A literary history of Persia

BIGOTRY OF AL-MUTAWAKKIL 343bigotry, which was especially directed against the Shi'a, butwhich also found its expression in vexatious enactments directedagainst the Jews and Christians, was, indeed, in complete keepingwith his Turkish proclivities, and makes us liken him rather toa gloomy and fanatical Ottoman sultan than to the heir ofal-Mansur and al-Ma'mun. As regards his attitude towards theShi'a, itwas not enoughthat he should on occasions shed theirblood, as he did in the case of the tutor of his sons, Ibnu's-Sikkft, the celebrated grammarian r (A.D. 857), and, for morereason, of c lsa b. Ja'far,who was, by his command, beaten todeath in A.D. 855 for speaking ill of Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'A'isha,and Hafsa, and his body refused burial and cast into the Tigris"as a warning to every heretic in the Faith who dissented fromthe body of believers " a his hatred extended itself to the;great Imams of the Shi'a, 'All and al-Husayn, whom allMuslims, be they of the Sunna or the Shi'a,A.D. 851 he caused the holy shrine of Kerbela,goodrevere. Thus inbuilt to commemoratethe martyrdom of al-Husayn, to be destroyed, andforbade men to visit the spot,3 which was ploughed over andsown with crops ;and he suffered, and apparently approved,a buffoon who, padded with pillows to give him an artificialpaunch, used to hold up*Ali to ridicule before him and hiscourtiers.As regards the Jews and Christians, many of whom, ashave seen, stood high in honour with his predecessors, his firstenactment against them was issued early in hisEnactments . , ,against the jews reign (A.D. o^o), and the second three or fourand Christians.\''years later. 1 hey were thereby compelled towear " honey-coloured gowns (taylasdn\4 parti-coloured_we1Muir, op. cit., p. 525 ; Brockelmann, Gesch. d. Arab. Litt., i, p. 117.3 Tabari's Annals, Ser. iii, pp. 1424-1426.3 Ibid., Ser. iii, p. 1407.4 The dull yellow garments which the Zoroastrinns of Persia (Yazd andKirman) are still compelled to wear are the last remnant of these olddisabilities. Sa'di, writing in the thirteenth century, still spoke of them as" " 'asal-i-diikhta," sewed [i.e.made up] honey." See n. 3 on p. 335 supra..