The Autobiography of al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn Hibat Allāh al-Shīrāzī

(ca. 1000–1077)

Introduction

Al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn Hibat Allāh al-Shīrāzī was born in the city of Shiraz in southern Iran. During his lifetime the rivalry between various Sunnī and Shi‘ite sects of Islam took the form of competing political states as well as competing religious doctrines. He, like his father before him, became a “missionary” [dā‘ī] for a sect of Shi‘ite Islam known as Ismā‘īlism, most notably championed by the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt from the tenth through the twelfth century. As a dā‘ī, al-Mu’ayyad acted equally as a local religious leader and as an agent provocateur for the Fatimids in their struggles with rival states in Syria and Iran. Al-Mu’ayyad held many different posts during his career: religious teacher, political agitator, missionary, senior court official, and military commander. The language of his writing reveals him to be a highly educated and accomplished rhetorician, and certainly bilingual in Arabic and Persian. He was also a poet. Al-Mu’ayyad's autobiography is a gripping story of high-stakes political intrigue, military adventure, and espionage.

Al-Mu’ayyad's account of his life proceeds chronologically, with occasional flashbacks and foreshadowing, and focuses on three main periods of his career. The first section details his activities in Shiraz, his attempts to win the sultan Abū Kālījār over to Ismā‘īlism, and the enmity he provoked among the local clergy who on one occasion forced him to flee for his life in disguise in a dramatic escape from the city. Later sections of the autobiography recount al-Mu’ayyad's tenure at the Fatimid court in Cairo, providing a valuable depiction of the functioning of the court during the reign of al-Mustanṣir (r. 1036–94), and offer a detailed account of his military expedition against the Seljuq Turks and the brief capture of Baghdad by a fragile coalition he had forged among Arab tribes and Turkic mercenaries in 1058.

In the excerpts translated here, taken from the first section of the text, al-Mu’ayyad is in residence in the city of Shiraz, then governed by the Būyid sultan Abū Kālījār (d. 1048).^[1] When we enter the story, he has already converted many soldiers from the region of Daylam in north-central Iran (who constituted a major part of the sultan's army) to Ismā‘īlism. Al-Mu’ayyad is thus engaged in activities just short of outright sedition but has sufficient popular support to make him both dangerous and difficult to eliminate openly. The story opens at the end of Ramadan, 1037, as al-Mu’ayyad and his converted followers are about to break the monthlong fast two days earlier than the Sunnī majority because of their different method of calculating the lunar month, an incident that leads to civil unrest. In the first excerpt, al-Mu’ayyad manages to avoid both being assassinated and being exiled through his astute political instincts and powerful eloquence. His dramatic escape from Shiraz in the second excerpt is but the first of many such adventures recounted in the remainder of the text.

Al-Mu’ayyad's prose style is ornate, rhymed, and filled with parallelisms, a common embellishment in Arabic and Persian prose: “. . . their determination and resolve to oppose and prohibit my activities. . .” or “People in the marketplaces began to whisper, and in their gatherings and households they began to talk.” Although such doubled phrases can be awkward in English, many of them have been retained in the current translation to communicate something of the feel of the original. Another important element of his style lies in the rhetorical dimension, particularly the way in which he attributes to himself lengthy and flowery argumentation whenever he is speaking publicly, while his opponents are either left anonymous and silent or depicted as giving only terse, simple responses. Despite the brash rhetoric of his speeches, al-Mu’ayyad often confides to the reader his deep fear and even terror during his adventures, typically at moments when he is alone, such as at home at night or cowering in hiding.

Bibliography

Daftary, Farhad. The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 213–15, and index, 779, s.v. al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī.

Klemm, Verena. Die Mission des faṭimidischen Agenten al-Mu’ayyad fī d-dīn in Širaz. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1989.

al-Mu’ayyad al-Shīrāzī. Sīrat al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn dā‘ī al-du‘āt . Ed. M. K. Ḥusayn. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1949.

Muscati, J., and K. Moulvi. The Life and Lectures of the Grand Missionary Al-Mu’ayyad-fid-din Al-Shirazi. Karachi: Ismailia Association of West Pakistan, 1950 [contains long paraphrased passages from the Sīra].

Poonawalla, Ismail. “Al-Mu’aiyad fī ’l-dīn al-Shīrāzī.” EI² 5:270.

