Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/35

Rh mind your abilities and attainments, that you shall be preferred to a post of trust like mine.' But Hakím replied (after compliments), 'The greatest favour you can do me is to let me live in retirement, where, under your protection, I may occupy myself in amassing the riches of learning and in praying for your long life.' And to this language he steadfastly adhered. When I perceived that he spoke in sincerity, and not out of mere etiquette, I assigned him a yearly stipend of 1200 gold miscals, payable from the Nishapur treasury. He then went back to Nishapur, and applied himself to the study of the sciences, especially astronomy, in which he afterwards attained a high degree of accomplishment. Later on, in the reign of Sultan Malikshah (465 to 485 ), he came to Merv, in the height of his philosophical repute; and the Sultan conferred many favours upon him, and raised him to the highest posts attainable by men of science."

Nizám ul Mulk goes on to recount the subsequent history of Hasan Sabah,—how by his aid Hasan obtained a post at court, and repaid his kindness by intriguing against him,—how Hasan then fled from Khorásán, and joined the infamous sect of Ismailians, or Assassins, and afterwards became their chief, under the name of Shaikh ul Jabal, or Old Man of the Mountain.

This narrative reads so circumstantially that one can hardly do otherwise than accept it, but in that case Nizám ul Mulk's birth must be placed at least twenty years later than 408, the date given both by Ibn