Yazd

“ After spending several days in al-Madâʾin, the Moslems received word that Yazdajird had massed a great host, which was then at Jalûlâʾ, and had directed it against them. Saʿd ibn-abi-Waḳḳâṣ thereupon dispatched Hâshim ibn-ʿUtbah ibn-abi-Waḳḳâṣ at the head of 12,000 men to meet them. The Moslems found that the Persians, having left their families and heavy baggage at Khâniḳîn, [1] had dug trenches and fortified themselves, binding themselves with a pledge never to flee. ”

“ He punished the nobles severely when they attempted oppression; he stopped the persecution of the Christians and granted them their own organization. With the Roman Empire he lived in peace and friendship, and is therefore as much praised by the Byzantine authors (Procop. Pers. i. 2; Agath. iv. 26) as he is blamed by the Persians. After a reign of twenty years he appears to have been murdered in Khorasan. (2) Yazdegerd II., was the son of Bahram V. Gor, 438–457. He persecuted the Christians and Jews, and had a short war with Rome in 441. ”

“ According to another story, Yazdajird was warned against the messengers of Mâhawaih and fled away, jumping into the water. When the miller was asked about him, he said, "The man has left my house." They found Yazdajird in the water, and he said, "If ye spare me I will give you my belt, ring and crown." He asked them for some money with which he could buy bread, and one of them gave him 4 dirhams. Seeing that, Yazdajird laughingly said, "I was told that I will some day feel the need of 4 dirhams!" Later he was attacked by certain men sent after him by Mâhawaih, and he said, "Kill me not ”

“ Yezd.—In the centre of a sandy plain, midway between Kirman and Kashan, is the city of Yezd, where almost the last of the Iranian fire-worshippers, now a small part of the total population, still follow the ancient faith. Though partly shut off from the great desert of Khorassan by a mountain range, the city is only an oasis, where the drifting sands that buried the old city ever suggest to the inhabitants the dread spirit of desolation which finds an echo in ruined walls within. At the present time very few piled rugs are woven there and they are rarely seen in Western markets ”

“ Quoth she, "By Allah, I may not patient myself away from thee a single hour otherwise shall my spirit depart my body, and I conjure thee by the Almighty that thou bid me return to them a reply!" Quoth Prince Yusuf, "What news wilt thou give them? An thou say that I never came to thee none will believe; for indeed my pages saw me passing into thy Palace"—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" ”

“ Sheykh Hamid of Kasim, also quoted by Wetzstein, says, “Nejd in its widest sense is the whole of Central Arabia;—in its narrowest and according to modern usage, only the Shammar Mountains and the Land of Kasim, with the Great Desert bordering it to the South.”
5. Niebuhr, the oldest and most respectable of European writers, enumerating the towns of Nejd, says, “Le mont Schamer n’est qu’à dix journées de Bagdad; il comprend Haïl, Monkek, Kafar, et Bokà. L’on place aussi dans le Nejdsjed une contrée montagneuse nommée Djof-al-Sirhán entre le mont Schâmer et Shâm (la Syrie) ,” etc. ”

“ It is difficult for a European to conceive of a number of towns and villages, containing several millions of people, bedded out over an enormous desert area considerably larger than the whole of France. It is equally difficult for the Yezdi to conceive of a natural and continuous land. Even those who have travelled a little outside Yezd, and have been obliged to modify slightly the Yezdi conception of the universe, have built up their notions of the world’s surface upon what seems to us a most peculiar first idea ”

“ In addition to the Mahomedan population of Yezd, that city contains some Hindoo merchants, some Jews, and a considerable number of Guebres; but the people of the last-mentioned sect, owing to the oppression from which they have suffered, are year by year withdrawing themselves, as they find opportunities, from the rule of the Shah, and hastening to join their more prosperous co-religionists in India. The climate of Yezd is considered to be very salubrious, and is extremely dry ”

“ Yezd is extremely interesting from a historical point of view, and for its close association with that wonderful race the "Guebres," better known in Europe by the name of Parsees. The ancient city of Askizar was buried by shifting sands, in a desert with a few oases, and was followed by the present Yezd, which does not date from earlier than the time of the Sassanian dynasty. ”

