Muntakhab al-tawarikh 131: IX. Qāzī Ya‘qūb of Mānikpūr.

131

He was related to Qāzī Fazīlat, and was well skilled in practical theology and in the principles of that science. He was of a cheerful and open disposition, and used to compose Arabic verses in Indian metres. They say that while he was, for several years, the Qāziu-l-Quzzāt of India, he used to take aphrodisiac electuaries in large quantities. One day when he was present at a party given by the Emperor, several intoxicating and stimulating drugs were handed round, and were offered to the Qāzī among others. He refused them, and when he was asked what sort of drugs he took, one of the Emperor’s Hindu favourites immediately replied, “The Qāzī takes mercury.” After his dismissal from the post of Qāzī’u-’l-Quzzāt he was appointed to be Qāzī of Bangāl, and was sent off to that province, and while there used to use aphrodisiacs to excess, a slave to the violence of his lusts. He was a confederate of Ma‘sūm-i-Kābulī in his rebellion and was in consequence recalled from that province and sentenced to be imprisoned in the fortress of Gwāliyār, and on his way to that place removed the baggage the Dakan, the rulers of which land, having heard of his staunchness to Islam and his preaching of the word of God, honoured him to the utmost extent of their power. From the Dakan he was privileged to perform the pilgrimage to the holy house of God, and there replied, “Here am I,” to the summons of God.