Note {1} — Chapter XIX

Note 1.—The Christian writers often ascribe Christianity to various princes of the Mongol dynasties without any good grounds. Certain coins of the Ilkhans of Persia, up to the time of Gházán’s conversion to Islam, exhibit sometimes Mahomedan and sometimes Christian formulæ, but this is no indication of the religion of the prince. Thus coins not merely of the heathen Khans Ábáká and Arghún, but of Ahmad Tigudar, the fanatical Moslem, are found inscribed “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Raynaldus, under 1285, gives a fragment of a letter addressed by Arghún to the European Powers, and dated from Tabriz, “in the year of the Cock,” which begins “In Christi Nomen, Amen!” But just in like manner some of the coins of Norman kings of Sicily are said to bear the Mahomedan profession of faith; and the copper money of some of the Ghaznevide sultans bears the pagan effigy of the bull Nandi, borrowed from the coinage of the Hindu kings of Kabul.