Note 30 — Chapter VI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.
Reading edition
Pious legends have grown up to supply the lack of sober historical record of such conversions. The city of Khīva reveres as its national saint a Muslim wrestler—Pahlavān—who was in the service of a heathen king of K͟hwārizm. The king of India, hearing of the fame of this Pahlavān, sent his own court wrestler with a challenge to the king of K͟hwārizm. A day was fixed for the trial of strength and the nobles and people of Khīva were summoned to view the spectacle; the vanquished man was to have his head cut off. On the day before, the saintly Pahlavān was praying in the mosque when he overheard the prayer of an old woman: “O God, suffer not my son to be beaten by this invincible Pahlavān, for I have no other child.” Touched with compassion for the mother, Pahlavān lets the Indian wrestler win the day; the enraged king orders his head to be cut off, but at that very moment the horse on which the king is sitting, bolts, carrying his master straight towards a dangerous precipice. Pahlavān springs forward, catches the horse and rescues the king from a horrible death. In gratitude the king embraces the true faith, and the saintly wrestler, full of joy, goes away into the desert and becomes a hermit.30