Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/487

 modern \'illage of Paz, a short distance south of Rizan, and not far from the ruins of Tus.^ Finally, Naukan (generally called Noghan today) formed, with Tabaran, the larger section of Tus, lying nearer the present Mashad, and occupied a once thickly populated area northeast and east of that more modern city which has absorbed it.^ This was the particular borough of Tus that contained the tombs of Imam Riza and Harun ar-Rashid, as was seen in the preceding chapter.

Tus, in its long history, has been the home of many famous and learned men besides Firdausi. His predecessor Dakiki, according to some, came from Tus.^ The great Moslem thinker, al-Ghazali, was born here in 1059 a.d. and laid the early foundations of his learning at one of the collegiate institutions in Tus, which later won him a professorship in the Niddhamiyya College at Baghdad, endowed by a native of Tus, the celebrated Nizam al-Mulk, the friend of Omar Khayyam.* After giving up his lectureship at Baghdad, al-Ghazali taught for a time in the college at Nishapur, but returned to his own city, and died there December 18, 1111, leaving behind him some seventy philosophical and doctrinal works that bear his name. The poet Anvari is said to have studied at the college of Tus about the year 1150.^ The poet Asadi the Younger, the author of a heroic poem on Garshasp, or Kershaspa, that was modeled on the epic of Firdausi, who had been his father's pupil, was likewise

1 See Sykes, JBAS. 1910, p. 1116. was 'the village Kizan, belonging to

This Paz, as Sykes remarks, appears Tus ' ; cf. VuUers, Fragmente uber die

in older documents as Pazh, but under Beligion des Zoroaster, p. 3, Bonn,

the Arabs as Baz. It is the same as 1831.

the village of Bazh, which, accordingto 2 cf. Sykes, JBAS. 1910, p. 1116.

the Chahdr Makdla, p. 47 (tr. Browne, » Cf. Noldeke, Grundr. iran. Philol.

JBAS. 1899, p. 77), was the real 2. 147 ; Eth6, Grundr. 2. 222. birthplace of the poet or else his coun- * See above, p. 254. Nizam al-Mulk

try-seat. It may be observed that Ibn was born in the outlying suburb of

Isfandiar (ed. Eth6, ZDMG. 48. 90) Tus called Radkan, mentioned in the

does not mention Bazh, but speaks preceding paragraph ; see Yakut, p.

only of ' the quarter Tabaran.' Dau- 262.

latshah (ed. Browne, p. 50) says Fir- ^ Cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia, 2.

dausi's birthplace, according to some, 366 ; Ethd, Grundr. 2. 262.

�� �