Muntakhab al-tawarikh 213: IV. QASIM-I-ARSALAN.

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He wrote poetry under the nom-de-plume of Arsalan on account of his father's claim to descent from Arsalan-i-Jazib, one of the great nobles of the court of Sultan Mahmud-i-Ghaznavi. His native place was Tus and he grew to manhood in Transoxiana. He was a poet sweet of song, welcome to all both great and small, for his personal beauty and graceful wit, adorned with the ornament of an open and cheerful disposition and with the quality of sociability and social amiability. In the composing of chronograms he had no equal. He was the author of a diwan, and the following few couplets are of his making:—
“I wish to raise my head at the resurrection, from a spot of earth On which the foot of a fair one shall be lingering in graceful coquetry.”
“O, thou who hardly givest up but half thy life, what place hast thou Where lives are freely given by the hundred for one glance from the beloved?”
I remember something very like this latter couplet in an ode of the author of which I cannot quite recall the name. It is as follows:— “What though I be alone with thee in lovers’ meeting? Thy modesty repels me more than a thousand watchers.”
Another couplet by Qasim-i-Arsalan:
“Both letter and spirit of my reading mourn my lot, Without thee how can I keep my regard intent on my book?”
“As we passed weeping to the loved one’s dwelling, A hundred times in each step we crossed a river of tears.”
He has written the following verse descriptive of the mountain of Ajmir, the holy burial place of the Khwaja, the pole-star of pole-stars, Khwaja Mu‘inu-d-din-i-Ajmiri-yi-Cishti (may his tomb be hallowed!):—
“Lo! The mountain of Ajmir, a mountain of ambergris, The lodging of the chief of the leaders of Cisht. What hill is this, that when it raises its head to the empyrean, Has the ocean of the sky no higher than its midst? The bodies of the sun and moon appear From that hill no larger than the eagle’s eye. Fountains there are therein, like to the sun in brilliancy, Their sand is the starry host of heaven, Heaven’s eagle winged his flight, To seek its summit, but his flight fell short. Should but a stone be loosened from that fort, It would in its downward course loosen the strongholds of heaven from their foundations. That darting brilliance which issues from the clouds is not lightning, It is nought but the sword-like summit of that mountain striking the sky.
Glancing from that mountain foot the beholder sees The sky as a clear pool, and the moon as the fish's eye. The torrents which rush down from that awful stronghold Would carry away a thousand hills such as Alwand and Alburz. When the eagle rises from the base of the fortress walls His shadow falls on the moon and sun. Arsalan behold the loftiness of its mere foundations! The sun seeks protection beneath their shadow.
The Mulla in the year in which the emperor returned from Atak took up his dwelling in Lahor. He died in the year H. 995 (A.D. 1587).
I should state here that the thirty-four poets whose biographies I have already given have been mentioned first on account of the fame which they acquired as poets only, and of the ill-luck which they brought with them to the world, as they occurred in my mind, and in no particular order. Henceforward, for ready reference and for the sake of method, I shall mention the poets in the alphabetical order of their poetical cognomina.