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Iranians at war under Turkish domination: The example of pre-Mongol Isfahan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

David Durand-Guédy
David Durand-Guédy*
Affiliation:
Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (IFRI) in Tehran
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Iranian Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 2005 , pp. 587 - 606
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Copyright © 2005 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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References

1 al-Bundārī, , Zubdat al-nuṣra, Recueil de textes relatifs à l'histoire des Seljoucides, ed. Th. Houtsma, (Leyden, 1889), II:180Google Scholar, line 15, “kharaja min ahli Iṣfahāna man lam yanwi ilayhā rujū‘an.” I am indebted to Prof. Azartash Azarnoush, Univ. of Tehran, for checking my translations of Arabic and Persian sources—naturally, all the remaining mistakes are mine. I would also like to thank Shiva A. Shahidi and Deborah Tor for editing this article.

2 al-Iṣfahānī, Maḥmūd, Dastūr al-vuzarā’, ed. Enzābī-Nezhād, R. (Tehran, 1985), 21Google Scholar, “jannatun tar‘āhā l-khanāzīr.”

3 Cl. Cahen, , “Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans l'Asie musulmane du Moyen-Age,” Arabica vols. V&VI (1958–1959)Google Scholar. The article has its own pagination and has been edited separately afterwards.

4 Above all, see Paul, J., Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in vormongolischer Zeit (Stuttgart, 1996), 93–139Google Scholar, which amplifies the data and analysis displayed in his The State and The Military: The Samanid Case (Bloomington, 1994). Another article, “Histories of Herat,” Iranian Studies 33, no. 1–2 (winter-spring 2000): 103–115, deals with the case of Herat, which is by many aspects similar to Isfahan.

5 The examples and results I will provide in this article are essentialy drawn from my PhD thesis on pre-Mongol Isfahan. See D. Durand-Guédy, Iṣfahān, de la conquête salğūqide à la conquête mongole. Les élites et le pouvoir dans la province iranienne du Ğibāl (milieu XIe - début XIIIe s.) (thèse dactylographiée, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 2004); publication is forthcoming. The main aim of this research was to define within a local framework the exact role of the Iranian elite facing the Turkish domination. Here I will limit myself more specifically to the military aspect of their action. Let us note that in this article, we have reserved the term “Iranian” for the local Persian-speaking (and, in our case, urban) populations; naturaly, this does not imply that the Turks, who took control in Iran from the end of the fourth/tenth century, could not have considered themselves as playing a major part in the Irano-Islamic civilization.

6 See Lambton, A.K.S., Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia (Aspects of Administrative, Economic and Social History, 11th–14th Century) (New York, 1988), 224Google Scholar. The theoretical non-participation of the Iranians in military matters is best set forth in a well-known passage of Bayhaqī's chronicle of the Ghaznavids, concerning the situation of Nishapur threatened by the Saljuq army. On that occasion, if we are to believe Bayhaqī who claims to quote a report sent by a Ghaznavid spy, the qadi would have advised local notables not to resist the Saljuqs and justified his decision by saying, “what have the subjects to do with war?” (mardomān-e ra‘iyyat-rā bā jang-kardan che kār bāshad), see Bayhaqī, , Tārīkh-e Bayhaqī, ed. Fayyā, ‘A.A.(Mashhad, 1996), 729Google Scholar, line 10. The whole passage has been translated by Cl. Bosworth, , The Ghaznavids, 2nd ed., (Beirut, 1973), 252–7Google Scholar, and commented on by Paul, Herrscher, 117.

7 This fatḥ-nāme has been copied in its entirety by al-Qalānisī, Ibn, Ta'rīkh Dimashq, ed. Amedroz, (Leyden, 1908), 152–7Google Scholar.

10 al-Māfarrūkhī, 88.

8 See Nasawī, , Sīra al-sulṭān Jalāl al-Dīn Mingburnu, ed. Houdas, O. (Paris, 1891), 140Google Scholar, and compare with Ibn al-Athīr, XII:477 (quoted below note 51).

