Muntakhab al-tawarikh 71: Qasidah.
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 71
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Qasidah.
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Thanks be to God that with a settled mind Intimate friends sat together in pleasure; The rose-garden is the pleasure-resort of people, for there in the presence of the rose, the nightingale sorrowful at the absence of his beloved became rejoiced by its presence. It may be that the beloved one of the garden had been stripped naked by Autumn, So that she has woven a patchwork garment of the hundred petals of the rose. The rose and the jasmine, the spikenard and the basil are in one place, See! the Emperor of Spring has come with his retinue and troops. The birds are singing the praises of the Emperor of heavenly grandeur On the branches of the trees, like the preachers from their pulpits. The glorious Khaqan, the Emperor of dignity like Jamshid, Humayun, Who has a powerful hand and a sturdy heart by the decree of the Almighty. From his intelligence sprung the wisdom of the learned, From his insight arises the perception of the men of acute vision.
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Since prohibited things are unlawful by the statutes of religion, He hastens to perform the deeds for which there is divine sanction. There have gathered together, to secure the victory of the army of Islam, The unrivalled warriors of his army, the brave men of his troops, Beneath his valorous standard, on the field of Fortune, May the favour of the Everlasting be his protector and ally. Oh thou by the generosity of whose hand all things have their being, By the sharpness of whose sword all properties both accidental and essential obtain permanence. In the first day of eternity, the object of creation for the Lord of the world was the evolution of thy form from this revolving sphere, Should Gabriel a second time be the bearer of revelation, Pure passages will be revealed in thy glory. Every subtilty of science which thy ruby lip pronounces Has become as famous in the world as the uninterrupted tradition. It is well-known that this is a commentary on the books of mathematical science, this wonderful composition of thine on the discovery of circles. How can any one deny the vastness of thy knowledge? None but a stubborn disputant will deny self-evident truths. I cannot estimate thy perfections, for in every art thou hast become perfectly skilled ; When compared to thy philosophic intellect and good fortune, the angelic essence becomes as one of the common material objects. Thy generosity is of such a nature that at the moment of bestowing
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Thou knowest without asking all the hidden desires of the mind. This enigma upon the name of Kibar is also by him : Verse. That face is the Qur’án, and that down on the cheek is the sign of tyranny and oppression ; The cheek of that heart-ravishing one has no endowment of the mole of fidelity. The death of the aforesaid gentlman took place in the year 966 H. and Mir Amani Kabuli wrote the following tarikh of the event. Verse. Alas! the pity of it, that the discerner of subtleties Nadiri has departed, That rare poet who did full justice to eloquence in the world; I sought to express the date of his death by way of enigma, Wisdom answered one has gone from among the masters of speech. Another is Shaikh Abul Wahid Farighi, who was deeply imbued with the feelings of a darvesh and was renowned for his sweet singing; the following is taken from his poems: Verse. So great is the habitual oppression of that seeker after tyranny That a morsel of mercy from him, seems a great beauty. And in his impassioned style he says: Verse. Praise be to God that I am freed from the love of an ill-conditioned sot, Who used to fall, as did his eyes, from drunkenness in every road, Who, like the cup, for the sake of a draught, was lip to lip with every man, Who like the flagon bent himself to every cup in every place. The following is also by him:
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Verse. At that time when my heart was blest with thy companionship, It did not seem that such a blessing could be expressed; In short, the whole of my reckoning had passed in separation from thee, Who can count the joy of meeting? what a storm of happiness it was! Strangers last night were near you, while Faryābī at an immense distance was burning like rue upon the fire of disappointment. This is also his: Verse. Oh my intimate companions do not break the bond of union! In dispersion is distraction, do not break it and depart. And again he writes: Verse. When thou drawest out thine arrow from my breast leave its point there, Grant me my heart to yield my life in thy service manfully!
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His death occurred in the year 940 H. and he was buried in the monastery of Shaikh Zainu-'d-Dīn at Agra, and in consequence of the extremity of their unanimity and concord both left the world in the same year. It is said that at the time when these two eminent men went to Hindūstān, owing to their excessive profligacy they possessed nothing but an old postīn between them. Shaikh Zainu-'d-Dīn said to Shaikh Abu-'l-Wajd, “I will take this to the bāzār of Kābul upon the condition that you won’t come and indulge in any pleasantries.” He agreed, and a purchaser having run it up to a most extravagant figure was ready to give five shahrukhis but Shaikh Zain kept demanding more. At last Shaikh Abul-Wajd came up in a disinterested way and was acting as broker, after a deal of haggling he said, “Ah! you cheat! why this door mat itself contains five shahrukhis worth of fleas and lice” so the bargain was at an end, and Shaikh Zain was annoyed, and said, “What sort of time was this for the stupid jokes you are so fond of? We wanted the price of a loaf, and this is the way you’re going to pay for it”! Shaikh Abul-Wajd fell into a fit of laughter.
