THE MONKS
OF KUBLAl KHAN
EMPEROR OF CHINA
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND TRAVELS OF
RABBAN SAWMA, ENVOY AND
PLENIPOTENTIARY
OF THE MONGOL KHANS TO THE KINGS OF
EUROPE, AND MARKOS WHO AS MAR YAHBH-
ALLAHA III BECAME PATRIARCH OF THE
NESTORIAN CHURCH IN ASIA
TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC
BY
SIR E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, KT.
http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/history/seminar/sauma/sawma1.htm
chapter VII
THE PERSECUTION OF MAR YAHBH-ALLAHA AND THE CHRISTIANS IN MARAGHAH.
And a certain man, one of the Amirs, who was called NAWRIZ, and who feared not God bestirred himself, and sent letters by the hands of envoys, and he made to fly to the four quarters of the dominions of this kingdom, an order to this effect:--"The churches shall be uprooted and the altars overturned, and the celebrations of the Eucharist shall cease, and the hymns of praise, and the sounds of calls to prayer shall be abolished; and the heads (or chiefs) of the Christians, and the heads of the congregations [i.e. synagogues] of the Jews, and the great men among them shall be killed."
And that same night [the Arabs] seized Mar Catholicus in his Cell (i.e. palace) in MARAGHAH, and outside the building no man knew anything about the seizure of him until the day broke. And from the morning of that day, which was the second day of the week (Monday) they went into his Cell and plundered. everything that was in it, both that which was old and that which was new, and they did not leave even a nail in the walls.
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Sound familiar?