9 al-Māfarrūkhī, , K. Maḥāsin Iṣfahān, ed. Ṭihrānī, J. (Tehran, 1933), 41–2Google Scholar. In the same vein, al-Māfarrūkhī also tells that a general of the famous Umayyad governor al-Ḥajjāj b. Yusūf was from Isfahan.

11 This passage should be compared to a series of anecdotes where the only resort for the inhabitants facing injustice and aggression was to rely on a divine intervention; see al-Māfarrūkhī, 35–8. Paul, , “Histories of Isfahan: Mafarrukhi's Kitāb maāsin Iṣfahān,” Iranian Studies 33 no. 1–2 (2000): 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has studied this passage and concluded that “in the stories analyzed so far (…) there is no hint of military resistance.”

12 See al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil, ed. Tornberg, (Beirut, 1968), IX:372Google Scholar, “istakhlafa [Mas‘ūd] bihā [i.e. Isfahan] ba‘ḍa aṣḥābihi fa-thāra bihi ahluhā fa-qatalūhu” (“he left there some of his companions, then the local people took revenge against them and killed them”). The brutality of the Ghaznavids during their campaigns in Jibāl is famous, and we know for sure that at that time the inhabitants were on their own.

13 The vagueness of the time (“at one time”) and the identity of the invaders (“a certain army”) as opposed to the exactness of the total number of soldiers create a contrasting effect typical of legends. Moreover, the figure quoted reminds us of another anecdote told in the K. Maḥāsin Iṣfahān, 41, which also speaks about a brutal army of thirty thousand men. In that story, the army is reppeled by a certain Shahruye, introduced as a descendant of the famous mythological hero Gudarz.

14 al-Māfarrūkhī, 101.

18 The constellation of Gemini symbolizes the summer solstice, and thus the highest point in the zodiac.

19 al-Māfarrūkhī, 81. The current edition of the K. Maḥāsin Iṣfahān is not trustworthy. In the first paragraph, we have not taken into account the correction made by Ṭihrānī, hence we have read “fayālahu sūrin yunājī bi-qarnihi l-samā” instead of “…sūrin yumāsu bi-qarnihi l-samā;” besides, this meaning fits perfectly with the Persian version of the text given in the Ilkhanid period by al-Awī, , Tarjome-ye Maḥāsin Iṣfahān, ed. Iqbāl, ‘A. (Tehran, 1949), 51Google Scholar, “bārū'ī…bā gūsh-e āsemān hamrāz.” Regarding the poem written by al-Māfarrūkhī, we have counted four verses instead of three, and we have read yawman instead of nawman (third verse, second hemistiche).

15 See al-Muqaddasī, , K. Aḥsan al-taqāsim, ed. de Goeje, M., 2nd ed. (Leyden, 1967), 389Google Scholar, lines 2–3.

16 Khusraw, Nāṣir-e, Safar-nāme, ed. Dabīrsiyāqī, M. (Tehran, 1977), 165-6Google Scholar.

17 Jurjānī, , Vīs-ō-Rāmin, ed. Rowshan, M. (Tehran, 1999), 30Google Scholar (§5), “chō gowhar gerd-e shahr andar ḥeṣārī.”

20 The line of the rampart and the location of the gates can be found in Golombek, L., “Urban Patterns in pre-Safavid Isfahan,” Iranian Studies 7 no. 1 (1974): 25–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 43.

21 The mythical tribes of Gog and Magog were commonly classed as Turkish tribes. See for example the sixth/twelfth century Iranian geographer al-Qazwīnī, , K. Āthār al-bilād, ed. Wüstenfeld, F. (Göttingen, 1848), 618Google Scholar: “Gog and Magog are two groups of Turks…settled in the eastern part of the seventh clime.” The one-year long siege of Isfahan by the Saljuqs is best described by Ibn al-Athīr, IX:562–3 and Jurjānī, 30–3 (chapter “Goftār andar gereftan-e solṭān shahr-e Iṣfahān-rā”).

22 Ibn al-Athīr, X:687, “arāda l-taḥaṣṣuna bihā [i.e. Isfahan], fa-sāra ilayhi akhuhu Mas‘ūd li-yuḥāsirahu bihā fa-rā'a Toghril anna ahla Iṣfahāna lā yutāwi‘ūnahu ‘alā l-ḥiṣār.’

