A contemporary historian, al-Jūzjānī, gives the following account of the kind of treatment to which a Muhammadan theologian might be exposed at the court of Kuyūk. “Trustworthy persons have related that Kuyūk was constantly being incited by the Buddhist priests to acts of oppression towards the Musalmans and the persecution of the faithful. There was an Imām in that country, one of the men of learning among the Muslims ... named Nūr al-Dīn, al-Khwārazmī. A number of Christian laymen and priests and a band of idol-worshipping Buddhist priests made a request to Kuyūk, asking him to summon that Imām of the Musalmans that they might hold a controversy with him and get him to prove the superiority of the faith of Muḥammad and his prophetic mission—otherwise, he should be put to death. The Khān agreed, the Imām was sent for, and a discussion ensued upon the claim of Muḥammad to be a prophet and the manner of his life as compared with that of other prophets. At length, as the arguments of those accursed ones were weak and devoid of the force of truth, they withdrew their hand from contradiction and drew the mark of oppression and outrage on the pages of the business and asked Kuyūk Khān to tell the Imām to perform two genuflexions in prayer, according to the rites and ordinances of the Muhammadan law, in order that his unbecoming movements in the performance of this act of worship might become manifest to them and to the Khān.” Kuyūk gave the order accordingly, and the Imām and another Musalman who was with him performed the ritual of the prayer according to the prescribed forms. “When the godly Imām and the other Musalman who was with him, had placed their foreheads on the ground in the act of prostration, some infidels whom Kuyūk had summoned, greatly annoyed them and knocked their heads with force upon the ground, and committed other abominable acts against them. But that godly Imām endured all this oppression and annoyance and performed all the required forms and ceremonies of the prayer and in no way curtailed it. When he had repeated the salutation, he lifted up his face towards heaven and observed the form of ‘Invoke your Lord with humility and in secret,’ and having asked permission to depart, he returned unto his own house.” [745] Arghūn (1284–1291) the fourth Īlkhān persecuted the Musalmans and took away from them all posts in the departments of justice and finance, and forbade them to appear at his court. [746]