The End of Ramadan
[Sīrat al-Mu’ayyad, pp. 5–11]

On the day before the feast at the end of Ramadan 428 A.H. [1037 [C.E.], I was preparing for the holiday by obtaining carpets, furnishings, and the rugs necessary for the worshipers to pray on. News spread that I was gathering a great crowd the following day for the prayer and sermon and was setting up tents and pavilions in the courtyard of my house in an overt display of defiance and provocation. An extremely dim view was taken of this [by the authorities], which led to their determination and resolve to oppose and prohibit my activities. Talk of this spread quickly through town. People in the marketplaces began to whisper, and in their gatherings and households they began to talk. This soon reached the ears of Shi‘ites even in the farthest reaches of the city. Every so often, one of them would rush over to my house to reassure himself about my safety and to inquire whether anything had happened to me, only to find me safe and sound and still in one piece.

The next day, which was the holiday, a great mass of people from Daylam gathered together to pray and I led them in prayer. When I had finished, I addressed them vigorously in my sermon with admonitions and warnings, saying: “As must be clear to you, times are tense, and our enemies are showing themselves openly and in great numbers. They aim to besmirch our good works and attribute great sins to us, even though we are the ones who are diligent in bearing the charge of worship and the performance of prescribed religious duties and time-worn rites! You must rein yourselves in, make an effort to see the good in their deeds, and fear God as is His due! Take care that not one of you is linked to any form of transgression—let no loose tongue find room to fault you. Patience! Prayer! God is with the steadfast!”

In the evening of that same day, the Sunnīs sought the crescent moon in accordance with their custom [i.e., by visual sighting], but it was hidden from them for a while.^[2] So they rejoiced thinking that having fasted for twenty-nine days they would complete the fast on the next day, the thirtieth. They lashed out at us with words and deeds for breaking the fast two days before them, so that this might be more damning and more effective in venting their anger on us. But shortly thereafter the moon appeared and their tongues dried up in their mouths and their hearts died in their bodies from the intensity of their rage and wrath. The next day they went to their place of worship, prayed, and returned. They were filled with talk against us and schemes to ensnare us, but nothing happened that day.

The following day, however, I was summoned by the minister of state, Bahrām ibn Māfina ibn Shahl, who had been given the title “the Just”—may God have mercy upon him—to his court. A man of great intelligence, of noteworthy erudition, conciliatory in all situations, and refined in words and deeds, he bade me approach and draw near, and then he welcomed me. He disliked having to address me with such harshness, knowing that it was not proper to do so, nor even the necessary place to do so, but he was acting under orders from a master whose commands could not be disobeyed and whose decrees could not be opposed [i.e., the sultan].

“You know,” he began, “of my deep regard and fondness for you, and that I would not ask you to do something were it not in your own best interest, but I am of the view that your activities have crossed over the boundary of wrongdoing and reached their limit. Yesterday, the sultan, on his way riding through the street from his palace to the mosque and back again, spoke of you the whole time, filled with wrath against you. He said, in short, that if you do not take your leave of this country and depart, he will order someone to do such-and-such to you, indicating that you would be killed, though he avoided saying so outright. So consider whether there is any point or sense in remaining here after that. Moreover, this morning, the chief judge was here and said that the religious storytellers and other mosque officials had come to him to say that they were losing patience with what that person—meaning you—was doing to spread heresy and the rejection of the Prophet's sunna [and saying]: “We should gather en masse and head for the sultan's gate to seek assistance with this situation, and demand some sort of permission so that we can attack his house, tear it down, burn it, kill him, and cause whatever other damage we can.”

The minister continued, “I responded by telling him that this would be no simple matter, since it would confirm the suspicions of the Daylamī soldiers [Mu’ayyad's staunchest supporters] and should anything rouse them from their current peaceful state, it would surely lead to sedition, bloodshed, rape, and terrible deeds. The judge answered me,” said the minister, “that if al-Mu’ayyad turns to them for help—meaning the Daylamīs—then their enemies will turn to others—meaning the Turks.”

Then the minister said to me, “Setting aside for the moment the sultan's enmity, which is in any case neither settled nor fixed, if there were nothing to this talk but the talk of the masses and their unrest, then our assumption about you, with your understanding, would be that you do not choose to be a source of sedition and unrest. But it is better that you seek guidance from Almighty God and leave the country immediately. I can send a number of riders with you to protect you as far as whichever lands you choose as your destination.”