“ The functions of the Yazatas. Various are the boons that the Yazatas give unto man. [8] By hundreds and by thousands they gather together the light of the sun and pour it upon the earth. [9] Men invoke them with sacrifices, [10] and in return they help men. They have a share of invocation and sacrifice offered unto Ahura Mazda, who is not jealous of the oblations thus dedicated to his subordinates. They are the holy, mighty, beneficent ones, [11] full of glory and healing. ”

“ Jadgor, I command that you forsake—"
"Hold, Tamhys!" It was Zud, the High Priest, who spoke. "Truth you have been told, yet not all the truth as it appears. None know the plans of Zitu save Zitu himself. A priest, I am as yourself, a man of peace. Yet Zitu himself may send a war at times to, like a sorrow, purge the soul of the nation and recall it to him, even as a grief may turn the soul of a man to higher things. Jasor of Nodhur was a dullard till Zitu opened his mind. He died as his physician declares, yet now he lives again, and speaks with a mind inspired. ”

“ Ahura-Mazda, indeed, still retains his supremacy, and every Yasht begins with a formula, of which the first words are "In the name of the God Ormazd," while the first Yasht is devoted exclusively to his praise. Subject to this recognition, however, the inferior potentates are each in turn the object of panegyrics in that exaggerated style in which Oriental literature delights. We need not stop to recount the particular honors rendered to each. One Yasht, however, is sufficiently curious to merit our attention, the more so as we possess a translation of it by Burnouf. ”

“ The governorship of Yazîd. When al-Manṣûr became caliph, he made Yazîd ibn-Usaid as-Sulami governor of Armenia. The latter reduced Bâb al-Lân and stationed in it a cavalry guard with stipends. He also subdued aṣ-Ṣanârîyah, whose inhabitants paid kharâj. In compliance with al-Manṣûr's orders, he married the daughter of the king of al-Khazar. She gave birth to a child which did not live; she herself died in child-birth. Yazîd sent someone to the naphtha and salt mines of the land of Sharwân and levied tax on them. He put someone in charge of them. ”

“ So then, if they really have any books, it is clear that they can make no use of them. The notion entertained by some, that they had a secret language of their own, seems to be without foundation.
Yezd, or Sheikh Adi, is held by the Yezeedees to be the good Deity, and to him they offer their worship, which may be divided into two kinds, direct and indirect. The former consists of a few hymns, which are handed down traditionally among the Kawwâls, who may be regarded as the sacred musicians and hierophants of the sect. ”

“ I have given this minute description of Yezd, partly because it may tend to afford the reader some idea of the conditions of life in Persia, where the state of things in one province more or less resembles that of another province; and partly because Yezd claims notice as being the last spot in Persia where the descendants of the fire-worshippers [9] who so long ruled the empire have found a resting-place, on the condition of cultivating the earth for their alien masters.
The number of the Guebres in and around Yezd is reduced to about eight hundred families. ”

“ During my short stay I met quite a number of people who had visited Bombay, Calcutta, Russia, Bokhara, and Turkestan.
The settled population of Yezd consists mostly of Shia Mahommedans, the descendants of the ancient Persian race, with an intermixture of foreign blood; the Parsees or Zoroastrians, who still retain their purity of race and religious faith, and who are principally engaged in agriculture and commerce; a very small community of European Christians, including a few Armenian natives of Julfa (Isfahan) . Then there are about one thousand Jews, who live mostly in abject poverty. ”

“ In the autumn of 679, six months before his death at the age of eighty, Muawiyah nominated his son Yazid as his successor, an unprecedented procedure in Islam. Yazid had been brought up by his mother partly in the desert around Palmyra, where her Christian tribe roamed. In the capital he also associated with Christians. In the desert the youth- ful prince became habituated to the chase, rough riding and hard life ”

“ Yezd (40) , a town in an oasis, surrounded by a desert, in the centre of Persia, 230 m. SE. of Ispahân; a place of commercial importance; carries on miscellaneous manufactures.
Yezidees, a small nation bordering on the Euphrates, whose religion is a mixture of devil worship and Ideas derived from the Magi, the Mohammedans, and the Christians.
Yezo or Yesso, the northernmost of the four large islands of Japan, is about as large as Ireland; is traversed from N. to S. by rugged mountains, several of them active volcanoes; is rich in minerals, and particularly coal ”

