Muntakhab al-tawarikh 334.1

334.1

This is the poetical name of Mir Mahmud the Munshi, who was for twenty-five years chief secretary to the empire of Hindustan. His daughter married Naqib Khan. He had some poetical talent, and wrote poetry like a secretary. The following quatrain is one which he wrote at the beginning of the divan of Bairam Khan:— “Of being and of a place of existence there was in the beginning no trace, For all things came into being by virtue of the two letters of the command ‘Be.’ Since these two letters were the key of existence They have become the opening couplet of the preface to the divan of things seen.” The following is another quatrain of his, an enigma on the name ‘Qasim’:— ches of philosophy, in logic, and in metaphysics he excelled all the learned men of the age. He went from Shiraz to the glorious city of Makkah, and there studied the Traditions under Shaikh Ibn Hajar and received a teaching diploma. Thence he went to the Dakin, and from the Dakin he came to Agra, where he attained a higher position than most learned and erudite men of former or recent times. He employed himself in giving instruction in arts and sciences until, in the year H. 974 (A.D. 1566-67), as has already been said, he departed to Paradise. His body, which was at first interred near that of Mir Khusrav (God's mercy be on him), was taken to Mashhad, and Mir Muhsin Razi found the following chronogram for his death:—