23 See Bundārī, 219, lines 10–11.

24 Ibn al-Athīr, XII:117, “kataba Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Khujandī ra'īsu l-shāfi‘iyyati bi-Iṣfahāna l-diwāna bi-Baghdādi yabdhulu min nafsihi taslīma l-baladi ilā man yaṣilu l-dīwāna min al-‘asākir.”

25 See Ibn al-Athīr, X:288, “fa-sāra [Berk Yāruq] min al-Rayyi ilā Iṣfahāna fa-lam yaftaḥ ahluhā lahu al-abwāba.” According to ‘Iqbāl, A., Vezārat dar ahd-e salāṭīn-e bozorg-e saljūqī (Tehran, 1959), 130Google Scholar, it was the governor of Isfahan—a Turk named Bulkā Beg Sarmaz—who decided not to open the city gates to Berk Yāruq. However this affirmation is contradicted by the fact that Sarmaz was at that time at Berk Yāruq's side (see Ibn al-Athīr, X:290).

28 Nasawī, 136, “amarahum bi-sti‘rāḍi l-rajjālati fī l-silāin shākīn wa fī ghulalihā l-muzājati [or is it: muzajajati?] shākirīn; wa ‘āmmatu Iṣfahāna lā tuqāsu bi-‘āmmati sā'iri l-bilādi fī hādhā l-bābi idh kānū yabrazūna ilā ẓāhirihā fī l-a‘yādi wa l-nayārīzi bi-qazāqandāti min al-aṭlasi mukhtalifati l-aṣbāgh.” The last part of the first sentence (“fī ghulalihā…”) is not clear. The seventh/thirteenth century Persian version, ed. M. Minovī (Tehran, 1966), 168, line 12, does not help, but obviously, the translation of Houdas (“tout fiers de prendre part à un divertissement de ce genre”) strays too far from the original Arabic text.

26 To my knowledge, the terms aḥdāth, fityān and ‘ayyārūn are not used in the sources dealing with Isfahan in the two centuries before the Mongol invasion. The Buyid vizier al-Ṣāhib Ibn ‘Abbād (d. 385/995) does speak about the “tafattī of Isfahan,’ which he claims to have crushed, but this source is more ancient, see ‘Abbād, Ibn, Rasā'il, ed. Ḍayf, Sh. and “Azzām, I. (Cairo, 1953), 239Google Scholar: “bāb al-tafattī bi-Iṣfahāna kuntu aghlaqtuhu.” About the fityān and the ‘ayyārūn in Iran, see the pioneering works of Cl. Cahen (“Mouvements populaires,” 27 ff. and the article “Futuwwa,” Encyclopédie de l'Islam, 2nd ed.), and more recently, J. Paul, Herrscher, 123–131 and D. Tor, The ‘Ayyars: A Study in Holy Warfare, Chivalry and Violence in the Medieval Islamic World (Istanbul, forthcoming). There is a more abundant bibliography about the urban militias of the Arab Middle East and especially of Syria; see in particular the works of P. von Sievers (on the Umayyad and Abbasid period), Th. Bianquis (on the Fatimid period) and A. Havemann (on the Saljuqid period).

27 Paul, Herrscher, 100–2, has already underlined that from the Turkish domination onwards, no case of levy en masse is to be found in the sources about Eastern Iran, as was the case for the Samanid period.

29 The fact that the word rajjāla refers to a military formation, and not to a spontaneous gathering of city-dwellers carrying weapons, is also confirmed by what we know about the situation in Baghdad at the same period. In 461/1069, the Baghdadi notable Ibn al-Bannā’ used the word rajjāla to speak of the soldiers under the control of the leading citizens, in this case the sheykh Ibn Riwān, see Makdisi, G., “Autograph Diary of an eleventh-century historian of Baghdād,” BSOAS, XIX (1957): 27 (§103)Google Scholar. Likewise, for the year 552/1157, Ibn al-Jawzī speaks about an intervention of “al-rajjāla wa l-shuṭṭār, which indicates in all probability that the former was distinct from the latter (i.e., the riffraff, as it is usually translated), see al-Jawzī, Ibn, K. al-Muntaam, ed. Krenkow, (Haydarābād, 1938–41), X:174Google Scholar, line 17. I am grateful to V. Van Renterghem for these references.

