Long ago, they were handed down from fathers to the eldest son of a House.
No one, however, would now support this view; and it is admitted that, under the mass of miraculous tales which have been handed down regarding him, there is a basis of truth already sufficiently clear to render possible an intelligent history.
The hostility he encountered in the propagation of these new religious ideas after his return to Khorasan in 1052 and Sunnite fanaticism compelled him at last to flee, and after many wanderings he found a refuge in Yumgan (about 1060) in the mountains of Badakshan, where he spent as a hermit the last decades of his life, and gathered round him a considerable number of devoted adherents, who have handed down his doctrines to succeeding generations.
The numbers, whether of kings or of years, cannot have been handed down to us correctly by the Greek writers.
The only account of his life handed down to us is that of Julius Capitolinus, one of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae.
