_Reign of Rokneddin Kharshah, the last Grand-master of
the Assassins._
The crimes of the society of murderers, which had long ago exceeded
the measure of humanity, had, at length, filled to overflowing that
of retributive vengeance: after an existence of a hundred and seventy
years, the tempest of destruction fell, with terrific fury, on the
Assassins. The conquering power of Jengis Khan, thundering in the
distance, had passed innocuously over their heads; but under the third
of his successors, Mangu Khan, the whirlwind of Mongols swept over
the eastern world, and, in its desolating progress, carried away,
along with the khalifat, and other dynasties, that of the Assassins.
In the year 582 of the Hegira,[247] when the seven planets were in
conjunction, in the sign Libra, as they had been, a century before, in
that of Pisces,[248] all Asia was trembling, in expectation of the end
of the world, which astrologers had declared was to happen, the first
time by a deluge, and the second by hurricanes and earthquakes. But if,
the first time, a swollen mountain torrent drowned only a few pilgrims,
in order not to put the prophecy to the blush; and the second, there
was so little wind on the appointed night, that lights burnt freely in
the open air, on the top of the minarets, without being extinguished;
nevertheless, at both periods, political revolutions came to the help
of the astrologers’ predictions, who had interpreted the conjunction of
the planets as indicating physical changes.
At the end of the fifth century of the Hegira, the deluge of the
Assassins inundated the whole of Asia; and at the end of the sixth,
Jengis Khan rushed on, like a hurricane, and the earth quaked under the
hoofs of the Mongols. The rage of the tempest afterwards spread through
all Asia, and the shocks of the earthquake carried their ruin as far as
Europe. During the reign of Mangu, the conquest of China and Persia was
completed by his brothers, Kublai and Hulaku; and as the preponderating
power of the latter, trod into ruins the citadel of the Assassins,
and rolled the khalif’s throne in the dust, his expedition to Persia
deserves our most particular attention.
Tandju Newian, the general of Mangu Khan, who covered the frontiers
of Iran, sent to his master the ambassadors of the khalif of Bagdad,
who complained of the atrocities of the Assassins, and besought him to
extirpate the vile race. Their complaints were seconded by those of
the judge of Kaswin, who was at the khan’s court, and went in armour
to the audience, fearing the daggers of the Assassins, against whose
crimes he raised the voice of humanity. Mangu immediately collected an
army, which he placed under the command of his brother, Hulaku, whom,
on departing, he addressed in the following words: “I send thee, with
much cavalry and a strong army, from Turan to Iran, the land of great
princes. It is thine, to observe the laws and ordinances of Jengis
Khan, in great things, and in small, and to take possession of the
countries from the Oxus to the Nile. Assemble round thee, with favours
and rewards, the obedient and the submissive; but tread into the
dust of contempt and misery, the refractory and mutinous, with their
wives and children. When thou hast done with the Assassins, begin the
conquest of Irak. If the khalif of Bagdad comes forward willingly to
serve thee, then shalt thou do him no harm; but, if he refuse, let
him share the fate of the rest.”[249] Upon this, Hulaku went from Kara
Kurum to the camp, and put his forces in order, and reinforced them
with a thousand families of Chinese fire-work makers. These latter
managed the besieging machines and the artillery of flaming naphtha,
which has been known to Europe, under the name of the Greek fire, since
the Crusades; but was long before used by the Arabs and Chinese, as
well as gunpowder.[250] In Ramadan,[251] he broke up his camp; and
receiving constant reinforcements on his march, he halted for a month,
first at Samarkand and afterwards at Kash.
Hither came Shemseddin Kurt and Emir Arghun, from Khorassan, offering
him its homage, and from hence he sent ambassadors to the princes of
the surrounding countries, with this message: “By command of the khan,
I am advancing against the Assassins, to destroy them: if ye will
support me in this enterprise, your trouble shall be rewarded—your
country protected; but if ye conduct yourselves negligently, I will,
after having finished this affair, advance against you; so shall ye
know it—it is foretold to you.” As soon as the news of the approach of
his victorious standard was spread abroad, ambassadors appeared from
Rum, from Sultan Rokneddin, Prince of the Seljuks in Fars, from the
Atabeg Saad of Irak, Aserbijan, Kurdjistan, and Shirwan, to offer the
homage of their masters.
