The Nāṣirī Generations 291.4.6

291.4.6

The words of Rashid-ud-Din, after his mentioning that directions were given to number the Khalifah’s haram—the exact meaning of which word should be duly weighed—it is not solely the place wherein wives and concubines dwell, but the home of mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters, and female relatives as well, including sons’ families, and sometimes daughters’—and that it was found to contain 700 females and concubines, and 1200 domestics, are: “When the Khalifah [who had been conducted to his own palace on the 9th of Safar, according to Rashid-ud-Din] found what was going on, he implored saying, ‘The inmates of the haram, on whom neither sun nor moon has shone, spare unto me’ [i.e. pardon or spare them for my sake].” Hulaku said: “Out of the 700, choose 100, and give up the rest.” The unfortunate Khalifah chose 100 females, consisting of his relatives and kinswomen [including his mother, aunts, sisters, wives, and female children, the Aiyubi, Malik ’Izz-ud-Din, son of Fath-ud-Din, the Kurd, and Mujahid-ud-Din, I-bak, the Sar Dawat, all four of them; and some [persons] narrate, that, when the Amir, Abu-Bikr, returned to the presence of his father on coming back from the camp of Hulau, at the time the Lord of the Faithful was setting out [to proceed thither], the Amir, Abu-Bikr, did not accompany him, and that he [subsequently] left Baghdad, and proceeded into Sham [Syria] by way of the desert.