rashid al-Dīn which I have used, as well as the unique MS of al-Bustī, do not have sufficient diacritical points.

² Reading (with some amusement) the remark by which E. Blochet introduces his translation of Rashīd al-Dīn's passage in his Le messianisme dans l'hétérodoxie musulmane, Paris, 1903, p. 67Google Scholar, we shall be but confirmed in the unfavourable view which we are apt to take of his performance in that book. It reads: ‘Ces événements sont racontés par Rashid ed-Din avec une exactitude et une clarté qu'on ne retrouve pas dans tous les ouvrages qui traitent de l'histoire d'ailleurs si embrouillée, des Fatimites, des Karmathes, et des Ismaīliens’.

¹ Blochet, E., Le messianisme dans l'hétérodoxie musulmane, pp. 67–9.Google Scholar

¹ A.

² A om. Blochet

³ A.

⁴ ABD Blochet C.

⁵ om. A.

⁶ A.

⁷ AC. (I am uncertain whether B reads or )

⁸ ABD Blochet C.

⁹ om. A.

¹⁰ B.

¹¹ A B CD Blochet.

¹² ABD Blochet C.

¹³ A.

¹⁴ A.

¹⁵ om. A.

¹⁶ A.

¹⁷ ‘à Alep et à Damas’ Blochet.

¹⁸ sic ABCD Blochet; the correct form is

¹⁹ A adds

²⁰ C.

²¹ om. A.

²² A.

¹ A; B.

² A.

³ om. CD.

⁴ A.

⁵ A B C D Blochet; the correct form is

⁶ om. C.

⁷ om. C.

⁸ ABD C.

⁹ Error for al-Ḥallāj.

¹⁰ Erroneous ‘telescoping’ into one person of Aḥmad, son and successor of Khalaf al-Ḥallāj, and of Abū Ja'far, great-grandson of his.

¹¹ See above, p. 65.

¹² See above, p. 81, n. 1.