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Another is Jahi Yatman, who was from Bukhara, and having acquired a reputation on this account in Kabul, offered his services at the time when the late Emperor proceeded towards Hindustan obtained great favours from Humayun, and rose to a confidential position, and at the time when Shah Muhammad Khan Salu was left in Kabul as revenue commissioner, he treated the Mulla just like the rest of the people, and caused him serious annoyance. The Mulla accordingly composed an elegant tarkib . . hand lampooning Salu, and inasmuch as the Emperor had the daughter of Shah Muhammad Salu in his service, he made an exception in his favour alone, and erased the names of all the members of his family, male and female, consigning them to ignominy. Inasmuch, as Humayun was also incensed against that ass who had been the source of all this mischief, he had that lampoon read in Salu’s presence by the Mulla in full assembly, and evinced the greatest delight and merriment, and made him give a large sum as a reward. By degrees that lampoon became more and more disgracefully scurrilous, accordingly I have restricted myself to citing one extract from it in this place, which is as follows:
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“I am the poet of Shah Humayun and the dust of his threshold, The retinue of my poetic worth casts the moon’s brightness into shade. My poem is the Emperor, and my noble verses are his cavalry and soldiery, I experienced oppression from a fool, without any fault or crime of mine. If a fragment of paper has become blackened by my ravings, If my meditations turn towards satirizing him, The object is that that these idiotic asses May have a regard for the honour and dignity of this class. Alas, for that man who contends with the tribe of poets, Whoever contends with me contends against calamity.” The Emperor interfered at this verse saying, “Why do you not word it thus; “Whoever contends with me contends with God” The following verses are also by him:— Verse. As long as we have existed we have been lovers and have incurred ignominy, Yet we have been constant to the true proportions of lovers. This is also his : — Verse. Ye, beauteous ones, are all devoid of love and faithfulness, Ye treat your captives with tyranny and oppression, Ye promised to be faithful, but have vowed falsely, Say truly, why are ye all thus false? Not in this city alone are we disgraced on your account. Everywhere ye are the cause of our disgrace. How often will ye ask what is your object in the world? I say truly that ye are, ye are, ye are. Jahi cannot save his life from your hands For ye are a calamity of the calamities sent by God. The following is also by him :
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Verse. Last night the moon of the ‘Id appeared in the form of a misqal Because from the vapours of fasting the mirror of the heart was clouded. Was this the new moon? or by reason of the leanness of their bodies. Did the bone of the rib of the thirsty-lipped fast-enduring ones appear? Or was it that they had fashioned a saddle for the camel of Laila? Or was it the bowed body of Majnun who had become pale and wan through grief? The very heaven wishes to enrol itself among thy servants, And for that reason has bent the bow in order to string it: Moreover thy messenger has bound on his bells, and has placed the feather of distinction on his head, He is going from Rum to bear tidings from Zanzibar. It must be borne in mind that this verse Khwesh ra dar silk i khuddami tu mikhadhad falak (The very heaven wishes to enrol itself among your servants) he has taken from a couplet of the qasidah of Nizam Astarabadi, which runs thus:— Shab anjum az majma' i mardum nishan awarda and Waz mah i nau taza harfe darmiyan awarda and At night the stars have appeared like an assembly of men And have brought into their midst a new idea in the shape of the new moon, The Shah of Zangbar has taken his seat upon the throne of Empire And the stars have brought the bow as an offering to him.
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The down which encircles thy cheek is the cause of my distraction, Thy locks are the cause of my helplessness and distress, That dusky ringlet is bent upon my undoing, All these charms are the cause of my distraction. The following is also his: Come, for the sky has prepared for your pastime The sun as the golden gourd, and the crescent moon as the hook. Bairam Khan has a well-known qasidah with this same rhyme, but in a different metre, of which the following is the opening couplet:— Verse. Thy shaft has carried away the loop of the qabaq from its hook. Thy meteor, by the help of the crescent-moon has erased the form of the Pleiades. These two opening couplets are derived from the opening couplet of a qasidah by the celebrated Nisari Tuni. The death of Mulla Jahi took place in the year 956 H, and was due to some poison which a servant introduced into his cup. Another poet is Haidar Tuhia’i, a man of parts, and unequalled in the technicalities of harmony, he had a competent faculty for both poetry and music. He spent the greater part of his life in Hindustan. The lampoon upon the Maliku-l-munajjimin of the time of Humayun Padshah, which he wrote at Panjgah, is one of the marvels of the age, and a rarity for all time.
