NOURNEWS - It was in the late third century AH. Saeed Harashi, who was the commander of Khorasan region, sent a person who was the commander of Herat to the gate of Muqanna Castle. He sat down with a large army, and built houses and public baths, and spent the summer and winter there. And inside the castle was a spring of water and trees and agriculture. And the relatives of Muqanna were in the castle and the generals with a strong army.
And inside the castle was another castle on top of the mountain, and you did not allow anyone to enter that castle. Muqanna was with those women in the castle. And his habit was that he ate with those women every day and sat down with them for wine and drank wine. And he did this for fourteen years.
When the commander of Herat put pressure on him and his armies were dispersed, this general, who was in the fort, opened the fort and came out in obedience and accepted Islam, and the Muslims took the fort. Muqanna knew that he could not have an inner castle.
Mohammad Ibn Jafar narrated from Abu Ali Mohammad Ibn Haroun, who was one of the peasants of the city of Kosh, and said: "My grandmother was one of the women who took her Muqanna for himself and kept her in the castle." My grandmother used to say, "One day, he would make women drunk with wine and food according to his habit, and he would poisoned wine and give each woman a special glass, and he would say, When I drank my glass, you should all drink your glass.”
So everyone drank, and I did not drink and put it on the collar of my dress and he did not know. And all the women fell and died. I also threw myself among them and made myself dead, and he did not know about me.
So Muqanna stood up and looked and saw all the women dead, went to his servant and drew out his sword and cut off his head. And he had said that they had flamed the oven or Tandoor for three days. He went to the tandoor and took out his clothes and threw himself in the tandoor. And smoked. I went to that tandoor and saw no trace of him. And no one was alive in the castle. And the reason he burned himself was that he kept saying:
When my followers rebel, I will go to heaven, and from there I will raise the angels and oppress them. He burned himself so that the people would say that he went to heaven to bring down the angels and give us victory from heaven, and that his religion would remain in the world.
So the woman opened the door of the castle and Saeed Harashi came in and took the treasure.
Ahmad Ibn Mohammad Ibn Nasr says: Those people are still left in the province of Kosh and Nakhshab and some villages of Bukhara such as Kushk Omar and Kushk Kheshtvan and the village of Ruzmaz. And they themselves have no knowledge of Moqqnna, and they follow his religion. And their religion is that they do not pray and do not fast, and after sexual intercourse they do not go to the bathroom to wash their bodies. And all these circumstances were hidden from Muslims and they claim to be Muslims.
And they say that they are permissible to each other for beautiful women, and they say:
A woman is like a flower, whoever smells her should not be diminished. And when a man comes to a woman privately, he shall leave a mark on the house, that when the husband of this woman arrives, he should know that this woman is at home with a man, and he shall return. And when this man is finished, he will go home.
And was the chief in every village, and they were under his command. It is said that: In every village, there is a man who in that village, whoever wants a virgin woman, first loses that man's virginity and then hands her over to her husband. Ahmad Ibn Mohammad Ibn Nasr says: I asked the elders of the village what it means that they have given such a great blessing to this one person and deprived themselves?
They said: It is their custom that every child who is matured should take care of his needs with this man until he marries a woman. And his retribution is to give his wife to him on the wedding first night. And when the man grows old, another will be installed in his place. And the men of this village constantly make this deal with this man, and read the name of this person “Thakaneh” or “Takaneh” who does this job. That is, boys engage in sodomy with the head of the Sepeed Jamegan (who worn white-clothes) when they reach adulthood, and the Sepeed Jamegan chief is the passive of all his male disciples, so that he is the passive and his disciples are the active. But I did not know the truth of this, and I heard this story from the old men of the village, and from the people who are in their villages.
* Dr. Seyedhossein Hosseiniseddiq is a faculty member at the Azad University
NOURNEWS