I answered, “This is yours to command for it is your kingdom. To every statement there is a reply except to him who in his own house says, `Leave my house!' To him there is no reply. But as I think about your telling me, `Leave our lands!' I do not know whether you should be saying this or I, whether it is your right or mine. For I do not see that I am any toil or trouble as far as you are concerned: I receive no share of your generosity, no mention of me appears in your register of royal gifts, nor have I received any kindnesses from you under any circumstances. And yet I see that all who creep and crawl—judges and jurists and scholars and scribes, people from every walk of life—gain entry into your hall and your council meetings, and are well rewarded by you either with what they receive directly as presents or indirectly as a living allowance or some other favor by means of your signature. My page is bare of such things. Moreover, you know better than anybody how your judges and notaries and the religious scholars of your mosques are marked by deficiencies and marred by shortcomings and objectionable faults; and you know that I am not marked with the characteristics of their deficiencies, nor am I marred by any of their shortcomings or defects. On the contrary, I remain a paragon of propriety and thoughtful integrity, and am the foremost of those known for their piety and their fear of God. Were it not for my open display of Shi‘ism, the masses would take the dust from my sandals as medicine for their eyes and the water from my ablutions as a cure for their ailments!”

“Furthermore, your officials seek nothing but to acquire property, to procure income, and to add dirham to dirham; but the person has yet to meet me whom I have troubled for anything or to whom I have begrudged a day of my life. Indeed, worldly goods have always been insignificant in my eyes—my desire for them ceased long ago. So, is your expulsion of someone whose conduct is such, without having proven that any fault blemishes him or that the trouble of supporting him burdens you, what I deserve (when I am blameless of either of these faults) or what you deserve? Nay, you do not merit my presence here! It is well known that, because I require no such support, every destination would welcome me and every land tolerate me. I only reside among you out of my passion for the religion with which I worship God and in order to protect it from an infirmity which afflicts it. If not for that, then the one agitating most for departure from among you would be myself, and the voice calling loudest for leaving you would be that of my own heart, so that I could have a rest from this constant humiliation. Especially since, as is known, I have my own master [i.e., the Fatimid caliph of Egypt]. Whenever a messenger seeks him out with a few lines of my composition or dictation, [the caliph] lavishes him with handsome accommodations and relieves him of worldly cares. If I sought him out myself, would he do less for me or make my share less than that of those who seek him out with my missives?”

“Departure does not frighten me. Indeed, nothing save what I have mentioned [about my religious devotion] keeps me from leaving. I shall, God willing, do everything in my power to relieve you of the burden of my presence and turn my back on those favors due me in your lands, so that your hearts are not weighed down.”

“As for the chief judge and his resolve to wage war on us, would that I were speaking to him and to the masses with whom he tries to frighten us. Then he would see a wonder or two. But the sultan's intervention weakens his power, and his intention undermines the pillars of stability and solidarity. And the chief judge, if he does not fear for his ample property, his fabulous estates, and his own combativeness, though his religion be to him a blindness^[3]—why do none of those who own not a handful of this world, and have only miserable scraps and tatters actually support him while he is in full view of his Lord?^[4] Would that you had left us at each other so that each of us could try his luck. Peace be upon you!”

With that I stood up, left the meeting, and returned to my house, intent on rectifying this state of affairs. I searched high and low for a possible destination, but the escape routes were all laden with enemies—especially should the fact that I was fleeing as a result of the sultan's hatred and scheme become known. I spent a sleepless night trying to think of how to further my cause and whither to take my affairs, but no reliable course of action occurred to me, nor any good ideas upon which I could act.

The next day I returned for an audience at the ministry, knowing neither why I had returned to him nor what I would say. Thus it was through God's inspiration—praise be unto Him—that when I met the minister I said, “I have returned to tell you of something that suggested itself to me after I left yesterday. Namely, you enjoined me to leave the country once and for all and I replied that I would try. Then I thought about the consequences of my leaving, and concluded that it would propel me toward something worse and even more injurious than what I am fleeing and would put me into a vile situation from which I fear an ignominious end. I am, after all, fleeing from the sultan's threat against me—he exalted and in a position of great power—and from nothing else. Yet I am not safe from the occurrence of that same thing at the hands of the most humble and obscure of persons. Accordingly, if I stay in place and hold my ground against the inevitable, that is better; I will at least know my killer. People will say, `So-and-so has been killed unjustly,' and `So-and-so has killed him wrongly,' and each of us will gain, respectively for better and for worse, a lasting reputation. Thus, I shall stay where I am, neither departing nor leaving the known for the unknown. But if expelled I must be, then you are certainly able to put me in fetters, bind me with chains, set me upon a riding beast and let it carry me away so that I will be blameless in my own eyes. As for leaving on my own two feet, I will not, unless, by God, you grant me a postponement of several days to return home and put my affairs in order, sell my home, gain some small sum for the journey, and then depart, secretly, safe from any situation that might confront me, until I leave your lands and cross your borders.”

