Muntakhab al-tawarikh 210.3

210.3

One day the Mulla was walking in the emperor’s garden, on the far side of the Jamna, when the poet Subuhi met him, and as soon as he saw him said, “Sir, have you heard that that man who accepted Islam late in life has died in Gujarat?” The Kahi replied, “May you be spared!” When the imperial army marched to Gujarat Mulla Ghazali accompanied it in the early stages of the journey. It so happened that a false report of the death of Mulla Qasim-i-Kahi was spread abroad, and when Ghazali heard it he composed the following chronogram which is, although far-fetched and based on a false rumour, not without elegance: ‘The wretched Kahi left the world. Should you wish to know the date of his death, Know that since he could not help but go he was constrained to go, And ‘Qasim-i-Kahi went from the world.’’ But before this lying tale became a fact Mulla Qasim-i-Kahi was enabled to take his revenge by composing a chronogram on the death of Ghazali, and a second one also, as full retribution. These have already been cited. But “What can a liar tell, but a lie?” Although the following couplet is true: “I have seen poets, within my experience, Without followers, without offspring, and without any successful issue of their labours,”