A literary history of Persia

THE RAWANDIYYA 315Fihnst (p. 345) he was a descendant of Zayd the 'Alid, andtherefore presumably claimed himself to be the Imam, thoughhe took advantage of Abu Muslim's popularityto recommendhimself to his followers ;but according to another authoritycited in the same work as " well informed as to the affairs ofthe Muslimiyya," he was a common and illiterate man ofTransoxiana who had a familiar spiritwhich he used to consult,and who declared that Abu Muslim was a prophet sent byZoroaster, and that Zoroaster was alive and had never died,but would reappear in due season to restore hisreligion."Al-Balkhi," adds our author, "and some others call theMuslimiyya (or followers of Abu Muslim) Khurram-diniyya" ;"and," adds " he, there are amongst us in Balkh a number ofthem at a village called . . T. but, they conceal themselves.'*The next manifestation of these anthropomorphic ultra-TheRawandiyya.Shi'ites took place a year or two later (A.D.758-9 ),2 and is thus described by Dozy 3 :_"Still more foolish were those fanatics who, inspired by Indo-Persian ideas, named their prince ' God.' So long as the victoryremained doubtful the 'Abbasids had been able to tolerate thisspecies of cult, but since they had gained the mastery they could doso no longer, for they would have aroused against themselves notonly the orthodox but the whole Arab race. On the other handthey alienated the sympathy of the Persians by refusing to be Godfor them ;but they had to choose, and the poor Persians, who allthe while meant so well, were sacrificed to the Arabs. TheRawandis (of Rawand near Isfahan 4 )learned this to their cost when1 Name uncertain ; perhaps Khtirramdbdd, a common name of Persianvillages.3Tabari (iii, 129 el scqq. and 418) mentions the incident first recordedunder the year A.H. 141 (A.D. 758-9), but adds that some place it in A.H. 136or 137 (A.D. 753-5), while he records a similar narrative under A.H. 158(A.D. 774-5). The last two dates are those of the accession and decease ofal-Mansiir, and the narrative may simply have been recorded there by oneof his authorities as a piece of undated general information about thatCaliph. See also Dinawari, p. 380, and al-Fakhri, p 188.3 L'lslamisme (transl. of V. Chauvin), pp. 241-243.4There were two places called Rawand, one near Kashan and Isfahan,