The Institutes of Akbar 2.1.2

2.1.2

Not long afterwards, in 911, Shaikh Mubárak, Abul Fazl’s father, was born. Mubárak was not Shaikh Khizr’s eldest child: several children had been born before and had died, and Khizr rejoicing at the birth of another son, called him Mubárak, i.e., the blessed, in allusion, no doubt, to the hope which Islám holds out to the believers, that children gone before bless those born after them, and pray to God for the continuance of their earthly life. Shaikh Mubárak, at the early age of four, gave abundant proofs of intellectual strength, and fashioned his character and leanings in the company of one Shaikh ’Atan (عطان), who was of Turkish extraction and had come during the reign of Sikandar Lodi to Nagor, where he lived in the service of Shaikh Sélár, and died, it is said, at the advanced age of one hundred and twenty years. Shaikh Khizr had now resolved permanently to settle at Nágor, and with the view of bringing a few relations to his adopted home, he returned once more to Siwistán. His sudden death during the journey left the family at Nagor in great distress; and a famine which broke out at the same time, stretched numbers of the inhabitants on the barren sands of the surrounding desert, and of all the members of the family at Nagor only Mubarak and his mother survived. Mubárak grew up progressing in knowledge and laying the foundation of those encyclopedial attainments, for which he afterwards became so famous.