Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

502 HISTORY OF PERSIA
more dangerous abroad than in Persia, brought him back
as an honoured guest. ^ Jamal-u-Din took advantage of
his return to preach his revolutionary ideas, and they made
such progress that a rising appeared imminent. The Shah
wished to seize him, but he escaped and took sanctuary at
Shah Abdul Azim, a shrine close to Teheran.j There he
remained for seven months, fulminating against the Shah
and advocating his deposition. Among
his followers was
Mirza Riza of Nuk, 1
who afterwards assassinated Nasir-u-
Din. Jamal-u-Din was at length arrested in his house,
which adjoined the sanctuary, and was again expelled from
Persia, in 1890. The Shah certainly appears to have
treated with leniency a subject
who was guilty of high
treason. Handed over to the Turkish authorities, the
Sayyid was taken to Basra, where he was kept under
observation. He managed, however, to
escape by
steamer and joined Malkom Khan in London, where
they edited the newspaper Kanun. Not long after the
Sultan, alarmed at the influence gained by
this journal,
thought it desirable to invite Jamal-u-Din to revisit Constantinople,
where he was treated as an honoured guest
but was not free to leave.
On the assassination of Nasir-u-Din, the extradition of
the Sayyid was demanded together with that of three other
revolutionaries. 2
The Sultan surrendered the three latter
men, and they were executed, but he refused to hand over
Jamal-u-Din, who shortly afterwards died. Thus passed
off the stage
a man possessed of considerable capacity
and much personal magnetism. Though unfettered by
scruples, he was honest in his devotion to his revolutionary
ideals, and tried to improve the position of Islam.
Prince Malkom Khan. Among the protagonists who
attacked the old order was Malkom Khan, whose career
was extraordinarily varied. He was the son of a certain
Yakub Khan, an Armenian who became a convert to Islam,
and first appeared at Teheran as a conjurer, whose feats of
1
Nuk is a small district of the Yezd province. The inhabitants of Kerman much
resent the imputation that Mirxa Riza was a Kermani.
3
The extradition of these men had been demanded some time previously and they
had been imprisoned at Trebizond, but before the assassination the Sultan had refused
to hand them over to the Persian Government.