376 MOSQUE OF FATIMA. 
impression of dilapidation, poverty or indolence, and a wretched 
insensibility to living in the midst of decay. 
Upwards of two hundred ruinous places were shewn to me, as 
once dedicated to the Imaum Zadis, the Sons of the Saints, or 
what we would call the Fathers of the Church. There are also 
the remains of above forty mosques, with tombs innumerable, 
and other edifices, formerly attached to the consecrated charac¬ 
ter of the city; but all in like manner open on every side to the 
blast, and to the casualties of an utter abandonment to desola¬ 
tion. The only exception to this rule, is the mosque and shrine 
of Fatima, the descendant of Mahomet; which has been re¬ 
paired, enriched, and splendidly overlaid with thin plates of 
gold, by order of his present Majesty ; in consequence of a vow 
he had made to that effect, before he ascended the throne. 
Notwithstanding that Koom has long been considered the 
third city, in point of reverential sanctity, in the empire, yet 
the hostile followers of the same prophet, never spared its walls ; 
and the Afghans, in one of their incursions, about a century 
ago, gave it a blow, from which it has never recovered. Besides 
the shrine of the fair saint already named, it contains the holy 
relics of numerous other beatified persons ; and the tombs of 
two monarchs of a very different character: Shah Abbas 
the Second, of Bacchanalian memory ; and his father, Shah Sefi, 
equally renowned for the same vice, and its sanguinary impulses. 
The remains of these princes are deposited within the golden 
mosque ; while every quarter near its sacred precincts, or that of 
any succeeding saint, are filled with graves of different degrees 
of note. In short, whoever can pay for the high privilege, may 
mingle their clay with these holy and illustrious personages; 
hoping, perhaps, to pass into heaven in their suite unexamined, 
