Ibn al-Jawzi said: “Tughtigin was courageous and just; the people of Damascus mourned him so deeply that there was not a single quarter or marketplace where lamentation was not held for him, owing to his equity and admirable conduct. He governed Syria for thirty-five years, and his son followed his example for a time, then changed and behaved unjustly.

I say: Tughtigin had indeed been an unsheathed sword against the Franks, yet he possessed one serious flaw. The calamity provoked in Syria by the Ismaʿili missionary Bahram had grown enormous. Disguised, Bahram roamed the cities and fortresses, enticing the simple-minded and the rogues, and the ignorant submitted to him. At length he appeared openly in Damascus after an arrangement concluded between the lord of Mardin, Ilghazi, and Tughtigin. Out of fear of his mischief Tughtigin showered him with honors. The rabble, the fools, and the peasants rallied to him, and their numbers swelled. The vizier Ṭāhir al-Muzdaqani sided with him and divulged his secrets to him. Bahram then asked King Tughtigin for a fortress in which to take refuge, and in 520 AH (1) he was granted Banias. The crisis thus became grave; the righteous were distressed and had to hide from his insults, and the sect had already murdered a number of leading men.

Taj al-Mulūk did not hesitate: he killed the vizier Kamāl al-Din Ṭāhir ibn Saʿd mentioned above inside the citadel during Ramadan of 523 AH, mounted his head on a pole, and sent out his troops, who put the sword to the Ismaʿili malāhida (heretics) in Damascus, felling on the spot about 6,000 of them in the streets. They had grown bold and their influence had swelled, so in this affair the righteous perished alongside the wicked.

As for Bahram, he rebelled and became tyrannical. He murdered a young man from Wadi al-Taym named Barq; the young man’s clan rose up, swore an oath to take revenge, and when Bahram fought them, they ambushed him.