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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XIX. BAIDU AND CASAN
477
obeyed him as their liege lord. Casan began to reign
in the year 1294 of the Incarnation of Christ.
Thus then you have bad the whole history from
Abaga to Casan, and I should tell you that Alaii, the
conqueror of Baudac, and the brother of the Great Kaan
Cublay, was the progenitor of all those I have mentioned.
For he was the father of Abaga, and Abaga was the
father of Argon, and Argon was the father of Casan
who now reigns.'
Now as we have told you all about the Tartars of the
Levant, we will quit them and go back and tell you more
about Great Turkey But in good sooth we have told
you all about Great Turkey and the history of Caidu, and
there is really no more to tell. So we will go on and tell
you of the Provinces and nations in the far North.
NOTE I.—The Christian writers often ascribe Christianity to various princes of the Mongol dynasties without any good grounds. Certain coins of the Ilkhans of Persia, up to the time of Gházán's conversion to Islam, exhibit sometimes Mahomedan and sometimes Christian formulae, but this is no indication of the religion of the prince. Thus coins not merely of the heathen Khans Abaka and Arght n, but of Ahmad Tigudar, the fanatical Moslem, are found inscribed " In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Raynaldus, under 1285, gives a fragment of a letter addressed by Arghún to the European Powers, and dated from Tabriz, in the year of the Cock," which begins " In Christi Nomen, Amen!" But just in like manner some of the coins of Norman kings of Sicily are said to bear the Mahomedan profession of faith ; and the copper money of some of the Ghaznevide sultans bears the pagan effigy of the bull Nandi, borrowed from the coinage of the Hindu kings of Kabul.
The European Princes could not get over the belief that the Mongols were necessarily the inveterate enemies of Mahomedanism and all its professors. Though Gházán was professedly a zealous Mussulman, we find King James of Aragon, in 1300, offering Cassan Rey del Mogol amity and alliance with much abuse of the infidel Saracens; and the same feeling is strongly expressed in a letter of Edward II. of England to the Emperor of the Tartars," which apparently was meant for Oljaitu, the successor of Gházán. (Fraelin de Ilchan. Nummis, vi. and passim ; Raynald. III. 619 ; J. A. S. B. XXIV. 490 ; Kinglon's Frederick II. I. 396 ; Capmany, Antis uos Tratados, etc. p. 107 ; Rymer, 2d Ed. III. 34 ; see also p. 2o.)
There are other assertions, besides our author's, that Baidu professed Christianity. Hayton says so, and asserts that he prohibited Mahomedan proselytism among the Tartars. The continuator of Abulfaraj says that Baidu's long acquaintance with the Greek Despina Khatun, the wife of Abáká, had made him favourable to Christians, so that he willingly allowed a church to be carried about with the camp, and bells to be struck therein, but he never openly professed Christianity. In fact at this time the whole body of Mongols in Persia was passing over to Islam, and Baidu also, to please them, adopted Mahomedan practices. But he would only employ Christians as Ministers of State. His rival Gházán, on the other hand, strengthened his own
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