Muntakhab al-tawarikh 321: CXI. Qaidi of Shiraz.

321

He came from the glorious city of Makkah and at once entered the emperor’s service and received an appointment near his person. One day before the court he said to the emperor, “Men are much harassed by this new regulation of the dagh-u-mahalli which Your Majesty has invented,” and from that time forth he was debarred from court and never again girded his loins in service. For some time he wandered about in the Biyana district as a qalandar and then came to Fathpur, where he suffered from haemorrhoids and hectic fever. A quack whom he consulted cut the veins of his fundament, and he died under the treatment. He was of an extremely cheerful disposition.
The following verses are by him: —
“The lover has much of the merchandise of complaints, it will be better That he open not his pack until the market day of the resurrection.”
“O thou who hast never wandered from thy place in my heart, I marvel that thou should’st have found a place in the hearts of all!”
“Though I be dying and no other comes to bid her farewell, Hasten, camel driver, for her litter departs!”
“What ointment of thy favour is there on my heart, That melts not my soul more than all the brands of regret?”
A quatrain: “If I be seethed in the caldron of God’s wrath, If I be placed in the flames of hell, This will be better than that my sins should, of mere favour, be forgiven While I am left to burn in the fire of shame.”
A quatrain: “If the love of my heart should find a buyer I should do something that would reveal my true self. I should so shake out my prayer-carpet of abstinence That from each thread of it a hundred idolaters’ sacred threads would fall.”
“If I drive from my heart regret for my union with thee It will be better than that I should increase the regret of my heart by meeting with thee.”