Note 3 — Chapter IX · PERSIA AT THE TIME OF JINGHIS KHAN’S DEATH

While besieging Khelat the Sultan commanded to adorn Ispahan with a college, and a domed mausoleum of rich structure. This building was to hold the sarcophagus of his father which meanwhile would rest on the Demavend mountain in Erdehan, a strong fortress three days’ journey from Rayi toward the Caspian. He requested by letter his aunt, Shah Khatun, a widow of the Mazanderan prince named Ardshir, to attend the “great Sultan’s” remains to the fortress. The chief men of her country and the Moslem Ulema were to go with her. Mohammed of Nessa, who indited the letter with this request, declares that he sent it unwillingly, since he knew well that Mohammed’s remains were far safer on that island in the Caspian than they ever could be in the fortress; for the Mongols burned the corpses of all kings whose graves they found, believing them of the Kwaresmian dynasty. They dug up in Gur the remains of Mahmud, son of Sebak Tegin, though this prince had been dead two whole centuries. “The event failed not to justify my fears,” adds Mohammed Nessavi.3 “After Jelal had been slain the Mongols took the Erdehan stronghold and sent the body of Mohammed to Ogotai who burned it.”