The minister lowered his head in thought, stared at the ground for a while, then replied, “I grant you approval to leave in this manner. So return and organize your affairs as you see fit, but you may stay no more than one week.” I replied, “I hear and obey. I will do as has been described and strive to make ready to depart. Still, there is one issue that I cannot fail to mention, and which I must raise.” He asked, “What is that?” I said, “The good relations and close ties between the Daylamīs and myself are well known. If one of them has an argument with his wife in the evening, he comes to me with the problem in the morning, laying out the whole matter in all of its details. There is no doubt that, if they knew the truth of this affair, they would clamor and shout, and become greatly agitated. Let that not be attributed to me, nor be reckoned against me as my crime.” “You must prevent them from seeing you for the period of your stay,” he said, “and you must interpose between them and yourself the excuse that you have been prescribed medical treatment for a week.” I said, “They have never known me to conceal myself from them for an hour of the day, nor even to cut myself off from them for a shorter period of time, but I shall do as you decree, God willing.”

I left to do as he had described and to prepare to depart. I locked the door behind me, forbade the people from seeing me, and spared myself in neither supplication nor prayer to God to remove this calamity. But talk of the situation I faced erupted and spread, and the hearts of the Daylamīs grew heavy. They could not meet for any funeral or festivity without whispering among themselves about annoyance after annoyance that came their way. Things reached a point where they were constrained in the exercise of their religion and forbidden from holding fast to their creed, even though the Christians and the Jews were kept neither from practicing their religion nor from their churches and synagogues. They determined to gather because of their miserable state. A great number of them congregated in the livestock market in Shiraz—that being where they usually went when agitated—and selected delegates to carry their messages and lodge their grievances. The delegates went to one of the minister's deputies and delivered their message. They painted a grim picture, mixing sweet words with bitter, gentle words with forceful. They claimed that if things continued thus, all hope would be lost and they would be forced to protect themselves from having to suffer being abased and stigmatized due to their weakness and their small number. News of this spread everywhere and it became known that uncontrollable evil would result and sparks would fly. So the sultan decreed that the minister should settle the matter and extinguish the flames. It was due to the minister's good grace, excellent administration, and fine patience that he sought to remedy the situation and set things right.

On the day of the large gathering in the square, the minister arrived before the Daylamīs and spoke of rectifying the situation. He ordered that the judges, the religious storytellers, and the Sufi mystics be brought to him, every last one of them. They arrived, cutting through the ranks of the Daylamīs right and left. The Daylamīs' tongues lashed out at them, uttering all manner of foul speech and revilement right to their faces, until they had entered the building, frightened to death by what they had just suffered at the hands of the Daylamīs and by what had caused them to be summoned to the sultan's palace.

When they stood before the minister's court, they were set upon with every kind of reproach, chiding and reprimand [by the minister]: “You have squandered our grace, and our gifts have made you ungrateful for the protective shade of security and justice that has been extended over you. You have become bent on stirring up sedition, and your talk has become an incitement to riot between the Shi‘ites and the Sunnīs. If it reaches me that any of you entertains mention of this or that it even crosses the tongues in your mouths, you will have brought death and destruction upon yourselves. And whoever survives thereafter will have his property confiscated and be dragged off in chains. So be heedful and watch where you tread. Peace be upon you!” Thus they [the judges, storytellers, and Sufis] departed heavyhearted after having entered lighthearted.^[5]

Then the Daylamīs were asked what had gathered them, young and old, in the square. He ordered that they select a number of them to enter and to represent the rest. They were chosen, they entered, and the minister then asked them the reason for their gathering. They responded that the Daylamīs held to a faith whose truth had settled firmly in their souls and that the religious obligations of this faith were incumbent upon them due to the oaths and convenants they had accepted. Morever, they had adopted that man [= al-Mu’ayyad] to be in charge of this faith, as a father unto them, and as a brother and a friend, a repository for every secret, a refuge in good times and bad.

[They said:] “Yet for days he has been locked in! It is rumored that he is to be exiled from the country, mistreated, and is being plotted against! That is what has brought us together and moved us to action!” “No mention of exile in any form has occurred—God forbid!” replied the minister. “He is too greatly esteemed and too modest and decent for such a thing to befall him. Rather I have asked him to stay in his house and to prohibit people from meeting with him for a few days because of the unrest which has occurred among the masses on his account, until I can untangle the knot and douse the flames. This very hour I have summoned the chief instigators and agitators responsible for this misguidedness and given them a taste of their own medicine. I warned them of a terrible punishment if they begin once again to do as has been forbidden them, namely to speak of [the schism between] Shi‘ism and Sunnism and to foment sedition. So you should now return to your dwellings and breathe a sigh of relief. You need no longer worry about your friend.”

