Muntakhab al-tawarikh 195: VI. Hakim-i-Misri.

195

He was well skilled both in the theory and the practice of medicine and learned in all traditional learning. He had some acquaintance with the profane sciences, such as exorcism, etymology, and the formation of broken plurals. He is a cheerful soul and a good companion, whose very approach is a blessing. He put forth his best efforts in treating Shaikh Faizi in his last illness, but all to no avail. What indeed could he do in the face of the irresistible decree of fate, before which all are helpless and dumb. If medicine could prolong the life physicians should never die.
The hakim sometimes wrote droll verses in Persian, an example of which is the following couplet which he wrote on Khwaja Shamsu-d-din of Khawaf, the Vazir.
Couplet. “ What overbearing conduct is this of Khwaja Shamsu-d-din’s? He intrudes, God forbid it, upon the domain of medicine!”
One day, on seeing an oleander, which in Arabic is called Difla, in bloom, he uttered the following hemistich— “The locks leap up like flame from the head of the difla.”
When the emperor built a dais in the courtyard of the masjid at Lahor and issued an order to the effect that anybody who wished to do so might recite their prayers there in his presence, Hakimu-l-Mulk wrote the following verses— “Our king has founded a masjid O ye faithful, good fortune may it bring! It is good policy also in this masjid To recite and reckon up our prayers.”
He was very simple-minded and unselfish, and for this reason acquired but little wealth. He produced, however, some practical treatises on medicine. He died in Burhanpur in Khandesh and was buried in the neighbourhood of that city.