TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.'

THE historian El Eflāki was a disciple of Chelebi Emir 'Arif, a grandson of the author of the Mesnevi. ‘Ārif died in A.D. 1320; but as the dates of 'Arif's successors are carried down to A.H. 754 (A.D. 1353), when Eflāki's collection of anecdotes was completed, the historian must have outlived this last date. As a disciple of the Emir ‘Ārif, he was a dervish of the order named Mevlevī, as being followers of the rule and practices of Mevlānā Jelālu-'d-Din, er-Rūmi, commonly known in English literature as dancing dervishes," expressed by Americans: "whirling dervishes." The dervishes of the order do not all dance or "whirl.” Some are musicians, and some singers or chanters, who may, however, be occasional dancers also.

"the

Eflaki's work gives a sufficiency of dates to fix the principal events that he commemorates. His dates do not agree exactly with those found in other historians. They are, however, sufficiently near for general purposes not of a chronologically critical nature. They commence with A.H. 605 A.D. (1208), and thus cover a period of 145 years dated, besides another 30 years of the lifetime of

1 For the incidents and dates mentioned in this preface, see the various chapters of the Anecdotes.

Jelal's grandfather undated, who was a noble of such high standing and of so great a reputation for learning and sanctity at Balkh, that the king gave him his only daughter in marriage, unsolicited. His mother was also a princess of the same royal house with his wife.

This royal house was the one known in history as that of Kh'ārezm-shah or the Kharezmians. They were overthrown, and Balkh (the ancient Bactra, or Zariaspa), their capital, destroyed, by Jengiz Khān in A.D. 1211. A remnant of their kingdom was continued for twelve years longer by the last of the line, who died, at once a fugitive and an invader, in Azerbayjān, in a battle fought against the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.

Jelal's family claimed descent from Abu-Bekr, a fatherin-law and the first successor of Muhammed, the lawgiver of Islam. One of the descendants of Abu-Bekr was among the conquerors of the ancient Bactria, when it was first brought under Muslim rule, in about A.D. 650, under the Caliph 'Uthman; and his children had maintained a prominent position in that country, possessed of great wealth, until the time immediately preceding the irruption of Jengiz.

Jelal was the youngest of three children, two being sons, born of the princess, his mother, in Balkh. The eldest, a daughter, was already married, and remained behind with her husband, when her father and brothers left their native city some time between A.D. 1208 and 1211, in which latter year they were at Bagdad. There is no further mention of Jelal's elder brother. Jelal was five years old when they left Balkh. By way of Bagdad they went to Mekka, thence to Damascus, and next to

Erzinjān, in Armenia; thence to Larenda, in Asia Minor. Jelal's mother was still with the party. He was now eighteen years old; and was married, at Larenda, to a lady named Gevher (Pearl), daughter of a certain Lala Sherefu-'d-Din of Samarqand, in A.D. 1226.1 She bore him two sons there, 'Ala'u-'d-Din (afterwards killed in a tumult at Qonya) and Baha'u-'d-Dīn Sultan Veled, through whom the succession of the house was continued. She appears to have died rather yoùng; for Jelal afterwards married another lady of Qonya, who outlived him, and by whom he had two other children, a son and a daughter. (See Anecdotes, Chap. iii., No. 69, for a variant.)

After the birth of Sultan Veled at Larenda, Jelal's father was invited to Qonya by the Seljuqi king, ‘Alā’u'd-Din Kayqubad, where he founded a college, and where he died in A.D. 1231. The king built a marble mausoleum over his grave, with this date inscribed on it. The king himself died, five years later, in A.D. 1236.

At his father's death, Jelal went to Aleppo and Damascus for several years to study, and then returned to Qonya, where he was appointed professor of four separate colleges. His reputation for learning and sanctity became very great.

But before this journey to Damascus, he appears to have paid a visit to Larenda. For, a former pupil of his father's at Balkh, who had become a great saint and anchoret, came to Qonya to seek Jelal, and was the cause of his returning from Larenda to the capital.

1 He must have been born in about A.D. 1204 or 1205, to have been five years old when the family left Balkh. In 1226 he would, therefore, be

twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. But see Anecdotes, Chap. i., No. 2, &c.

This was the Sheykh and Seyyid Burhānu-'d-Din, who became Jelal's spiritual teacher for some time. The dates given do not agree in the various branches of Eflāki's compilation; for he here gives a period of nine years' spiritual study at Qonya under Burhan.

After Burhan's instructions and departure from Qonya to Qaysariyya, where he died, and after Jelal's studies at Aleppo and Damascus, with his subsequent return to Qonya and appointment to the four colleges, another great saint came to visit Jelal at this latter city. This was Shemsu-'d-Din of Tebriz, for whom Jelal conceived a very great friendship. He is mentioned in the Mesnevi several times in very high terms. He appears to have been exceedingly aggressive and domineering in his manner. This roused a fierce animosity against him, which at length broke out in a tumult. Jelal's eldest son, ‘Alā'u'd-Din, was killed or mortally hurt in this disturbance. The local police seized Shemsu-'d-Dīn in consequence, and he was never again seen alive by his friends. Jelal went himself to Damascus, in hopes that he might have been sent away, or have got away, privately. But the effort was fruitless. Later traditions cause his corpse to have been recovered and buried at Qonya, differing, however, as to the place of interment.

When Jelal found that he required assistance in conducting all the various duties that fell on him, he selected first for that office his former fellow-student, Sheykh Salāhu-'d-Din Ferīdun, surnamed Zer-Kūb (the Goldbeater), from his business. He assisted Jelal for about ten years, and died in A.D. 1258.

Jelal now took as his assistant his own favourite pupil,