The Dabistan

CHAPTER VIII. .

OF THE HEL1GION OF THE VA HADIA H AND 1MANA ,
IN FOUR SECTIONS.

SECTION!. Of the appearance of the Individual Vahed, and an account

of his person.

SECTION II. Upon some of the tenets of Vahed.
SECTION III. Upon some of the sayings of Vahed.
SECTION IV. Upon certain customs, forms of speech, and traditions of

this sect.

SECTION I. — Of the appearance of the individual
Vahed, and an account of his person.

Vahed Mahmlid was born in Masjuan, a village
in the country of Gilan.1 He was learned, active,
abstinent, austere, and eloquent; he appeared in the
year of the Hejira 600 (A. D. 1205-4). ~ It is said

1 A country between the Caspian and Euxine seas.

2 Herbelot mentions (under the article Giogatbai Khan, p. 363) a Itfah-
mud, surnamed Tarabi, from his native place Tarab, near Bokhara, as an
impostor, who by tricks and false miracles gained so many followers as to
be able to seize upon the town of Bokhara, and to make war upon the
Moghuls, in the year of the Hejira 630 (A. D. 1232). This date makes
him a contemporary with the Mahmud of our text, in which, however,
nothing more is to be found for enabling us to identify the one with the
other. Such was the terror which the name of Mahmud Tarabi inspired,
that the Tartars, being led against his camp, were seized by a panic, and
took to flight, in which many thousands of them were slaughtered by the