“ Yezdeyard, the weak and unlucky last King of the Sassan family, which had reigned over Persia for 415 years, was the first to lay the foundations of the city and to colonize its neighbourhood. It is in this city that, notwithstanding the sufferings and persecution of Mussulmans after the Arab invasion of Persia, the successors of a handful of brave people have to this day remained faithful to their native soil.
To be convinced that the Parsees of Yezd are a strikingly fine lot of people it is sufficient to look at them. The men are patriarchal, generous, sober, intelligent, thrifty ”

“ On the death of Ziyād the Caliph gave the governments of Kūfa, Basra, and Khorāsān to his own son `Ubaydullah, while he appointed Ziyād’s son `Ubaydullah, in supersession of Khulayd, as his lieutenant in Khorāsān. `Ubaydullah ibn Ziyād collected an army in Irāk, entered Khorāsān and, crossing the Oxus, penetrated into the mountains of Bokhārā,91 and conquered Rāmtīna and half of Baykand.40 The Turks of Bokhārā were at that time governed by a princess named Khātūn, who acted as regent during the minority of her son Tughshāda. ”

“ Then we went to Jazi’s house, Turki, Abdallah, and I.
Jazi’s house is close to Nassr’s, only the garden wall dividing them, and is still smaller than his, a poor place, I thought, to which to come for a princess; but in Arabia one must never judge by externals. At the door, among several women, stood Saad, Jazi’s eldest son, who showed us through the courtyard to an inner room, absolutely dark, except for what light might come in at the doorway. It is in Arabia that the expression “to darken one’s door,” must have been invented, for windows there are none in any of the smaller houses. ”

“ A Yezdi will belittle himself, his house, his relations, and the country of Persia, because he regards the first three as purely personal, and does not care the least bit about the fourth; but if he belittles his town, his etiquette, or the foundations of his creed, he will make it very plain that he expects you to understand that he simply does it out of civility. There is one thing that a Yezdi puts before everything, and that is the water-supply of his town. I personally got on very well with the Yezdis, although I had to own that I did not admire Mohammed or his religion. ”

“ Mouthpiece of Zitu, O Jason, art thou rightly called. These things fail of mortal comprehension, save they be by Zitu himself inspired. Would Jadgor might go with thee on this avenging journey. Fire? Hah! Let them call on Bel if they still desire it. Tamarizia shall bring them fire from the skies themselves—clean fire—unlike that their filthy priesthood builds in their stinking god."
"Aye," said Croft, well pleased by Jadgor's outburst of approval. "The fire of Zitu's justice, O Jadgor—that shall destroy the guilty wholly should the innocent come to harm." ”

“ Reign of Yazid II.—Omar’s reign was as short as that of his predecessor. He died on the 24th of Rajab 101 (a.d. 9th February 720) . Yazid II., son of Abdalmalik and, by his mother ‘Ātika, grandson of Yazid I., ascended the throne without opposition. He had at once, however, to put down a dangerous rebellion. Yazid b. Mohallab had returned to Irak, after the conquest of Jorjān, when Suleiman was still alive. ”

“ Yazid discovered soon that the system of taxation as regulated by Hajjāj could not be altered without serious danger to the finances of the empire, and that he could not afford the expenses which his prodigal manner of life involved. He therefore asked the caliph to give him the governorship of Khorasan also, and took his residence in Merv, where he was free from control. On his return to Khorasan he set on foot a series of new expeditions against Jorjān and Tabaristān, with only partial success. He sent, however, to the caliph an exaggerated account of his victories and the booty he had made. ”

“ Now as he stood on the after-deck, brave in his metal harness, with the wings of Azil—the Cross Ansata blazing blue upon it—the azure plumes nodding above his helmet, Koryphu beside him, and the galley swung toward her mooring, a wonderful picture was spread before his eyes.
The quays were banked with life. Jadgor, Lakkon, and members of the national assembly showed in metal harness or gem-incrusted garments; Zud, the high priest, stood beside them, backed by a group of harpists, a band of the Gayana, the vestals of the pyramid, mark of Croft's semi-religious position in the nation. ”