The beginning of the month Silhidje, in the 553rd year of the Hegira,
Hulaku crossed the Oxus by a temporary bridge, and amused himself by
lion hunting on the hither side. Here winter overtook him, and the cold
was so severe, that most of his horses perished. He was compelled to
wait till spring, when Arghun Khan appeared at his command in the camp;
the political affairs of the latter were conducted by his son Gherai,
Ahmed Bitegi, and Khoja Alaeddin Ata-mulk, the vizier, writer of the
celebrated historical work Jehan Kusha (_Conqueror of the World_).
Hulaku marched from Shirgan to Khawaf whence being himself attacked
with indisposition, he despatched his general, Kayu Kanian, on the
conquest of Kuhistan. He went himself to Tus, the native city of the
greatest Persian poet, astronomer, and vizier, Ferdusi, Nassireddin,
and Nisam-ol-mulk; the renowned burial-place of the Imam Ali Ben Mussa
Risa, and established his quarters in a newly-laid out garden of Arghun
Aka. From thence he went to Manssuriye, where the wives of Arghun and
his lieutenant, Aseddin Taher, gave him a sumptuous banquet. He then
sent the Prince Shemseddin Kurt as ambassador to Nassireddin Mohtashem,
Rokneddin’s governor in Sertakht. Although an old man, Nassireddin, the
first patron of the astronomer of the same name, who has immortalized
his memory by his ethical work dedicated to him, nevertheless
accompanied the envoy in person, to the camp of Hulaku, who loaded him
with marks of distinction.
Hulaku, on arriving on his march at Junushan, commanded the place,
which had formerly been destroyed by the Mongols, to be rebuilt, at
the public expense; he then returned to Khirkan, where he sent another
embassy to Rokneddin Kharshah, the lord of Alamut, summoning him to
obedience and submission. Rokneddin had just ascended the throne, still
reeking with the blood of his father, and followed in his political
conduct the treacherous advice of his vizier, the great astronomer,
Nassireddin of Tus. The latter had presented a work to the Khalif
Mostrassem: for which, instead of receiving honours and rewards, as
he expected, he only gained contempt and insult. Alkami, the khalif’s
vizier, jealous of Nassireddin, objected to the work, that, in the
dedication, the title of “Vicegerent of God on Earth,” was wanting;
and the khalif, who thought it badly written, threw it into the
Tigris.[252]
From this moment, the insulted _savant_ swore vengeance against the
vizier and the khalif, and fled to Alamut, where the grand-master still
clutched his dagger, beneath which more than one vizier and one khalif
had already fallen. As the grand-master, however, did not interest
himself with sufficient earnestness in Nassireddin’s revenge, or did
not expedite it quickly enough, for the approach of Hulaku drew the
attention of the order away from the khalif to the consideration of
their own defence; and as, according to all probability, the citadel
of the Ismailites would, at length, be obliged to succumb to the hosts
of the Mongols, Nassireddin immediately changed his plan and designs.
He resolved, in the first instance, to deliver up his master, and the
castles of the Assassins, to the advancing victor, in order to ensure,
by treachery, the means to his ultimate revenge, and to pave the way
for the destruction of the khalif’s throne, with the ruins of the
order. He thus extended the prospect of his revenge, and his joy at the
fall of his foes took a wider compass. The vizier and the khalif would
only have bled under the poniards of the Assassins; the burning brands
of the Mongols, however, menaced the conflagration of the capital,
and the whole edifice of the khalifat. The lust of destruction must
have been great in that mind, which could sacrifice the Assassins to
its revenge, because they unsheathed their daggers too slowly for his
purpose.
By the advice of Nassireddin, Rokneddin Kharshah sent to Baissur
Nubin, Hulaku’s general, who had already reached Hamadan, an embassy
of submission, and expressing his desire to live in peace with every
one. Baissur Nubin answered, that as Hulaku was not far off, Rokneddin
would do best to go to him in person. After several messages, it was
determined, that Rokneddin should send his brother Shehinshah in
Baissur’s suite to Hulaku. Shehinshah addressed himself to Baissur,
and the latter gave him his own son, as escort on his way to Hulaku;
he himself, however, by command of his lord, entered the district of
Alamut, with his army, on the 10th of the month Jemesi-ul-ewel, in
the 654th year of the Hegira.[253] The Assassins and the troops of the
order occupied a height near Alamut, which they defended obstinately
against the Mongols. The rock was steep, and the occupying party
numerous. The assailants, compelled to abandon the attack, burned
the houses of the Ismailites, and ravaged the fields. While this
happened near Alamut, and after Shehinshah had arrived at Hulaku’s
quarters, the latter sent an envoy to Rokneddin, with the command as
follows:—“Because Rokneddin has sent his brother to us, we pardon
him the guilt of his father and his partisans; he himself, who has,
during his short reign, as yet proved himself guilty of no crime, shall
destroy his castles, and repair to us.”
