Muntakhab al-tawarikh 77.1
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 77.1
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77.1.1
The Emperor of the time, the Khalif of the age, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar Padshah (may he ever be firmly seated on the throne of the Khalifate and the seat of clemency!) with the approval of Bairam Khan, the Khan Khanan, began to honour and adorn the throne of the Sultanate, under an auspicious star, on Friday the 2nd of the month Rabi‘ul-avval, in the year nine hundred and sixty-three (963) in the garden of Kalanor — which, to this day, they have not yet finished laying out. Then he sent messages of conciliation and courtesy to the Amirs of the frontier, so that the Khutbah was read also at Dihli. And they composed this hemistich, as giving the date: ‘More noble than all princes he.’ They composed also the following distich: — ‘Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, that prince of the age, At the date of [the death of] father said: Prince of the age am I.’ And another [mnemosynon] they found [for the date]: ‘The desire of fortune.’ Then the world began to blossom like a rose-garden, and pitiless Fate, binding up those wounds, said: — « “When Death removes a crown by force, At once another head is crowned ; When one old age completes its course, A younger rises from the ground.” »
77.1.2
(P. 9.) Before the decree for the accession went forth, Bairam Khan had by all the arts of finesse enjoined on Pir Muhammad Khan Shirwani, (who with an army had gone in pursuit of Sikandar in the Mountains of Sawalik, as far as the confines of the district of Dahmiri) not to allow the news of the death of the late Emperor to be spread abroad. Now Shah Abu-l-Ma‘ali, who was of noble Sayyid extraction, and of the country of Kashghar, in the symmetry of his limbs and the excellence of his valour was distinguished above all his compeers. To him the deceased Emperor had shown a special favour and a boundless condescension, so that he had honoured him by calling him his son. This man was a dullard. And in this place be it known concerning him that Bairam Khan had written an acrostic in twenty-four verses, of which the rhyme was 'azim and qadim, and the rhyming letter mim, in such a way, that the initial letter of the first hemistiches composed the words “ Hazrat Muhammad Humayun Padshah Ghazi” [“My Lord Muhammad Humayun Padshah Ghazi”] ; and the initial letters of the second hemistiches “ Shahzadah [prince] Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar” ; and the final letters of the first hemistiches the words “ Mirza Shah Abu-l-Ma‘ali,” together with some epithet or other which I have forgotten ; and the sum of the twenty-four mims which closed the verses gave [24 x 40 =] 960 the date of the composition of the acrostic.
77.1.3
I have heard from trusty friends, that the last time the late Emperor honoured Qandahar with his presence, Shah Abu-l-Ma‘ali one evening, having drunk too much wine, slew in his bigotry a zealous Shi‘ah. When the heirs of the murdered man came to demand justice, and the Emperor sent for Shah Abu-l-Ma‘ali, he put on the dead man’s robe of black velvet lined with (P. 10) red and blue, and putting the hanger, burnished bright, the very same with which he had despatched him, under his skirt, swaggered drunken into the royal assembly, and denied the deed. Bairam Khan on the occasion quoted these lines: “ His dishevelled locks of hair To night-debauch confess ; Lo ! a blazing proof is there, The lamp beneath his dress.” The Emperor was exceedingly delighted; but the blood of that innocent one was hidden in the dust, and his murder was never proved. In short, when the royal Amirs summoned Abu-l-Ma‘ali to the assembly on the occasion of the Accession, he returned answer, that he had an excuse and could not come; the second time they sent the message, that the Council was sitting and waited his presence, again he made excuse and sent some message of empty compliments, which Bairam Khan, thinking it the best course to pursue, accepted. But, when he came afterwards, Bairam Khan gave the order to Tulak Khan Qurchi, a man of great bodily power, who at that moment appeared on the scene like a spider’s web [ready to catch a fly];
77.1.4
and, in accordance with a preconcerted plan, went unseen behind Abu-l-Ma‘ali and took him prisoner, and asked to be allowed to blot out his name from the tablet of existence. But the merciful Emperor disapproved of this design, and said that it would be a pity to shed the blood of a [possibly] innocent man on the very day of his Accession. So he sent him to Lahor. He escaped from that prison, and went to Kamal Khan the G’hakkar. Now at that time the government of that country was in the possession of Adam G’hakkar, uncle of Kamal Khan. The latter treated Abu-l-Ma‘ali with honour, and the two set off with an army with full preparations for the conquest of Kashmir. When he arrived at the frontier of Kashmir, a number of outlaws gathered round him. And, in the year 965, a party of the Chakks (which is a well-known tribe, and the dominant one in Kashmir) took him with them, with the intention of conquering Kashmir, and there he had a severe conflict with Ghazi Khan, the prince of the Chakks, and was defeated. After this Kamal Khan made an excuse for separating from him, so Abu-l-Ma‘ali disguised himself, and going to the district of Dibalpur, took refuge with a servant of Bahadur Khan who at that time held the government there. The man’s name was Tulak, and he had at one time been himself a servant of Shah [Abu-l-Ma‘ali]. So Tulak concealed him.
