The Successors of Genghis Khan - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
In Sistan, Malik Shams al-DIn Muhammad Kart had, in accordance
with a yarligh of Mongke Qa'an, put to death Malik Shams al-DIn
of Sistan and become ruler [of the country]. Subsequently, Malik
Nusrat al-DIn,274 the nephew of the deceased malik, brought a messenger
from Hiilegii Khan, recovered Sistan from Shams al-DIn Kart, and
took possession of that country, of which he is still the ruler and malik.
History of the strange and unusual occurrences that happened
during this period
In the year 659/1260-1261, Badr al-DIn Lu'lu' died in Mosul.
On the 17th Rajab of the year 644 [5th May, 1266] there died
Mu'aiyid al-Daula 'Urdi,275 who was a learned philosopher and without
a peer in the mathematical sciences.
During the morning of the igth of Safar of the year 699 [8th September,
1270] there was an earthquake of such violence that it was thought
that stone would not remain upon stone in the mountains and that
every clod of earth on the plains would be scattered in the atmosphere.
In the heart of winter in the year 671/1272-1273, there occurred a
great earthquake in the capital city of Tabriz such that there were
tremors every hour for a space of 15 days.
On Monday the I7th Dhul-Hijja of the year 672 [25th June, 1274]
the death of Khwaja Nasir276 took place in Baghdad, at sunset. In his
will he had asked to be buried in the shrine of Musa and Jawad.277
A vacant place was found at the foot of Musa's grave and [the earth]
dug up. There was revealed a ready-made grave complete with tiles.
Inquiries having been made, [it was ascertained that] the Caliph al-
"•> Or Nasir al-Din. See Spuler 1939, pp. 119 and 157.
"5 On this famous scientist, one of Nasir al-DIn Tusi's collaborators, see Sarton,
Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. II, Part II, pp. 1013-1014. His description of the
instruments in the Maragha observatory is available in the translations of J. Jourdain
(Paris, 1809) and H. J. Seeman (Erlangen, 1928).
2'6 That is, Nasir al-DIn Tusi. On his scientific work at Maragha, see now CHI,
pp. 668 ff.
"? The famous Shrine of the Two Kazims (Kazimain), so called after the two
Shi'a Imams whom he buried there: Musa, grandson of the grandson of Husain,
the son of the Caliph 'All, and Musa's grandson, Muhammad al-Jawad. They were,
respectively, the seventh and ninth Imams, Musa having been put to death by Harun
al-Rashid in 802, while Muhammad died, of poison, it is said, in 834 during the reign
of Mu'tasim. See Baghdad, pp. 160—61.
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