Note 409 — Chapter XXIV · Tīmūr, the Great Amīr

The famous order of dervishes called Nakshabandi was founded in Tīmūr’s reign by a certain Khwāja Bahā ud-Dīn, who died in A.H. 791 (1388). The three saints held in reverence by the dervishes next after him are Khwāja Ahrār (whose mausoleum is to be seen a few miles outside Samarkand), Ishān Mahzūm Kāshāni, and Sūfi Allah Yār. It is a group of members of this mendicant brotherhood which forms the subject of the frontispiece to this work by M. Verestchagin. There are two other sects of dervishes in Samarkand—(1) the Kādiriyya, whose founder was `Abd el-Kādiri Gīlāni, and (2) the Alf Tsāni, an order whereof the founder seems to be unknown, and which is sparsely represented.