They left pleased and thankful. A day or two later the minister wrote me a letter in which he granted me permission to open my door and to return to things as they had been before, and hold my sessions as usual. So I opened it, rejoicing in God's benevolence—may He be exalted!—for what He had saved me from in the short term and fearful of the doubled wrath toward which He was propelling me in the long term. I said:

	God has been generous in all that has passed,
	May He continue to be generous in that which comes.

Fleeing Shiraz [pp. 68–72] sometime between 1042 and 1044/45:

The king [= Sultan Abū Kālījār] was on the point of traveling to Ahwaz with his troops. I concluded that if I remained in Shiraz, I would not be safe from whatever trickery or subterfuge might be used to fulfill the desires of [my enemies]. Accordingly, I told myself that it would be most prudent to remain with the group and not to separate from the collective.^[6] Thus, I sought permission to travel with them but was refused. This refusal only increased my forebodings. I continued to send written requests for permission, but I met with no approval, and in spite of more urgent requests, I met with nothing but more obstinate refusal. I therefore undertook the difficult course of clandestine flight. It had not occurred to me, and certainly not to anyone else, that I was capable of such a thing. I gave my followers and companions in Shiraz to understand that I had received approval for my request to join the troops but would be traveling in the entourage incognito, while I gave those traveling in the entourage to understand that I would be remaining in Shiraz, in hiding, but that I would be sending along with them some of my baggage, riding beasts, and servants. I then donned a disguise and assumed an unfamiliar demeanor, wearing old and ragged clothes. I acquired two new servants, unknown to anyone, and set off on back roads, hiring at each way station an ass to ride, or a camel, or a steer, as circumstances dictated.

The travails of journeying that I endured during that time—descending into ravines and mires, bearing the freezing cold, alighting in filthy places—was something for which, had it been a disease, death would have seemed a cure! The most difficult thing I had to bear was that every time I hired an ass to ride, I wanted to go down the road alone so no one would see me. Its owner, however, would want to accompany us to keep an eye on his animals, squarely defeating the entire purpose. He would ask what caused me to prefer traveling alone when the custom among travelers was to prefer the opposite, namely, that they would ask to be accompanied. I was tongue-tied, unable to give a reasonable excuse for this. Along the way I would alight with people from the countryside and backcountry. I listened as they mentioned me in very unflattering terms and I realized that if they recognized me, they would have performed ritual ablutions in my blood and gone to prayer! May you never have to go down such roads and hear with your own ears such horrible things about yourself!

Among the places in which I wished neither to be, nor to be apprehended, and in which my safety was preserved only through the subtle graces of Almighty God, was a place called Jannāba. [ . . . ] I felt this way because I arrived there on a rainy day, and my search for some shelter from the rain led me to the congregational mosque. The town market was next to it, and someone came in to pray who knew my name, ancestry, and everything else about me. When his gaze fell upon me, he came closer, approaching as you would approach someone who enjoys an elevated station in life. Then he saw my demeanor, my state, my clothes and what I was doing, and he realized right away that I was fleeing. He offered himself and his money to me, saying, “If there is anything you need, I can help you, or, if you need a little extra money to take with you, I have some and cannot think of a better use for it than you.” “God bless you and your money,” I replied. “I have no need more pressing than that you have not seen me, nor I you.”