At the same time, Baissur received orders to suspend the ravaging of
the province of Rudbar. After the arrival of these orders, Rokneddin
caused some of the battlements of Alamut to be knocked down, and
Baissur withdrew his troops from Rudbar. By order of Rokneddin,
Sadreddin Sungi, one of the most respectable of the order, went,
accompanied by an envoy of Hulaku’s, to the latter’s camp, to announce
submissively to him, that the prince of the Assassins had already
begun to demolish his castles, and that he was proceeding in the work
of destruction; that he, however, dreading the presence of Hulaku,
requested the term of a year, after the lapse of which, he would
appear at his court. Hulaku sent back Sadreddin, the Ismailite envoy,
accompanied by one of his basikakis, or officers, and wrote to the
grand-master:—“If Rokneddin’s submission be sincere, let him come to
the imperial camp, and cede to Basikaki, the deliverer of this letter,
the defence of his country.”
Rokneddin, misled by his evil genius, and the ill advice of
Nassireddin, delayed his obedience to this command. He sent the vizier,
Shemseddin Keilaki, and his cousin, Seifeddin Sultan Melik Ben Kia
Manssur, again, with ambassadors, to Hulaku, to cloak his refusal to
appear in person, under bad excuses. He commanded, at the same time,
his governors and commanders of Kuhistan and Kirdkuh, to hasten to the
Mongol camp, and to proffer their homage.
As soon as Hulaku reached Demawend, which lies immediately on the
mountains of the Assassins, he despatched the vizier, Shemseddin
Keilaki, to Kirdkuh, to bring the commander of that fortress into the
camp, in pursuance of Rokneddin’s command; one of the envoys, who had
accompanied the vizier and Rokneddin’s cousin to the camp, was sent, on
the same mission, to Kuhistan, and the latter proceeded, with Hulaku’s
ambassador, to the castle of Maimundis, where Rokneddin had established
his residence, in order to inform him that “the ruler of the world had
now advanced as far as Demawend; there was now no longer any time for
delay; but if he wished to wait a few days, he might, in the meanwhile,
send his son.” These ambassadors arrived at Maimundis the beginning of
Ramadan, and gave the intelligence that Hulaku’s victorious standards
were floating on the frontiers, and communicated his commands. At
this news, Rokneddin and his people fell into stupid astonishment
and helpless terror. He answered the ambassador that he was ready
to send his son, but then, urged by the persuasion of his wives and
short-sighted advisers, he delivered to the envoy the child of a slave,
who, being of the same age as his son, was substituted for him, and
requested that Hulaku would allow his brother, Shehinshah, who was
still at his court, to return. Hulaku, who was already on the confines
of Rudbar, easily unmasked the imposture, and, without betraying his
discovery, sent back the child, two days after, with the information
that, on account of his youth, the khan would not detain him; and that,
if he had an elder brother, he might be sent into the camp, in exchange
for Shehinshah, who would then be permitted to return.
In the meanwhile, the governor of Kirdkuh had arrived in the camp, and
Hulaku, who now permitted Shehinshah, Rokneddin’s brother, to return,
dismissed him with these words: “Tell thy brother to demolish the
castle of Maimundis, and come to me: if he comes not, the Eternal God
knows the consequences.” During these negociations, the Tawadgi or
recruiters of the Mongols, had collected so considerable a number of
troops, that hill and dale swarmed with them. On the seventh of the
month Shewal, Hulaku appeared in person before Maimundis, to undertake
the siege of that fortress, and a battle took place on the 25th.
Rokneddin, ill advised, and still worse betrayed by Nassireddin, sent,
at length, his other brother, Iranshah, together with his son, Kiashah,
and the vizier, Nassireddin, into the camp, to offer his homage and
submission, and to request a free retreat. They were accompanied by
the most distinguished members of the order, who bore rich presents.