30 Bayhaqī, 23, “agar kasī qaṣd-e fasādī kardī va īnjā āmadī va showkatash hezār yā dō hezār yā kamtar-ō-bīshtar būdī tā dah hezār, albate javānān va delīrān-e mā selāḥ bar dashtandī va be sheḥne-ye khodāvandī payvastandī…” (“if someone would come here to spread corruption, with a total strength of one, two and even ten thousand soldiers, our young and brave men will of course take their weapons and join the military governor of our lord…”).

31 Bayhaqī, 45, lines 3–4, “bar athar-e vey mardom-e shahr ziyādat az dō hezār mardom be-selāḥ-e tamām bīshtar piyāde az mardom-e shahr va az navāḥī-ye nazdīktar.” Unlike Paul, Herrscher, 98, we have chosen to take into account the variant concerning the total number of the foot soldiers (two thousand, instead of ten thousand). This figure is more in accordance with the size of Rayy and the total strength of the Turkish garrison.

32 This point is well-known. Let us just remember that the “jihadist” speech of Maḥmūd of Ghazna against the Daylami “heretics” is best visible in the letter he sent to the Abbasid caliph to justify his campaign in Jibāl, see Ibn al-Jawzī, VIII:38. For the Khwārizm-Shāhs, the religious justification of their struggle against the Mongols was all the easier because the invaders did threaten Islam with complete destruction; see for example the speech quoted by Nasawī, 152, before the execution of two treacherous emirs.

33 Ibn al-Athīr, X:315, “jama‘a [Abū l-Qāsim Mas‘ūd al-Khujandī] al-jamma al-ghafīra bi l-asliḥati.”

34 ahīr al-Dīn-e Nīshāpūrī, Saljūq-nāme, ed. A. H. Morton (2004), 47 (§6), “‘addat-e lashkar va madad-e ‘avāmm-e shahr va velāyat” (the sultan needed “a great number of soldiers and also the support of the inhabitants of the city and the province”). Ibn al-Athīr, X:432, “ijtama‘a lahu [i.e. Muḥammad] min Iṣfahāna wa sawādihā li-ḥarbihim al-umamu al-‘aẓīmatu li-l-dhuḥūli al-latī yuẓālibūnahum bihā” (“he was joined by large number of people from the city and its surroundings who asked for revenge upon those who were inside [the fortress]”).

35 al-Mukhtārāt min al-rasā'il, 199 (document no. 91), “masmū‘ va maqbūl farmāyad dāsht va owbāsh va ‘avāmm-rā rāh bāz nadahad ke mokhālafat konand va taghallob namāyand, va ellā mowjeb-e ‘etāb va ekrāh bāshad” (“do not let the owbāsh and the ‘avāmm show opposition and take control [of the city], because it would be [for me] a reason to punish and hate [you]”).

36 See Paul, Herrscher, 125.

37 See Paul, J., “L'invasion mongole comme « révélateur » de la société iranienne,” ed. Aigle, D., L'Iran face à la domination mongole (Tehran, 1997): 37–53Google Scholar.

