[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [General histories](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general) › [Muntakhab al-tawārīkh](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh) › [Muntakhabu-t-tawarikh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig) › 78.35 # Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.35 Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 78.35 - **Language:** English ### [78.35.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.1) I said : “ In the time of the Prophet (God bless him, and give him peace !) the reciting of the Fatihah was not customary ; and some of the traditions have pronounced it to be of questionable authority.” He said : “ Do you mean to say then that those who read it are not in the region of knowledge, nor wise men?” I replied : “We have to do with the Written Law, not with \[possible\] forgeries.” The Emperor after this commanded that I should recite it. I complied, although I showed him the tradition which pronounced it as questionable. At this time \[the Emperor\] revived an old Chaghatai custom. For some days, in order to exhibit it to Mirza Sulaiman, they spread royal tables in the Audience-hall. And the officers of high grade gathered the soldiers together, and took to themselves the trouble of arranging the customary food. But when the Mirza departed, all these \[revived customs\] departed too. Khan Jahan, commandant of the Panjab, was ordered to take with him 5,000 warlike mounted archers, and putting himself at the service of the Mirza to go to Badakhshan, and deliver the country from Mirza Shah-Rukh and hand it over to Mirza Sulaiman. But, as a matter of fact the aspect of affairs took a somewhat different complexion. ### [78.35.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.2) Meanwhile news came that Mun‘im Khan, Khan Khanan, after making peace with Daud in the midst of the rainy-season, under the guidance of Fate, passed over the Ganges from Tandah (the climate of which is temperate), and made the inhabitants (P. 217) migrate to Gaur, and ordered that that town (which was formerly the Capital of Bengal, and the climate of which is debilitating and foul) should be inhabited : and all that the Amirs could say against it availed nothing : — “O wonder! that ye had no misgivings of heart, no sadness of soul, On account of this foul air, these noxious waters.” Various diseases, the names of which it would be difficult to know, attacked their constitutions; and every day hosts upon hosts of people, having played out their existence, bade farewell to one another; and how many thousands soever were told off for that country, it cannot be stated that a hundred ever returned to their homes: — “What a fatal thing, O God, may a place become!” ### [78.35.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.3) Things came to such a pass that the living were unable to bury the dead, and threw them head-foremost into the river. Every hour, and every minute, news came to the ear of the Khan Khanan of the death of Amirs, and yet, for all that, he did not himself become infected. And, on account of the arrogance of his disposition, no one had the power to remove the cotton-wool of ignorance from his ears, and make him leave the place: — “If I give advice to my heart in love, it is taken ill. I will leave it in her street to hit its head against the wall.” After a time the constitution of the Khan Khanan, Mun‘im Khan, began to deviate from its usual course of equilibrium, and, at over eighty years of age, after completing the first ten days of the month Rajab of the year nine hundred and eighty-three (983) he rendered his account to the Guardian of Paradise, or to the Guardian of Hell (God knows!); and all that rank and glory, and that grandeur and perfection became a mere dream and fantasy: — “Since thou canst not place any confidence in thy life, What matters it whether it be one, or one hundred years? Since there is no perpetuity in life, What matters power, or servitude?” Since he had no heirs, the officials seized all that wealth and gains (which had taken so many years to accumulate) for the imperial treasury, ‘Announce to the wealth of a miser reverse of fortune, or an heir’: — “How well has a clever speaker said, Gold attracts gold, and treasure treasure!” ### [78.35.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.4) Then, in accordance with the well-known saying — ‘ In a place without trees a Palma Christi is \[looked on as\] a shady and fruitful tree ’ the Amirs, on this principle, looked to Shakam Khan Jalair as their leader “ The death of the great has made me great. ” But, when the news reached the Court, the Emperor appointed the Khan Zaman, in the room of the Khan Khanan, to the Command in Bengal, and presented him with a gold-embroidered cloak, and vest of gold, and jewelled sword-belt, and a horse with a guilded saddle. Then whether at his own request, or for the peace of the kingdom, it was settled that Mirza Sulaiman should go by sea on a pilgrimage to Hijaz : and having signed a draught for him of 50,000 rupees upon the imperial treasury, and given him another sum of 20 rupees from the local treasury of Gujrat, the Emperor gave him leave to depart. And Qulij Khan he appointed as his escort, to see him off safely from the port of Surat. During this same year he reached Makkah and Al Madinah, and by the help of God’s grace and faithfulness he returned by way of ‘Iraq, and was, as was right, reinstated in the sovereignty of Badakhshan : — “ Thou hast never seen that road, therefore they never showed it thee, Else, who has ever knocked at that door, and they opened not to him.” ### [78.35.