The Institutes of Akbar 2.5.3

2.5.3

Prosody also, the art of composing riddles, and other branches, he understood well; and in mystic philosophy he was, unlike the learned of Hindústán, a perfect master. He knew Shátibí by heart, explained him properly, and also knew how to read the Qorán in the ten different modes. He did not go to the palaces of the kings, but he was a most agreeable companion and full of anecdote. Towards the end of his life, when his eyesight was impaired, he gave up reading and lived in seclusion. The commentary to the Qorán which he composed, resembles the Tafsír i Kabír [the “Great Commentary”], and consists of four thick volumes, and is entitled Manba’u Nafáis ul’Uyún. It is rather extraordinary that there is a passage in the preface in which he seems to point to himself as the renovator of the new century. We know what this ‘renovating’ means. About the time he finished his work, he wisely committed the Fírúzí Ode (in l) which consists of seven hundred verses, and the Ode Bardah, the Ode by Ka’b ibn Zubair, and other Odes to memory, and recited them as daily homilies, till on the 17th Zí Qa’dah, 1001, he left this world at Láhor for the judgment-seat of God.