ABSTRACT
There is more philosophic depth and more systematic treatment of political problems in the Akhlaq-i-Na!?iri, so styled after the name of its compiler, Na!?ir ud-Din rusi (ab. 1274), one of the most active writers of religious and philosophical books in the thirteenth century. As he was in the service of Hulagu, and on account of his knowledge of astronomy was consulted by this Mongol sovereign as to whether the stars were favourable for the undertaking of any enterprise, and as he accompanied Hulagu at the siege of Baghdad and persuaded him that no divine vengeance was likely to follow the death of the Caliph, he naturally lays no particular emphasis on a political institution which he was willing to see so ruthlessly
It would therefore appear that since the supreme power had passed out of the hands of the Abbasids, Arabs of the tribe of the Quraysh, and had b en assumed by various princes of barbarous origin, for whom no such exalted genealogy could be
128 THE CALIPHATE