77.1.5
But it so happened that this Tulak had one night a quarrel with his wife, who being vexed with him, went in the morning to Bahadur Khan and told him that Tulak was concealing Abu-l-Ma‘ali in his house, and that they were plotting together against himself. Bahadur Khan, mounting his horse, had Shah Abu-l-Ma‘ali seized and sent him to Bairam Khan, and Tulak he ordered to be punished. Bairam Khan entrusted Shah to Wali Beg the Turkoman, and sent him off towards Bakkar [i. e., Mecca]. Wali Beg annoyed him very much by the way, and sent him towards Gujrat, that from thence he might go to Mekka. There he committed a murder, and fled and joined himself to ‘Ali Quli Khan. When Bairam Khan received information of this, he sent an order to ‘Ali Quli Khan that he should send him to Agra. At the time that, in accordance with this order, he arrived at Agra the power of Bairam Khan was already on the decline; Bairam Khan, then, with a view to dispelling the suspicions of the Emperor sent him for a time to the fortress of Biyana. And, when he professed a resolution of making a pilgrimage to Mekka, he again took him as the companion of his journey. But after a few days Abu-l-Ma‘ali separated from him also, and went to offer his adhesion to the Emperor. But, when of his extreme arrogance, he rode proudly up to him, this affair became the cause of his being imprisoned a second time, until he was sent to Mekka, as will be mentioned in its place.
77.1.6
It happened that, when, at the very time of the Accession, he fled from Lahor, Pahlawan Gul Guz his keeper committed suicide through fear of the Emperor's anger. After the settlement of the decree for the Accession the imperial armies were levied against Sikandar [who was] in the mountain district. Sikandar kept up the war for three whole months, but was at last defeated. At this time Raja Ramchand came from Nagarkot to pay his respects to Akbar, and had an interview with him. And the imperial standards on account of the rainy season, when they had arrived at Jalandhar, remained there five months.
77.1.7
Contemporaneously with the decease of the late king, and the Accession of the Emperor, Tardi Beg Khan commandant of Dihli had sent Mirza Abu-l-Qasim, the son of Kamran Mirza, with a number of royal Khans, and some picked elephants, in company with Khwaja Sultan ‘Ali Wazir Khan, and Mir Munshi Ashraf Khan, to pay their homage to the Emperor. In the same year Mirza Sulaiman came with Ibrahim Mirza with the intention of conquering Kabul, and Mun‘im Khan, being beseiged, sent particulars to the court. Then the Emperor appointed Muhammad Quli Khan Barlas, and Atka Khan, and Khizr Khan Hazarah with a company of men to bring the Queen Dowager and the other wives [of Humayun] who were in Kabul. Now before the arrival of this troop [at Kabul Mirza Sulaiman] had sent Qazi Nizam of Badakhshan (who was one of his most honoured Ulama and who afterwards was known simply by the title of Qazi Khan,) on an embassy to Mun‘im Khan to make proposals of peace, only on the condition that they should at once insert his name also in the Khutbah. Mun‘im Khan accepted the conditions, as being the best remedy for the general distress, and Mirza Sulaiman, being satisfied with this concession, returned to Badakhshan.