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.5) On his return he gave one of his daughters to Muzaffar Husain Mirza, commandant of Qandahar, who at that time had come to Lahor, and had attached himself to the Court ; and another daughter he gave to another man. In this year the late Husain Khan (for whom, of all men of superior understanding, the Author had an old and strong attachment, and the most perfectly sincere friendly relations) through infirmity caused by the appearance (P. 219) of that stage and mark, which is the destroyer of pleasures, and the vanquisher of the warrior, after the buffeting of all those troubles, which had passed over him, through apparent madness, but real wisdom, left Kant-u-Golah with a band of his friends and intimates (who, whether in the flood of fire, or in the billows of the sea, had never in any wise deserted him), and, passing through the confines of Badaun and Sambhal, and crossing the river Ganges, arrived in the Duab. Then, after plundering the mawdsan and disaffected of that neighbourhood (who, deeming the payment of rent unnecessary, never used to return any answer to their feudal lord, so that you may guess what happened to the helpless, duped, non-plussed, dishonoured tax-collectors) took a moon-light flit to the base of the northern mountains. ### [78.35.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.6) This was a place he had all his life a hankering after, and kept it, as a mine of silver and gold in full view : continually concocting in the crucible of his guileless breast (which was large enough to contain a world) visions of golden and silver idol-temples and bricks of gold and silver. Then, without having received any orders authorizing him to do so, he turned to Basant-pur (an elevated and well-known place in the hill-district), and invested the place. Malik ush-Sharq, the tax-collector of T’hanesar shut the door of the fort : and the other tax-collectors in like manner, in a fright, having run into their holes, spread a false report that he was in rebellion, and sent a petition to that effect to the Court. The Emperor enquired of Sa'id Khan Moghul (who was a connection and very old friend of Husain Khan, and who had just come from Multan) whether this report was true ; this he firmly denied. But when the Emperor asked him to give, on the part of Husain Khan, a bond in writing for the cattle and goods which Husain Khan had carried off from the agriculturists he utterly declined to do so, and all that former love and friendship changed into an affectation of being utterly unacquainted with him : — “ These deceitful friends, whom you see, Are but flies about a sweetmeat. Before you they are truer to you than the light, Behind your back they are more evanescent than a shadow.” ### [78.35.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35.7) At last he sent Sayyid Hashim, son of Muhammad Barha, and the sons of Mir Sayyid Muhammad, the Judge of Amrohah (before he dismissed him to Bakkar), with a body of the Amirs to operate against him. While he was fighting in the hill-district of Basant-pur he received a severe musket-wound under the shoulder-blade, besides losing a host of his veterans. Accordingly, without having accomplished anything, he turned back, and getting into a boat he went on the river Ganges towards Patyali (which was the native place of his kith and kin). He got as far as Gadha Maktesar where they came on him, disabled by his wound, and, in accordance with their orders, brought him to Agrah, and deposited him in the house of Sadiq Muhammad Khan (between whom and Husain Khan there had existed from the beginning of the conquest of India, or rather from Qandahar—times onward, the kindliest feeling, and most sincere friendship). Shaikh Bina'i, the physician, being sent for by the Emperor’s command, came to try and heal him. But on his representing that the wound was of a frightful character the Emperor sent for Hakim ‘Ayn-ul-mulk. And the Author, having received the Emperor’s permission, went with the physician to see him, in order to keep up my old relations with him. I found him, and while a moment, by reason of my sorrow, seemed to me like days, I composed these words of friendship, sorrowful and mingled with tears:— --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.general.muntakhab-al-tawarikh~en-ranking-lowe-haig.78.35) · Pramāṇa