the Batinis—that is, the Ismaʿilis, the very group that had formerly been called the Qarmatians (1).

He adds: In Isfahan al-Khujandi (2) set out to take vengeance on them. He mustered a vast host, fully armed, and ordered trenches to be dug with fires burning in them; the Batinis were brought forward and cast into the flames until a great many of them had been killed.

He also says: Ibn Sabbāḥ was a resolute man, learned in geometry, astronomy, and the occult. He had studied under the physician Ibn Ghaṭṭāsh, who once seized the fortress of Isfahan. Later he entered Egypt and met with al-Mustanṣir, who gave him money and charged him to summon people to allegiance to his son Nizār. Ibn Sabbāḥ was the one who sent the assassin that slew Niẓām al-Mulk.

The ruler of Kerman, the Seljuq Tiran-Shāh, butchered four thousand people simply because they were Sunnis. Abu Zurʿa the secretary had recommended the Batini doctrines to him, whereupon he abandoned the religion, killed the chief Ḥanafī jurist Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Balkhī, and was then opposed by his own troops. They fought him, subdued him, pursued him with a detachment, killed him, and also killed Abu Zurʿa. After that the emirs took to wearing coats of mail beneath their clothes for fear of the strikes of these heretical assassins.

Sultan Barkyāruq mounted a campaign against them and wore them down, yet in the process he executed a number of innocent people who had been denounced by their enemies; the populace of ʿĀna were caught up in this, and al-Kiyā al-Harrāsī was accused of belonging to them—God forbid. Sultan Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh ordered him seized, but when trustworthy witnesses testified to his good character he was released (3).

In that same year Duqaq, the ruler of Damascus, routed the Franks, while the ruler of Jerusalem, Godfrey, was besieging Acre; he was killed by an arrow, whereupon his brother Baldwin succeeded him, and the Franks seized Saruj.