Then a second person came over to me, an ‘Alid [i.e., a Shi‘ite], and asked one of my servants about me. My servant replied that I was a sharīf [i.e., a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad through ‘Alī and the Prophet's daughter, Fāṭima] traveling from Kirman to Baghdad. He said that this was not what people were saying about me. He approached and greeted me, and I greeted him politely and welcomed him. He said, “It seems as if I know you, sir—may God protect you.” “Perhaps that is the case,” I said. He said, “I met you in Ahwaz.” I replied, “I have indeed been there.” “In the place known as the Palace of al-Ma’mūn, I remember that you were building a building there,” and in saying this alluded to the shrine that was the cause of the current misery afflicting me.^[7] “I do not know that place; I have only gone to Ahwaz when passing through. Anyway, where would I get the means to build something? I am too busy looking out for myself to pay attention to such a thing.” “Well, what have I been doing trying to cover for you then? They said you were so-and-so and spoke of you with terms of great honor and respect.” “I have on occasion heard of that man,” I said. “He is a man of important affairs, the leader of the Daylamīs, a powerful position. Still I have never seen him, but some people resemble others and perhaps someone would liken me to him.” He continued, “Some people said to the local governor, `You should take him into custody, perhaps he is fleeing the sultan. If you capture him you may gain favor with the court.' He was about to detain you until I pointed out to him that he should really ignore that sort of talk completely. I said to him, `You are neither commanded nor required to do so. He may be the man they mean and he may not. If he is the one they mean, exposing yourself to his enmity together with the enmity of all of the Daylamīs would outweigh whatever reward you might earn by seizing him. And if he is someone else, then you have frightened a stranger, detained him on his way to some place or another, and earned yourself the embarrassment of it.' `You are right,' replied the governor, and he accepted my counsel regarding you. But now I would like for you to take as much money from me as you want and let it help you along your way. You would both honor me and favor me by doing so.” I thanked him profusely.

Then a third person approached me carrying himself differently than had the other two. He greeted me, came up to me, and said, “There has been much talk of you in this town. Some say that you are Ẓahīr al-Dīn, lord of Basra, escaped from prison and making your way back to Basra. Another says you are so-and-so,” and he called me by a name which only a passionate and ardent devotee would use, showing himself to be a fervent adherent of Shi‘ism and its doctrines. I said, “Sir, I am neither the one nor the other of these two men, but rather merely an ‘Alid passing through.” The man replied, “Then I would ask something of you.” “What is it?” I asked. “That you write for me, in your own hand, a prayer from which I might receive some blessing.” “As for writing the prayer,” I replied, “there is nothing which could keep me from doing that, but as for your taking it as a blessing because it is written in the hand of the man to whom you referred, I am not he, and there is no blessing in my hand or in his, in my opinion and according to my creed.” “That would be fine,” he said, “please write it.” I said to him, “Then I have a favor to ask of you, too, so please do it, one favor for another.” “What is that?” he inquired. “I would like you to rent a riding ass for me, so that I can leave this place.” “I hear and obey,” he replied.

So the man left in search of a riding ass to rent, and I busied myself with writing what he had asked for. He returned after a while with the muleteer, having agreed with him on a price, and so he was paid. I said, “Where is the ass for me to ride so that we can travel?” “I will bring it to you shortly,” he said, “it is in an outlying village.” He then left me while it was still morning. The time came for the first afternoon prayer and he had not yet returned. Dusk approached and he had still not returned. I had no doubt that I had been delayed by the local governor and that he would arrest me, having forbidden the muleteer from returning and sent spies to follow me if I left the place. I was in no position to run and escape my pursuers had I wished to flee. This gave me a fright of apocalyptic proportions, so I sent for the man who had brought the muleteer and said to him, “That man has left me high and dry, for he has not returned, despite the fact that it was settled that he would do so within a short time. So, if you please, could you track him down and bring him back with the riding ass? If you would, it would be most kind and I would not be able to thank you enough.” “I hear and obey,” he said. He set off at once, and suddenly there he was approaching with the muleteer and the ass, shortly before sunset. So we set off, I not believing that I had escaped from that predicament, and looking back to see if anyone was following us. We traveled and stopped overnight in a ruined palace on the riverside. It was in fact haunted by demons, but when I entered it, I felt as though I had been plucked out of Hellfire and dropped into Heaven.

When we awoke, we traveled wherever God in His munificence led us. Such was my wont for an entire month, experiencing all of life's hardships, wrapped in the garments of terror, undergoing every genus and type of torment and travail, until I entered my home in Ahwaz one evening, prior to the sultan's return. For he had remained en route between Shiraz and Ahwaz for some time, engaged in diversions and pastimes, until he encamped for a month in a town called Sābūr, three days' march from Shiraz. During his stay there, a letter from the intelligence network reached him informing him that I had disappeared, and that, since the time his entourage had departed, no trace of me had been seen, but that there was a rumor that I was traveling in his company in disguise. He was shaken by these rumors and I heard that he placed spies and agents in the tents of the Daylamīs and in their camps to ascertain my whereabouts. He stepped up his efforts to narrow the search, examining the cavalry and the infantry man by man, and in a number of cases laid bare the faces of some who had disguised themselves. But all that was lost effort, for I was tucked away in my hiding place and not among them, kept safe by God in His mercy.

Notes