Muntakhab al-tawarikh 344: CXXXII. MUDĀMĪ OF BADAKHSHĀN.

344

He had good taste in poetry. He was for some time in the service of Mīrzā ‘Azīz Kūka. The following couplet is his:
“My heart, thou sayest that a hundred discords have arisen on account of that graceful figure and lofty stature (of hers); Thou sayest truly; from that one of lofty stature I have experienced many calamities.”
Many have written verses on this theme, but they have travelled round about one another without progressing, and their verses are insipid. One writes as follows:—
“Thou sayest that calamity and strife have arisen in the world from her footsteps; Thou sayest truly. Verily calamities are from above.”
Another has written:—
“Thou sayest that tumults have arisen on all sides in the city on account of thy graceful figure.
The dark surface of the earth is whitened, covered with an army of snow. No black spot is to be found in the heart of the world, nor the surface of the earth is so contracted That the crow can find no place for his foot thereon. On the lawns of the garden, instead of blossoms and verdure, In the ice and the snow which have fallen only ermines are to be found. Once more trembling has fallen on the trees in the meadow. Like me have they become thus restless from lack of livelihood. In this cold air my body quivers like a willow, In its weakness it is sometimes at fever heat, sometimes in agony. This morning a voice from heaven conveyed good news to my ear. Saying, ‘How long wilt thou suffer torments from the hardships of these days? Take refuge from the tyranny of vicissitudes at that threshold Which is as high as the threshold of the sky, The threshold of the trustee of the sacred law, an account of a particle of whose virtues Would not be contained in a hundred volumes or in a thousand books, Like ‘Ali and like Muhammad in his qualities, Yahya by name; Since his perfection is manifest why should I distinguish him by titles?’”
Mulla Maqsud died in Agra in A.H. 977 (A.D. 1569-70). His father, Mulla Fazlu-’llah, also was one of those who deserve the Alas, that my precious life has been wasted in this hopeless desire!”
He also wrote the following qasidah in imitation of Khwaja Salman, and tacked on to it the praise of Qazi Yahya of Qazwin, the grandfather of Naqib Khan:—
“Once more the sky shivers with December’s cold, The sun has veiled his head in clouds fearing the wrath of the thunderbolt; The sky once more rains arrows (of hail and snow) on the earth; The earth has made water itself a breastplate against the arrow of Sagittarius. The sea monster, fearing the biting blasts of December, Has placed on his head a helmet of bubbles hard as iron. Once more by reason of the abundance of snow and the intensity of the cold The earth has fallen a-trembling like a sea of mercury.
“I know that in secret your glances are cast on me in my affliction, I know that thy pretended neglect of me is due only to fear of strangers.”
“Her eyes draw me in my affliction to perform her behests: She casts towards me a glance suffused with wrath.”