Nassireddin, instead of speaking for his prince, and placing the
strength of the fortress in the balance of the negotiation, told
Hulaku, that the security of the castles of the Ismailites need not
trouble him, that the stars foretold clearly the downfall of their
power, and the sun would accelerate their ruin. The surrender of the
place was then agreed upon, on condition of an unmolested retreat,
and on the 1st of the month Silkide, Rokneddin, and his ministers and
confidents, evacuated the castle of Maimundis, and went into Hulaku’s
camp. The gold and the presents, which he brought with him, were
divided among the troops. Hulaku had compassion on Rokneddin’s youth
and inexperience; he having scarcely been seated more than a year,
on the throne of his fathers. He gave him good words and flattering
promises, retained him as his guest, but the traitor, Nassireddin, as
his vizier. The latter, who had put the fortress and the grand-master
into the hands of the khan, and had laid the axe at the root of the
Assassin power, had effrontery enough to compose a chronograph on this
occurrence, which immortalizes his treachery and revenge, containing
the date of this affair, in two verses.[254]
In Hulaku’s camp, Rokneddin was given into the custody of a guard
of Tartars; and officers of the khan accompanied the grand-master’s
deputies into the district Rudbar, in order to demolish the castles
belonging to the Assassins, there situated: others were despatched
to the two grand-priorates of Syria and Kuhistan, to summon the
commandants of the places belonging to the order, to surrender them
to Hulaku, in the name of the last grand-master. The number of these
strongholds amounted to more than a hundred; and these, by which the
mountainous parts of Kuhistan, Irak, and Syria, were crowned, formed
the girdle of the Assassins’ power, reaching from the shores of the
Caspian to those of the Mediterranean sea; in all these, the dagger
was the insignia of dominion. In Rudbar, alone, more than forty were
levelled with the ground, all well fortified and full of treasure. The
three strongest refused obedience to Hulaku’s summons, and Rokneddin’s
commands; the commanders of Alamut, the grand-master’s capital, of
Lamsir and Kirdkuh, replied, that they were waiting for the khan’s
arrival to surrender them to him. Hulaku struck his camp, and appeared,
in a few days, before Alamut; he sent the captive grand-master to
the foot of the ramparts to persuade the inhabitants by promises and
threats, to surrender; Rokneddin obeyed, but the governors of the
fortress refused to yield. Hulaku left a blockading force before
Alamut, and marched to Lamsir, whose inhabitants came out to meet
him, and offer their allegiance; the constancy of the Alamuters
being shaken by this, they sent an envoy to Rokneddin, to beg him to
intercede with the enraged prince in their favour.
By the mediation of Rokneddin, Hulaku allowed the commander a safe
conduct to the camp. The inhabitants requested three days to remove
their money and goods, this was permitted; and, on the third, the
castle was given up to pillage. Alamut, or the Eagle’s Nest, so called
from its inaccessible height, lay on a rock, which presented the shape
of a lion kneeling, with his neck stretched on the ground: the walls
rose from the lion’s rock, which they equalled in solidity, as it did
them in its perpendicular rise; they were vaulted for the defence of
the garrison; the rock was excavated into corn magazines and cellars
for honey and wine; these had been, for the most part, filled in the
time of Hassan Sabah; and so excellent was the choice of the spot, and
the care bestowed upon it, that neither had the wheat become mouldy,
nor the wine sour; which was considered by the Ismailites as a miracle
of their founder. The Mongols, who, without knowledge of the locality,
sought in the subterraneous chambers and cellars, for treasure, fell
into the wine and honey.
The armies of the Assassins being scattered, and their poniards broken
in the destruction of their fortresses, Hulaku returned in the month
Selhidje, of the same year, to Hamadan, where he had left his children.
Rokneddin, who accompanied him, was treated with kindness, either
from pity or contempt. Entirely degenerated from the blood of his
fathers, he had not even the virtues of a common Assassin,—courage,
and contempt of death; still less those of a grand-master,—strength
of rule and state-craft. Already morally a slave, even before he
fell into the hands of Hulaku, he still showed himself in the same
character by the meanness of his pursuits. A Mongol girl, of the lowest
grade, was the object of his affections, and Hulaku, who neglected no
opportunity of exposing him to the shafts of public scorn, commanded
a solemn marriage, on being asked for the slave by the prince of the
Assassins. After the completion of the ceremony, Rokneddin begged the
favour of being sent to the great khan Mangu: Hulaku was, at first,
astonished at this senseless request, by which Rokneddin sought his
own destruction; as, however, he did not feel himself called upon to
prevent it, he gave him permission, and a troop of Mongols, as an
escort. Rokneddin had promised on his way to persuade the garrison of
Kirdkuh, the last castle of the Assassins which still held out against
the Mongols, to surrender. He left Hulaku’s camp at Hamadan, on the
first of Rebi-ul-ewel, in the 655th year of the Hegira;[255] as he
passed Kirdkuh he sent the inhabitants a public message, requiring them
to surrender; he, however, secretly instructed them to hold out, and to
deliver the fortress up to no one.
