Muntakhab al-tawarikh 267.3

267.3

“Whoever has regarded his heart as the shell containing the pearl of God’s secret Has rightly appraised his own jewel.” Although this ode was no great matter the Khanzaman was exceedingly pleased and praised it, and, having given the poet twice the reward which he had given before, dismissed him with honour. But Sultan could no longer stay in that place, and without the Khanzaman’s leave he came thence to Badaon, and afterwards travelled through the country, and went to the Dakan. In the year in which the four kings of the Dakan formed a confederacy and after a great battle in a stricken field conquered Vijayanagar, and destroyed that famous idol-temple, which was a veritable mine of misbelief, Sultan Muhammad was with their army and acquired great store of plunder, and returned, but no further information regarding him is to be had. It was, indeed, the height of discourtesy on his part to enter into a dispute with his betters and to refuse the request, so courteously made by a man like the Khanzaman, that he would change his poetical name. In reply to the following opening couplet by Ghazali, viz. — “Devotee, true knowledge of God lies not in the patched robe, the rosary, and the tooth-stick, Acquire mystical love, for these other things have nothing to do with the comprehension of God,” he wrote, “Though the dust of envy has settled on my rival’s heart I have no fear, This is clear to me, that the mirror of his heart is not clean.” The following are other verses by him:—