Muntakhab al-tawarikh 286: LXXVII. Salih the Madman.

286

He obtained from the emperor the title of ‘Aqil (‘the sagacious’). He is crazy about statuary. For some time he has laid it upon himself as a duty to eat nothing before he has sent five or six dishes of meat to be thrown into a river, a fountain, or a pond as an offering to Khizr (on him be peace). He used to hand these dishes to Qasim, a native of India (who was a poet and the son of an elephant driver, and also a low-minded fellow ), and Qasim used to go out and invite qalandars and other rascals to eat the food, and when (on his return) Salih would say, ‘ Ha, did you see the Khwaja ?’ the impudent rogue would reply, “ Yes, his holiness the Khwaja deigned to eat the food with much relish, and sent you his blessing,” and would fabricate lying stories of this sort, which the madman believed. He had, however, some poetic genius, and to him might have been applied the saying : —