One of the Ilkhanate rulers, Arghun Khan, even preferred Jews and Christians for administrative positions and appointed Sa'd al-Daula, a Jew, as his vizier. The appointment, however, provoked resentment from the Muslim clergy, and after Arghun's death in 1291, Sa'd al-Daula was murdered and Persian Jews suffered a period of violent clergy-instigated persecutions from the Muslim populace. The contemporary Christian historian Bar Hebraeus wrote that of the violence committed against the Jews during that period "neither tongue can utter, nor the pen write down".[30]