Muntakhab al-tawarikh 240: XXVIII. Sharif of Kashan.

240

He came two or three times to India and left the country again, and now in these days he has returned and attempts to seduce men to heresy, and invites them to join the sect of the Basakhwānīs. He has persuaded Shaikh Abū-'l-Fazl that he is an infallible spiritual guide and by this means has been enabled to present to the Khalifah of the age an ode, the object of which was to ask the emperor why he did not devote himself to the overthrowing of the self-styled orthodox, so that truth might be confirmed in its central position and pure monotheism might be established. He also dedicated to Shaikh Abu-‘l-Fazl a treatise after the manner of the Nuqtawi sect, and their manner of writing the letters, all of which is hypocrisy and dissimulation and comparison of the numbers of the letters, and Hakim ‘Ain-ul-Mulk discovered that the sum of the letters in the word Tashbihi was the same as in the word Tazriqi, “the hypocrite”; and the rest of his revelations may be estimated in the same manner. Tashbihi wrote a divan, and the following few verses are among his ravings:—
“For once, O dust of the graveyard, plume thyself on thy fertility, For thou bearest in the tomb a corpse like me killed by that hand and dagger.”
“Wear those garments of whatever colour pleaseth thee, For I recognize the majesty of that graceful form.”
“The two hands of this world and of that world are naught, The ring is in thy hand, both the ring and the hand are naught.”
At the time when I was writing this hasty compilation he gave into my hand, in the presence of Shaikh Abu-’l Fazl, a treatise on Mahmud of Basakhwan, the preface of which was as follows:—
“O God! who art praiseworthy (Mahmud) in all Thy doings, I call upon Thee for help, on Thee of whom it is said, ‘There is no God but He.’ Praise be to God whose mercies are visible in all His works, who has shown the existence of all His works. From Him are their * * He knows Himself, but we do not know ourselves, nor Him. He is an existence not existing except through Himself, and a place of existence independent of others; and He is the most merciful. Question—What is that which is called ‘Nature’? Answer—“That which is called ‘Nature’ is God.”
Dirt in his mouth, for daring to write such stuff! The point of all this lying is ‘the four nuqtahs.’ At the end of the treatise I saw, in his own writing, “This has been frequently written with reference to the Persian, the infallible religious guide, M, r, ‘A, l, i, A, k, b, a, r, T, a, s, b, i, h, i, Adim, Ukhravi, Sahib Maqam (the representative).” And the rest was after the same fashion. We flee to God for refuge from such unbelief!