38 See al-Māfarrūkhī, 93.

39 Ibn al-Athīr and Jurjānī give us information about the fate of the Daylami garrison after the capture of Isfahan by the Saljuqs (they were moved out of the city and given iqṭā‘), but no sources speak about the local troops. From a passage of the chronicle of ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, we learn that at the end of the reign of Malik-Shāh, the bureau of military affairs (dīwān al-‘arṭ) controlled “al-’asākir wa l-rijāl.” This could mean that at that time, the urban infantry had been incorporated into the state military apparatus. However, this interpretation is uncertain because we do not know what the formula owes to the Persian source used by ‘Imād al-Dīn (Saljuq vizier Anūshirvān b. Khālid's memoirs). Moreover, it could also refer to the classical opposition between cavalry and infantry; see the remark of Amitai, R. about the expression al-fāris wa l-rājil, “Foot Soldiers, Militiamen and Volunteers in the Early Mamluk Army,” Texts, Documents and Artefacts. Islamic Studies in Honour of D.S. Richards, ed. Ch. Robinson, F. (Leyden-Boston, 2003): 237Google Scholar. The sentence appears in the passage about Tāj al-Mulk, the arch-rival of Niẓām al-Mulk, in ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, Nuṣrat al-fatra, ms. arabe no. 2145, Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), fol. 56 v, lines 19–20, “qarrabahu [i.e. al-‘arī] ayḍan Tāju al-Mulk… wa istawlā bi-[l-‘arī]… ‘alā istitbā‘i al-‘asākiri wa l-rijāl”. I have edited this portion of the manuscript in Durand-Guédy, D., “Un fragment inédit de la chronique des Salğūqides de ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī : le chapitre sur Tāğ al-Mulk,” Annales Islamologiques, 39 (2005)Google Scholar.

40 al-Qazwīnī, 198, “yuhābuhu al-salāṭīnu wa yatba‘uhu mi'atu alfi musallaḥin.”

41 See Juwaynī, quoted below note 50. Cahen, , “Les changements techniques militaires dans le Proche-Orient médiéval et leur importance historique” (1975) reprinted in Les peuples musulmans dans l'Histoire médiévale (Damascus, 1977), 486CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reminds us that archery was a sport traditionally practised by the Iranians, even among the urban population.

42 The term literaly means “full of (āgande) raw silk (qaz).” It can also be found under the forms kazāghand, qazāqand, kazhāghand or qazāghand, see Dozy, R., Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes (Leyden, 1881), II:470Google Scholar and Borhān, , Borhān-e qāṭe‘ (Tehran, 1938–9), III:1528Google Scholar.

43 See Nasawī, 136 (quoted above, see note 28). Ibn al-Athīr, X:434, recounts that one of the Isma‘ili leaders changed sides and advised the Saljuqids to attack the fortress by the side that seemed the best protected. To those who objected saying that it was impossible, he replied, “the ones you see are weapons and cuirasses arranged as if there were real fighters” (inna l-ladhī tarawna asliatun wa kazāghandātun qad ja‘alūhā ka-hay’ati l-rijāl). In the seventh/thirteenth century, the word qazāgand is also used by Sa‘adī, Golestān, bāb-e dovvom, hekāyāt-e panjom, “dar qazāgand mard bāyad būd, bar mokhannath selāḥ-e jang che sūd” (“Real men must wear cuirass, but what is the point in using war weapons against bents?”). The translation of the first of these two verses by Wickens, G. M., The Bustan of Sa’di (Toronto and Buffalo, 1974)Google Scholar: “It is necessary to show manhood in the fight” is inexact.

44 Nasawī, 136, himself says that the cuirass of the Isfahanis looks like a very fine “washī al-mir” which is a special kind of silk clothes. About the silks of Isfahan, see the Arabic geographers al-Faqīh, Ibn, al-Iṣṭakhrī, and Ibn Ḥawqal, in the Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, ed. de Goeje, M., 2nd ed. (Leyde, 1967)Google Scholar, respectively V:254, I:199 and II:362, and also udūd al-‘ālam, ed. Vl. Minorsky, (London, 1937), 29Google Scholara.

45 See note 34 above.

46 See Nasawī, 137, “wa amara l-sulṭānu, lamā ḥādhāhum, rajjālata Iṣfahāna bi l-‘awdī idh a‘jabathu kathratuhu wa bi l-‘aduwwī istiḥqāran wa istiḍ‘āfan” (“when the Mongols came nearer, the sultan ordered the foot soldiers of Isfahan to move back, because he was surprised by the size of his own army and he despised the enemy, which was twice as less numerous as he was”).

47 Ibn al-Athīr, X:335.

50 Juwaynī, (‘Aṭā Malik), Tārīkh-e Jahān-Goshā, ed. Qazwīnī, M. (Leyden, 1912–1937), II:209–210Google Scholar, translation of Boyle, J. A., The History of the World Conqueror (Manchester, 1958), 475Google Scholar. Transliteration of the last sentence is “bā eshārat-e qāz˙ī ahl-e shahr ghowghā kardand va az bāmhā dast be tīr va sang begoshādand.”