By this foolish, contradictory policy, by which he had already entailed
the ruin of the order, he now accelerated his own. On arriving at
Karakurum, the khan’s capital, the latter, without admitting him to an
audience, sent him the following message: “If thou pretendest to be
submissive, wherefore hast thou not surrendered the castle of Kirdkuh?
return, and demolish the yet unyielded castles; then mayest thou share
the honour of appearing in our imperial presence.” When Rokneddin and
his escort, had reached the Oxus, on his return, the latter, under
pretence of taking refreshment, made him dismount, and pierced him with
their swords.
Mangu had already, some time before, issued the command to Hulaku,
to exterminate all the Ismailites, and not to spare even the infant
at his mother’s breast: and immediately upon Rokneddin’s departure,
the sanguinary task was commenced, which had only been delayed till
Kirdkuh and the remainder of the castles of the Assassins in Kuhistan
and Syria should have fallen. He sent one of his viziers to Kaswin,
to put to death, indiscriminately, Rokneddin’s wives, children,
brothers, sisters, and slaves; only two relations (females apparently)
of Rokneddin, were selected from this devoted band, not for mercy,
but to be the victims of the princess, Bulghan Khatun’s, private
revenge; her father, Jagatai, having bled by the Assassin’s daggers. A
command, similar to that given to the governor of Kaswin, was issued
to the viceroy of Khorassan. He assembled the captive Ismailites, and
twelve thousand of these wretched creatures were slaughtered, without
distinction of age. Warriors went through the provinces, and executed
the fatal sentence, without mercy or appeal. Wherever they found a
disciple of the doctrine of the Ismailites, they compelled him to kneel
down, and then cut off his head. The whole race of Kia Busurgomid,
in whose descendants the grand-mastership had been hereditary, were
exterminated. The “devoted to murder” were not now the victims of the
order’s vengeance, but that of outraged humanity. The sword was against
the dagger, and the executioner destroyed the murderer. The seed, sowed
for two centuries, was now ripe for the harvest, and the field ploughed
by the Assassin’s dagger, was reaped by the sword of the Mongol. The
crime had been terrible, but no less terrible was the punishment.
The castles of the Assassins in Rudbar and Kuhistan, Kain, Tun, Lamsir,
and even Alamut, the capital, were now in the hands of the victor.
Kirdkuh alone, whose garrison had been encouraged not to yield, by
Rokneddin, when on his way to Mangu, resisted the besieging forces
of the Mongols for three years. It is situated in the district of
Damaghan, near Manssurabad, on a very lofty mountain, and is, probably,
the same as the castle Tigado, mentioned by the Armenian historian,
Haithon, who has converted the three years’ siege into one of thirty
years’ duration.[256] Circumstantial details of this siege, are found
in Sahireddin,[257] the historian of Masenderan, and Ruyan, whose
princes, having done homage to the overwhelming power of Hulaku Khan,
received his commands to besiege Kirdkuh, while he was engaged in his
expedition against Bagdad. At that period, the throne of Mazanderan
was filled by Shems-ol-Moluk Erdeshir, of the family of Bawend; and
at Ruyan reigned the Astandar, or mountain prince, Shehrakim, of
the family Kawpare. They were united in the bonds of friendship,
relationship, and contiguity of situation. The prince of Ruyan had
given his daughter in marriage, to the shah of Masenderan, and Hulaku
Khan promised himself a large result from the wisdom of his measures,
in imposing upon them both the conduct of the siege of Kirdkuh.
It was in the beginning of spring, that the poet, Kutbi Ruyani, who was
in the camp of the allied princes, sung a solemn poem, in honour of
spring, in the language of Thaberistan, beginning—
The sun has now once more passed from the Fish to the Ram,
Spring waves her flowery banner to the east wind.
