Muntakhab al-tawarikh 51.1

51.1

[Text, vol. iii. p. 299.] Commonly called the "chief of Poets." He excelled in the arts of versification, enigmatic lines and rhyming. In history, in philology, in medicine, in letter-writing, and in composition, he was without a rival. His earlier compositions in verse bear his titular name of Faizi, which he subsequently dignified into Faiyazi, in order that it might correspond with the grammatical amplification of 'Allami, by which his younger brother, Abu-l Fazl, was known; but the change was ill-omened, for he survived to enjoy his last title only one or two months, and then met his death with great alarm and inquietude. As an author, he was sometimes serious, sometimes jocose, conceited, proud, and malevolent. He was full of hypocrisy, malignity, dissimulation, ambition, arrogance, and egotism. In his obstinacy and animosity he reviled the earlier and later Khalifas and disciples, the ancestors and descendants of the Prophet, the wise and the excellent, the pious and the saintly, and, in short, all Musulmans in general, and ridiculed the principles of their faith, privately and publicly, by night and by day. His conduct was so abominable, that even Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sabians, and Guebres are considered a thousand times less odious. He acted entirely against the tenets of the Muhammadan religion. What was forbidden in that, was lawful to him, and vice versâ.