Loss of Influence and Death
In 1312, his colleague, Sa'd al-Dawla, fell from power and was replaced by Ali Shah, who soon began intriguing to bring down Rashid al-Din. Then, in 1314, Mohammed Khodabanda (also known as Muhammad Khodabandeh, or most commonly, Öljaitü) died and power passed to his son, Abu Sa'id. Young and inexperienced, Abu Sa'id sided with 'Ali Shah. In 1318, Rashid al-Din was charged with having poisoned Oljeitu. During the trial, Rashid al-Din proved that the letter cited against him in evidence was a forgery, but he was convicted anyway and executed on July 13, at the age of seventy.
His property was confiscated and—even worse from the standpoint of both art and history — Rab'-e Rashidi, with its scriptorium and its precious copies, was turned over to the Mongol soldiery. Only two fragments of the Jami' al-Tawarikh have survived, one of them the manuscript sold at Sotheby's in 1980. A century later, during the reign of Timurlane's son Miranshah, Rashid ad-Din's bones were exhumed from the Muslim cemetery and reburied in the Jewish cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Rashid-al-Din Hamadani
Famous quotes containing the words loss of, loss, influence and/or death:
“Faster, faster with no loss of ritual
Stiff minions without banners, a steady guard ...”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The cheapness of man is every day’s tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low; for we must have a society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They tell us that women can bring better things to pass by indirect influence. Try to persuade any man that he will have more weight, more influence, if he gives up his vote, allies himself with no party and relies on influence to achieve his ends! By all means let us use to the utmost whatever influence we have, but in all justice do not ask us to be content with this.”
—Mrs. William C. Gannett, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5, ch. 8, by Ida Husted Harper (1922)
“Could any death be so horrible as birth? Or any decrepitude so awful as childhood in a happy united God-fearing family?”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)