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The following opening couplet which he wrote for his threnody on the death of the saintly martyred Imam, accepted of God, murdered by man, offspring of the Prophet, by descent from the pure Fatimah, upon them be peace, is read during the ‘Asura, in the assemblies for the commemoration of the death of Husain. Verse. The month of Muharram has come and our eyes are constrained to weep, We let fall tears of blood at the thought of Husain’s parched lips. Thou art he whom in envy they call the sun and moon, Thy troops, both horse and foot, they call the moonfaced ones. Thou art worthy of this with this grace and beauty of thine, That all the kings of the age should call thee sovereign lord. The following is also by him:— My heart, thou hast no friend to compare with sorrow for him, Thou hast no comfort in life like sympathy for him. And this:— Every moment my heart’s desire has some fresh allurement, To bear her coquetry costs my life, what of that? it is her life. How can I liken the lips of my love to the bud of the rose, The bud is tightly pursed, it is true, but is dumb and silent.
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The son of this man Haidar Tuni was an arrant coward and spiritless; accordingly in the months of the year 985 H. he had entered the service of Humayun; one day he was describing the circumstances of a journey by boat and its terrors, in such a way that the effects of fear were evident from his behaviour. I asked saying, May be you regret having gone on the Hajj? and I repeated as appropriate to the occasion that verse which his rivals said to the poet Qudsi. From the hardships of the desert path, and its thorns, Of the coming to the Ka‘bah you are probably repentant. He replied instantly, “Yea! verily.” The king said, why should he repent of having visited the Ka‘bah, though he may indeed repent of sitting in a ship. At that same moment Mathin Kitan, the elegant and accomplished mime, in accordance with a hint from the king, made himself up to represent a mad man bitten by a dog, and began to bark like a dog, and seized Haidar, and dragged him forward with his turban flying one way and his shoes another. He began running in all directions, till at last he rolled on the ground, and set them all laughing immoderately. When he learned the truth he was desperately ashamed. The king attempted to console him, but it ended by his being obliged to leave Hindustan. Another is Shah Tahir Khwandi Dakkani, the younger brother of Shah Ja‘far;
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the ‘Ulama of ‘Iraq, however ridicule his pretensions to descent from Khwandi stock, and have prepared a document bearing upon this question, to which both his opponents and supporters subscribed their signatures, as is mentioned in the Kamilu-t-tawarikh of Ibn Asir Jazari, and also in the Lubbu-t-tawarikh of Qazi Yahya Qazwini, and other works. He claimed to be intimately connected with Shah Tahmasp, but eventually he was led, by the abuse which was heaped upon him in connection with the aforesaid claim to relationship, and the excessive annoyance caused him by Mir Jamalu-d-Din Sadr Astarabadi, to proceed to the Dakkan, which is famed as the refuge for the oppressed, where he met with a favourable reception from Nizam Shah, the ruler of that country, and was rewarded with considerable advancement, and attaining the highest dignities reached the rank of Jumlatu-l-Mulk (Chief finance-minister of the State). The Shi'ah tenets spread widely, in fact we may say they were really inaugurated in those regions through the instrumentality of Shah Tahir. Nizam Shah who was afflicted with an incurable malady of long standing, was cured by the virtue of a charm pronounced over him by Shah Ja‘far, and that occurrence, which in reality was of the nature of Istidraj, he attributed to the miraculous powers (karamat) of Shah Ja‘far, and acting upon his instigation abandoned the religions tenets of Sunnat and Jama'at, which he held as one of the Mahdawiyah, and became a fanatical heretic.
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What cruel and vexatious treatment as accursed and excommunicate did not these two ill-starred ones inflict upon the 'Ulama and Shaikhs of that land! So that at last their disgraceful conduct led to the expulsion of the true Muslims, and heresy from that day again became firmly rooted in that country. Shah Tahir was in natural descriptive poetry comparable to Nizam Astarabadi in astronomical poetry. The following is from one of his qasidahs written in eulogy of Humayun Padshah. In it he has imitated Anwari. Verse. When the golden litter of the sun enters the resting-place of Hamal, The tulip lights its lamp, and the narcissus its torch; Now the mountain is freed from the headache caused by Bahman and Dai, And the spring cloud washes from its forehead the sandal. The following Qasidah in praise of the Prophet is also his, although the guriz-gah nay even the commencement of the Qasidah in its entirety, is not suitable to the dignity of the holy Commander (of the Faithful) on him be peace.
Linked texts (1)
- Muntakhab al-tawārīkh — ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī 1590, Persian