The Institutes of Akbar 328.5

328.5

Áçaf Khán is represented as a man of the greatest genius. He was an able financier, and a good accountant. A glance is said to have been sufficient for him to know the contents of a page. He was a great horticulturist, planting and lopping off branches with his own hands in his gardens; and he often transacted business with a garden spade in his hand. In religious matters, he was a free-thinker, and one of Akbar’s disciples (p. 209). He was one of the best poets of Akbar’s age, an age most fruitful in great poets. His Masnawí, entitled Núrnámah, ranks after Nizámí’s Shírín Khusrau. Vide below among the poets of Akbar’s reign. Áçaf kept a great number of women, and had a large family. His sons. 1, Mírzá Zain ul’ábidín. He was a commander of Fifteen Hundred, 500 horse, and died in the second year of Sháhjahán’s reign. He had a son Mírzá Ja’far, who like his grandfather was a poet, writing under the same takhalluç (Ja’far). He, Záhid Khán Kokah, and M. Shafí’ (Pádisháhnámah; Sáqí, Maásir), son of Saif Khan, were such intimate friends, that Shahjahan dubbed them sih yar, ‘the three friends.’ He later resigned the service, and lived in Agrah on the pension which Shahjahan granted and Aurangzib increased. He died in 1094. 2. Suhrab Khan. He was under Shahjahan a Commander of Fifteen Hundred, 1,200 horse, and died in the 13th year of Shahjahan.