The older name of the town or district was Abrashahr. The importance of the place under the Sasanians was in part religious; one of the three holiest fire temples was in its neighbourhood. Nishapur under the Moslems contained a large Arab element; it became the capital of Khorasan, and greatly increased in prosperity, under the almost independent princes of the house of Tahir (A. D. 820-873). Istakhri describes it as a well-fortified town, a league square, with a great export of cotton goods and raw silk. In the decline of the empire the city had much to suffer from the Turkomans, whose raids have in modern times destroyed the prosperity of this whole region. In 1153 it was utterly ruined by the Ghuzz Turkomans, but soon rose again, because, as Yakut remarks, its position gave it command of the entire caravan trade with the East. It was taken and razed to the ground by Mongols in 1221, but a century later Ibn Batuta found the city again flourishing, with four colleges, numerous students, and an export of silk-stuffs to India. Nishapur was famous for its fruits and gardens which gave it the epithet of “little Damascus.” We have an interesting portrait of Al-Ghazali’s chief teacher while he was at Nishapur,—Abul-Maʾali ʿAbdal-Malik Al-Juwaini Imam al-Haramain. He was born at Bushtaniqan, near Nishapur, on the twelfth of February, 1028, and was one of the most learned and celebrated teachers of Moslem law in his day. “On the death of his father, Abu Muhammed ʿAbdallah ibn Yusuf, who was a teacher in the latter town, he took his place, though barely twenty years of age.” But this was a time of literary prodigies due to precocious talent and prodigious power of memory. “To complete his own studies, and to make the sacred pilgrimage, he went to Bagdad and thence to the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, where he taught for four years; hence his surname, which signifies ‘the teacher of the two holy places.’ When he returned to Nishapur, Nizam Al-Mulk founded a school for him, in which he gave courses of lessons till his death, which overtook him on the twentieth of August, 1085, while on a visit to his native village, whither he had gone in the hope of recovering from an illness. Along with his professorial duties, he had discharged those of a preacher. At Nishapur he held gatherings every Friday, at which he preached sermons, and presided over discussions on various doctrinal points: to these occupations he added that of managing the _waqfs_, or landed property devoted to the support of pious undertakings. For more than thirty years he continued in undisputed possession of these various posts. When he died, the mourning was general; the great pulpit of the Mosque from which he had delivered his sermons was broken up, and his pupils, to the number of four hundred and one, destroyed their pens and ink-horns, and gave up their studies for a year.”[30] It is certain that Al-Ghazali sat at his