CH. I]           THE KURT RULERS OF HERAT                57

those who had wrought towards his noble family ill deeds
whereof the recapitulation would disgust the hearts of my
hearers, he drew the pen of forgiveness through the record
of their crimes, recompensed their evil actions with good,
and made each one of them an exemplar of the prosperity
of this Empire, raising them to the highest ranks, and en¬
trusting to them the most important functions, so that each
now beholds with his own eyes that w^hich he did most
ardently desired"

This complaisance of Ghiyathu'd-Din nearly caused his
destruction when the rebellious Amir Narin Buqa sought his
intercession with Abu Sa'id at the very moment when he
was plotting the minister's assassination. On this occasion,
however, the king, prompted by his wife Baghdad Khatun,
who hated Narin Buqa as the destroyer of her father and
brothers, intervened, and caused the rebel and his con¬
federate Tash-Timur to be executed on October 5, 1327.

The last years of Abu Sa'id's reign saw numerous changes

in the Kurt kings of Herat.   Ghiyathu'd-Din died in October,

1329,  and  was   succeeded   by his  eldest son

Kurt rulers        Shamsu'd-Din, who was so much addicted to

of Herat                                                        ^

drink that it was said that during a reign of ten
months he was only sober for ten days. He was succeeded
by his younger brother Hafiz, a gentle scholar, who was
assassinated in 1332, and replaced by his infant brother
Mu'izzu'd-Din, whose election was approved by Abu Sa'id.
He enjoyed a long reign of forty years, and was followed
by his son, Ghiyathu'd-Din Pir 'All, in whose time the
dynasty, which had endured since 1245, was extinguished
by Tamerlane.

In August, 1335, Abu Sa'id, having learned that Uzbek,
the Khan^of the Golden Horde, intended an invasion of his
^^ ^ ^           dominions,  was  preparing  to   take  the  field

Abu sa'id          against him when he fell ill, and died at Qara-

(A.D. 1335)          bagh near Arran on Nov. 30 of that year.    He

1 See p. 611 of the fzc-simile edition of the Td rikh-i-Guzida pub¬
lished in the " E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. xiv, i.