By this distich, inserted by the historian, Sahireddin, in his work,
the existence of a particular language in Thaberistan is made known
to Europe. It consists of a mixture of Mongol, Ouigour, and Persian
words.[258] The inspiration of the native poet, had so great an effect
upon the two princes, that, without waiting for the khan’s permission,
they raised the siege, and marched home, in order fully to enjoy, in
their native plains, the delights of returning spring, unmindful of
the wrath of Hulaku Khan, of which they soon felt the full weight.
Gasan Behadir was despatched from the army, to chastise them for their
disobedience. The prince of Ruyan, who had first set his son-in-law
the bad example of withdrawing, had the magnanimity to take the whole
fault upon himself, and, in order not to expose his own, and his
relative’s possessions, to the ravages of the Mongols, he went, of his
own accord, to Amul, where Gasan Behadir had encamped. He had the good
fortune to appease the khan, and received, both for himself and the
shah of Masenderan, a new investiture of their principalities, which
had been declared forfeited by their disobedience.
The effect of this invocation of spring, of the Thaberistani poet,
is, although in an opposite manner, no less remarkable in martial and
literary history, than are the hymns, with which Tyrtæus animated the
Spartans to the combat; and, if the Greek poet has been imitated in
our own time, in the songs of the Prussian and Austrian soldiery, and
with the happiest effect, nevertheless, no siege has ever been raised
yet, either by the Pervigilium Veneris, or by Bürger’s imitation of
it. This desertion of the siege, by the two commanders, explains its
protraction, for full three years; a period, which, without being
extended to thirty, appears amply sufficient, since Alamut, the
strongest of the Assassin’s fortresses, yielded, on the third day,
after being summoned by Hulaku.
After the fall of Alamut, the residence of the grand-master, and
the centre of the order, Atamelik Jowaini, the learned vizier and
historian, asked and obtained from Hulaku, permission to search the
celebrated library and archives of the order, for the purpose of
saving the works which might be worthy of the khan’s preserving. He
laid aside the Koran and some other precious books, and committed
to the flames, not only all the philosophical and sceptical works,
containing the Ismailite doctrine, and written in harmony with it, but
also all the mathematical and astronomical instruments, and thus at
once destroyed every source from which history might have derived a
more circumstantial account of the dogmas of the Ismailites, and the
statutes of the order. Fortunately, in his own history, he preserved
the results of the information which he derived from the library and
archives of the order, together with a biographical sketch of Hassan
Sabah, from which all the more modern Persian historians, as Mirkhond
and Wassaf, have collected their stories, and which we ourselves have
likewise followed.[259]
The existence of this library, at the time of the Conquest, convicts
of hypocrisy the sixth grand-master, Jelaleddin Nev Musulman; since
he could not have committed to the flames, in the presence of the
deputies of Kaswin, the archives and doctrinal works of the order which
remain preserved, for the inquisitorial zeal of Atamelik Jowaini. This
fanatical zeal has, at all periods, but particularly in the middle
ages, converted millions of books into ashes. If the west does, not
unjustly[260] (as Gibbon believes), accuse the Khalif Omar of the
conflagration of the Alexandrian library, the east returns the charge
with the accusation of the burning of the books at Tripoli, where an
immense library of Arabic works was consumed by the Crusaders.[261]
The assertion that, in the former place, the baths were heated for a
space of six months with the wisdom of the Greeks, is as extravagant
as that in Tripoli alone, three millions of Arabic manuscripts fed
the flames: but that both conflagrations were lighted up by the
torch of fanaticism, is not, on that account, the less an historical
fact, clearly attested and confirmed by the first historians of the
east.[262] The library of Alexandria was burnt by the Moslimin,
because, according to the instructions of Omar, the Koran only was
the book of books, and all knowledge not contained in it was vain and
useless. The library at Tripoli was consumed by the Christians, because
it contained, for the most part, nothing but the Koran, and the works
written on it. At Alamut the Koran was preserved by Jowaini, and the
philosophical works written against it, doomed to destruction; and
at Fas, a century before, an _auto da fe_ of theological books was
held by Sultan Yakub.[263] Had these two alone been lost, there would
not be so much reason to complain; but with them, the conflagrations
of Alexandria and Alamut swept away treasures of Grecian, Egyptian,
Persian, and Indian philosophy.
END OF BOOK VI.