[409] The famous order of dervishes called _Nakshabandi_ was founded in Tīmūr’s reign by a certain Khwāja Bahā ud-Dīn, who died in A.H. 791 (1388). The three saints held in reverence by the dervishes next after him are Khwāja Ahrār (whose mausoleum is to be seen a few miles outside Samarkand), Ishān Mahzūm Kāshāni, and Sūfi Allah Yār. It is a group of members of this mendicant brotherhood which forms the subject of the frontispiece to this work by M. Verestchagin. There are two other sects of dervishes in Samarkand--(1) the _Kādiriyya_, whose founder was `Abd el-Kādiri Gīlāni, and (2) the _Alf Tsāni_, an order whereof the founder seems to be unknown, and which is sparsely represented. [410] “He was of great stature, of an extraordinary large head, open forehead, of a beautiful red and white complexion, and with long hair--white from his birth, like Zal, the renowned hero of Persian history. In his ears he wore two diamonds of great value. He was of a serious and gloomy expression of countenance; an enemy to every kind of joke or jest, but especially to falsehood, which he hated to such a degree that he preferred a disagreeable truth to an agreeable lie,--in this respect far different from the character of Alexander, who put to death Clitus, his friend and companion in arms, as well as the philosopher Callisthenes, for uttering disagreeable truths to him. Tīmūr never relinquished his purpose or countermanded his order; never regretted the past, nor rejoiced in the anticipation of the future; he neither loved poets nor buffoons, but physicians, astronomers, and lawyers, whom he frequently desired to carry on discussions in his presence; but most particularly he loved those dervishes whose fame of sanctity paved his way to victory by their blessing. His most darling books were histories of wars and biographies of warriors and other celebrated men. His learning was confined to the knowledge of reading and writing, but he had such a retentive memory that whatever he read or heard once he never forgot. He was only acquainted with three languages--the Turkish, Persian, and Mongolian. The Arabic was foreign to him. He preferred the Tora of Chingiz Khān to the Koran, so that the Ulemas found it necessary to issue a Fetwa by which they declared those to be infidels who preferred human laws to the divine. He completed Chingiz Khān’s Tora by his own code, called Tuzukat, which comprised the degrees and ranks of his officers. Without the philosophy of Antonius or the pedantry of Constantine, his laws exhibit a deep knowledge of military art and political science. Such principles were imitated successfully by his successors, Shāh Baber and the great Shāh Akbar, in Hindustān. The power of his civil as well as military government consisted in a deep knowledge of other countries, which he acquired by his interviews with travellers and dervishes, so that he was fully acquainted with all the plans, manœuvres, and