Part 3

In the first period of his life, Tusi migrated from Tus to Nishāpur where he spent several years. We do not know much about his career as a student. We are also short of accurate information about a sudden circle which Tusi formed by traveling from Nishāpur to Ray, Baghdād, Musil, Isfahān, and again to Nishāpur. The second phase of Tusi’s life can be divided into four main periods.

The first and the second parts were spent among the Ismāʻilis. After he had spent several years with Nāsir al-Din Muhtasham (d. 655), the ruler of Quhistān, he was invited to Alamut by ʻAlā’ al-Din Muhammad (d. 653) the major leader of the Ismaʻilis.

He stayed for several years in Alamut and witnessed ʻAlā’ al-Din’s reign and one year of the reign of his son Khurshāh (d. 654). Historical sources do not indicate whether Tusi played any major socio-political role among the Ismāʻilis other than his intellectual activities.

Some historical accounts show that the only significant political action of the scholar in this period is a letter and an elegy or qasida, to Ibn al-ʻAlqami (d. 656/1258). As a Shiʻi chief minister of the caliph of Baghdād al-Mustaʻsim (from 1245-1258), al-ʻAlqami was in a position to present the caliph with Tusi’s letter, in which the scholar praised the caliph, wishing to acquire his favor toward the Imāmi sect.[10]

Clearly, in the beginning, Tusi felt a responsibility to spread Shiʻi thought. Under the benefit of the patronage of Ibn al-ʻAlqami, he started his missionary activity with the caliph of Baghdād.

From 654 A.H., when the fortresses of the Ismāʻilis collapsed, Tusi started the third and fourth periods of his life, during which he not only accompanied the Mongols to Baghdād but also remained with them until the end of his life.[11] In the final period of his life, he was appointed supervisor of endowments (Awqāf) and chief of the scholars. In this period he managed to established the observatory at Marāgha.[12]

[10] Tārikh-i Vassāf, 1, pp. 29-30.