an ally, even if he is an unbeliever; whoever rejects their authority, they regard as an enemy, even if he is among the finest Muslims. They do not fight for Islam, nor do they impose jizyah and subjection. Indeed, many of the Muslims among them, including their highest-ranking emirs and ministers, aspire to no more than for a Muslim to enjoy the same standing among them as the polytheists among the Jews and Christians whom they revere. Thus, their foremost commander among those who came to Syria, while addressing the Muslim envoys and seeking their goodwill by declaring, “We are Muslims,” said: “These are two great signs that came from Allah: Muhammad and Genghis Khan.”

This, then, is the furthest their foremost commander goes in seeking the Muslims’ goodwill: equating the Messenger of Allah—the noblest of creation in His sight, the master of the children of Adam, and the Seal of the Messengers—with an unbelieving, polytheistic king, among the worst polytheists in unbelief, corruption, and aggression, of the same kind as Nebuchadnezzar and his like.

These Tatars held an exalted belief concerning Genghis Khan: they believed him to be the son of Allah, much as the Christians believe concerning the Messiah. They say that the sun impregnated his mother: she was in a tent, and the sun descended through an opening in the tent and entered her, causing her to conceive. Everyone who professes a religion knows that this is a lie. This is evidence that he was born of fornication, and that his mother committed fornication, concealed it, and made this claim to ward off its disgrace.

Despite this, they regard him as the greatest messenger in Allah’s sight, venerating what he instituted and prescribed for them according to his own conjecture and desire, to the point that