A literary history of Persia

400 THE ISMA'JLf SECTwhile, on the other hand, the excesses of the Isma'ih's of Persia andSyria armed against Egypt, the fpcus of the sect, the pious andorthodox Nuru'd-Din (the Atabek of Syria, A.D. 1146-1173), whosucceeded in overthrowing the Fatimid dynasty."Nasir-i-Khusraw, who was at Cairo in the middle of theeleventh century of our era, during the reignof al-Mustansir,the eighth Fatimid Caliph, gives an equallyfavourable picture." 1 " Every one," says he, has perfect confidence in the Sultan, andno one stands in fear of myrmidons or spies, relying on the Sultanto oppress no one and to covet no one's possessions. There Isaw wealth belonging to private individuals such that if I shouldspeak of it or describe it the people of Persia would refuse to creditmy statements. I could neither limit nor define their wealth, andnowhere have I seen such prosperity as I saw there. There I saw aChristian who was one of the richest men in Egypt, so that itwas said that his ships, his wealth, and his estates surpassedcomputation. My object in mentioning him is that one year thewater of the Nile fell short and corn became dear. The Sultan'sii'azir summoned this Christian and said, 'The year is not good,and the Sultan's heart isweighed down with anxiety for his people.How much corn could you supply, either for a 'price or as a loan ?The Christian answered, 'Thanks to the fortunate auspices of theSultan and the wazir, I have in store so much corn that I couldsupply all Egypt with bread for six years.' 3Now the population ofEgypt at this time was certainly, at the lowest computation, fivetimes that of Nishapur and; any one versed in statistics will readilyunderstand what vast wealth one must possess to hold corn to suchan amount, and what security of property and good government apeople must enjoy amongst whom such things are possible, andwhat great riches ;and withal neither did the Sultan oppress orwrong any one, nor did his subjects keep anything hidden orconcealed."of God, and was accepted as such by the sect of Isma'ilis still known asthe Druzes, after al-Hakim's minister and abettor the Persian Hamzaad-Duruzi.Safar-ndma, edited in the original Persian, with a French translation,1by the late M. Ch. Schefer (Paris, 1881) , pp. 155-6 of the translation,of the text.pp. 56-73 "Or perhaps Cairo," which, as well as the country of which it is thecapital, is commonly called Misr by the Muslims.