Muntakhab al-tawarikh 294.5

294.5

When he saw that Shaikh Abu-l-Fazl, Qazi Khan, and others of his contemporaries from being mullas rose to the rank of amirs of the highest grade, while he continued to draw a small stipend, he petitioned that he too might be admitted as a soldier. His request was granted, and one day, at the time when the guard turned out for the evening salute, he appeared in military guise before the emperor, girt in a grotesque fashion with a borrowed sword, and, having approached the presence from one side of the darbar, stood, and, catching his scabbard to him, said, without any introduction, “By which mansabdar shall I stand, and from what place shall I make my obeisance?” The emperor was sagacious enough to penetrate his design and said, “Make your obeisance from that place in which you are now standing.” When the Mulla saw that this effort to obtain recognition had failed he wandered at large. One day, in order to show that he possessed all that became a soldier, he came to court, in the noonday heat, in dirty, greasy clothes quilted with cotton, which had been either given or lent to him by somebody, and Mirza In which I have collected a hundred and twenty different branches of learning, Say who else can be thus described.”