The Rashīdī History 10.1.4

10.1.4

Saints and religious pretenders increased in numbers, and nothing is more clear in Mirza Haidar's history than the influence they gained in all political affairs. Each Khan and Chief, besides many of the leading Amirs, he tells us, retained at their headquarters one or more of these advisers; and he shows how in his own case, and in that of his master, Said Khan, they gained an altogether inordinate degree of control over their patrons. Even such barbarous tyrants as Aba Bakr of Kashghar, and the most blood-thirsty of the Uzbeg chiefs, seem to have honoured them with superstitious reverence, and to have accepted their guidance. It was in deference, apparently, to the teachings of this class, and under the pretence of religious zeal, that all the worst deeds of these potentates were done — that plundering expeditions assumed the name of holy wars, that murders, prompted in reality by fear or revenge, were committed under priestly sanction, and that wholesale slavery was carried on as a meritorious measure of conversion from infidelity.