51 Ibn al-Athīr, XII:477.

48 See Ibn al-Athīr, X:263, “lammā māta [Malik-Shāh] akhraja ahlu Iṣfahāna asḥābahu min ‘indihim” (“when he died, the people of Isfahan expelled his companions”).

49 See Rāwandī, , Rāḥat al-ṣudūr, ed. Iqbāl, M. (London, 1921), 345Google Scholar, “Iṣfahāniyān bar-īshān ghowghā kardand va īshān-rā bejahānīdand” (“the Isfahanis rebelled against them and forced them to leave”).

52 l-Ḥadīd, Ibn Abī, Shar Nahj al-balāgha (Beirut, 1963–4), III:81Google Scholar, “lam yabqa lahum illā Iṣfahānu fa'innahum nazalū ‘alayhā mirāran fī sanati 627 wa ḥārabahum alhuhā, wa qutila min al-farīqayni maqtalatun ‘aẓīmatun” (“only Isfahan held out the Tatars and they attacked it repeatedly in the year 627/1229–30; the inhabitants resisted and great numbers perished on both sides”). This passage has been translated by Woods, J. E., “A Note on the Mongol Capture of Isfahan,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 36 no.1 (1977): 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 This point has been discussed by a great number of scholars, among them Cahen, “Mouvements populaires,” 27–31; Paul, Herrscher, 131–9; Bulliet, R., Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 78–81Google Scholar; Perry, J., “Toward a Theory of Iranian Urban Moieties: The aydariyyah and Ni‘matiyyah Revisited,” Iranian Studies 32 no.1 (1999): 51–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 See Ibn al-Athīr, X:288 (quoted above note 25) and X:297–8. Concerning the pro-Muḥammad policy of the “Khurasanis,” see Durand-Guédy, Iṣfahān, 255–261.

55 See above all Ibn al-Athīr, X:315. Hodgson, followed by Lewis and Daftary, ascribes the initiative of this massacre to Berk Yāruq, who had just forced Muḥammad to flee to Khurasan. It is true that the events of Isfahan occurred simultaneously with the anti-Isma‘ili purge inaugurated by Berk Yāruq in his own army. Nonetheless, they cannot be linked to him, because Berk Yāruq did not exert any authority over Isfahan at that time, and on the other hand, the leader of the operation, Abū l-Qāsim al-Khujandī, was one of the main characters of the Niẓāmiyya network and a strong supporter of Muḥammad. See Hodgson, M.G.S., The Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizârî Ismâ‘îlîs against the Islamic World (La Haye, 1955), 88Google Scholar; Lewis, B., The Assassins. A radical Sect in Islam (Londres, 1967), 91Google Scholar; Daftary, F., The Ismā‘īlīs: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 1990), 354Google Scholar.

56 The most accurate accounts of the maneuvers of the “Khurasani” leaders (i.e., the qadi ‘Ubayd Allāh al-Khaṭībī and the Shafi‘i faqīh Abū l-Qāsim al-Khujandī) are given by Ẓahīr al-Dīn-e Nīshāpūrī, 48–9, and ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, see Bundārī, 91–3.

57 According to the well-known account of Ẓahīr al-Dīn-e Nīshāpūrī, 49-50, Ibn ‘Aṭṭāsh was put on a camel, and the people of Isfahan threw garbage at him, while a band of male prostitutes (mokhannath) walking in front mocked him in a song. Rāwandī, 161, lines 11–2, handed it down to us in its dialectical form: “‘Aṭṭāsh-e ‘ālī, jān-e man, ‘Aṭṭāsh-e ‘ālī, miyān-e sar-e helālī, torā bedez chekārū ?!” (‘Aṭṭāsh the great, my dear friend! Aṭṭāsh the great, you have a crescent in the middle of the head! What did you want in the fortress?!).

