![]() ![]() It was not, however, till the accession of the Sefavi dynasty, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, that Meshed, as it had now for long been designated, became a centre of world-wide renown. Shah Rukh, the youngest son of Timur, subsequently embellished the mausoleum while his wife, Gowher Shad, erected the magnificent mosque which still exists alongside. In 1404 the courtly Spanish Ambassador, Don Ruy Gonzalez di Clavijo, passing Meshed on his way to the Court of Timur at Samarkand, left a similar record. Sanabad gradually became an object of religious attraction and worship, and Ibn Batutah, who travelled hither about 1330 A.D., found the mosque of the Imam in existence, and highly revered. ![]() Whichever be the truth, the body of the departed prophet was interred in a tower in the neighbouring village of Sanabad, where also (a curious corollary to the story of the murder) lay the remains of the Khalif's father, the illustrious Harun. Rumour relates, but apparently without any very certain foundation, that, having incurred the jealousy of the Khalif Mamun (son of the renowned Harun-er-Rashid), whose capital was Merv, the saint, then residing at the city of Tus, fifteen miles from the modem Meshed, was removed at his orders by a dish of poisoned grapes although another tradition represents the holy father as having comfortably died in his bed, or whatever was the ninth century equivalent thereto, at Tus. the remains of the pre-eminently holy Imam Reza, son of Imam Musa and eighth of the twelve Imams or Prophets, were here interred. Its name (Mashhad = 'Place of Martyrdom or Witness' ) and fame are alike due to the fact that in the ninth century A.D. I may dismiss with the briefest notice the rudiments of knowledge about the holy city. The fixed residence of an official representative of the Queen in Meshed is alone sufficient to mark an epoch in its history. But it will be within my power both to correct certain errors into which they have fallen, and to impart greater verisimilitude to the pictureīy bringing it up to date. I shall, as far as possible, avoid the repetition of what has been better said by them, believing implicitly in reference to the original source where that is feasible. If I add one more to the list of these chroniclers, it is because I aspire not to replace, but to supplement their labours. I append a catalogue of their names and publications, so that the reader may know whither to refer for such information as he may desire about particular periods or individual men. MESHED has in the course of the past half-century been visited and described at greater or less length by several Europeans, among whom Englishmen have been in the ascendant, in merit as well as in numbers. ![]() G IBBON, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Some reverence is surely due to the fame of heroes and the religion of nations. ![]()
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