58 Ibn al-Athīr, XI:525, “when [Atabeg Pahlavān b. Eldigüz] died, the fighting, crimes, fires and looting which happened in Isfahan between the Shafi‘is and Hanafis exceeded all possible description.” See also Yāqūt, , Mu‘jam al-buldān, ed. Wüstenfeld, F. (St Petersburg, 1866–1873), I:296Google Scholar, lines 7–8, “…kathratu l-fitani wa l-ta‘aṣṣubu bayna l-shāfi‘iyyati wa l-Ḥanafiyyati wa l-ḥurūbu l-muttailati bayna al-ḥizbayn” (the edition bears ḥarbayn, but I have read instead ḥizbayn) (“the multiplication of the confrontations, the fanaticism between the Shafi‘is and the Hanafis and the ongoing wars between the two camps”).

60 Nasawī, 70.

59 See Nasawī, 96.

61 See Nasawī, 60, about the Turks (“al-atrāk al-‘irāqiyya ullāb al-furṣa masā'īr al-fitna”) and 77–8, about the Isfahanis (“ahwā'uhum al-mutaqalliba, arā'uhum al-munjadhiba”).

64 al-Mukhtārāt min al-rasā'il, 159.

62 See Ibn al-Athīr, X:396, speaking about “al-aydī al-mutaarriqa ilayhim [i.e. ahl Iṣfahān] min al-jundi wa ghayrihim” (“the extortions that soldiers and others imposed on the people of Isfahan”).

63 al-Mukhtārāt min al-rasā‘il, 159, “agar che az Dardasht-and, az ḥalqe kūfte-tar gashtand.” The name of Dardasht contains the word dar (door) and ḥalqe designates the knocker used by visitors to announce their arrival.

69 Kamāl al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, 256, verses 4351–54, “Ta‘aṣṣob-garī nīst, ensāf kū, mosolmānī ō pas bedīnhā reḍā. Ta‘aṣṣob che bāshad ke īn rasm-ō-rāh, nadārand Abkhaziyān ham ravā. Chenin rasm-ō-ā‘īn ō pas lāf-e ān, ke hastīm mā ommat-e Moṣtafā!” The Persian word “ta‘aṣṣob-garī,” which could seem modern, is attested elsewhere in the sixth/twelfth century with the sense of “fanaticism;” see Loghat-nāme-ye Dekhodā: 769b.

65 Ibn al-Athīr, X:432, “fa-qāla bi-mahḍarin min al-nāsi: yajibu qitāluhum wa lā yajūzu iqrāruhum bi makānihim.”

66 Maḥmūd al-Iṣfahānī, 21, “īn ḍa‘īf chūn az taḥammol-e īn taḥāmol bī-ṭāqat shod…‘omde-ye ḥarekat-e khod sākht tā ān shahr az ghoṣṣe-ye nā-ahlān-e sharrīr…tark kard.”

67 About the “ahl al-shirra,” see Havemann, A., Ri’āsā und qaḍā. Institutionen als Ausdruck wechselnder Kräfteverhältnisse in syrischen Städten vom 10. bis zum 12 Jahrhundert (Freiburg, 1975), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 114.

68 See al-Iṣfahānī, Kamāl al-Dīn, Dīvān, ed. Baḥr al-‘Ulūmī, Ḥ. (Tehran, 1970), verses 4348–9Google Scholar, “Be bārūy ō khandaq negah kon bebīn, ke chūn bā shegūn-ast īn mājarā. Ze khandaq tan-e zende dar zīr-e khāk, ze bārū sar-e mordegān bar havā” (“Have a look upon the rampart and the moat, to understand how it happened: inside the moat are living bodies under the dust, on the walls, the heads of the dead float in the wind”).

70 Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, III:81 (translation of Woods).

71 Alfa Layla wa Layla, ed. Būlāq, I:694, “fa-ammā ahlu madīnati l-maliki Tīghmūs fa-innahum ‘inda inṣirāfi l-‘aduwwi yashtaghilūna bi-iṣlāḥi l-silāi wa taḥsīni l-aswāri wa tahy’ati l-manjanīqāt.” On this tale, see Elisséeff, N., Thèmes et motifs des mille et une nuits (Damas, 1949), 198Google Scholar, no. 123. I am grateful to my professor, J.-Cl. Garcin, for having pointed out this reference to me.