Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.40
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 78.40
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78.40.1
And on the sixth of the month Rajab, which is the anniversary of the decease of Hazrat (P. 139) Khwajah (may God sanctify his glorious tomb!) the Emperor arrived at Ajmír. And Sultan Khwajah, son of Khwajah Khawand Mahmud he appointed Mir Hájí, and sent a sum of six lacs of rupees, in money and goods, to be distributed among the deserving people of Mecca and Madina, and for building a Khánaqáh in the sacred precincts. When the Emperor dismissed Sultan Khwajah on his road to the two Sacred Cities, he himself, with bare head and feet, and dressed in the Ihrám, and in every respect clothed like a pilgrim, and having shorn his head a little, went a little distance in his train. At this a cry broke forth from the multitude, and he showed himself moved by their devotion. And Qutb-ud-din Muhammad Khan and Qulij Khán, and A'saf Khan were appointed to escort Sultan Khwajah, with orders that they should part from the caravan at Kokandah, and should scour the country of the Ráná, and following his track wherever they should hear news of him, should bring destruction on him. And contemporaneously with these events news arrived, that Shah Tahmasp had passed from the world, and that Shah Isma'il II had succeeded him. And they found this mnemosynon for the date:— “It is the beginning of Reign and Victory, and Conquest.”
78.40.2
And the Emperor made a general order, that any one who wished might go on a pilgrimage, and that his expenses should be paid from the Treasury. And a great number of persons attained that felicity. But the reverse is now the case, for he cannot now hear even the name of such a thing, and merely to ask leave to go on a pilgrimage is enough to make a man a malefactor worthy of death: “We alternate these days among men.” And at this time, when news arrived of the distressed state of the army at Kokandah, the Emperor sent for Man Singh, A'saf Khan and Ghazi Khan, to come alone from that place, and on account of certain faults which they had committed, he excluded Man Singh and A'saf Khan (who were associated in treachery) for some time from the Court; while on the contrary Ghazi Khan Badakhshi, and Mihtar Khan, and ‘Ali Murad Uzbek, Khanjari Turk, and one or two others, of whom I was of the number (p. 240) were distinguished from these men, and were honoured with presents and promotion in rank. But all the rest, though they fell from the position of confidence, were dismissed without punishment. On the 19th of this month the Emperor marched towards the country of the Rana, who was pillaging in the mountain district of Oudipur, Jounpur &c.
78.40.3
At this time Khwajah Shah Mansur, a Shirazi clerk, who at the beginning of his career had been for some time clerk in the perfumery department, and had been obliged to flee on account of the hostility and power of Muzaffar Khan, came to Mun‘im Khan at Jounpur, and was received with the greatest respect, and appointed to be his divan. And after the death of Mun‘im Khan he came to Court in accordance with an imperial firman, and on account of his exceedingly fine business qualities and soundness of judgment, became divan of the whole empire, and by degrees became associated in imperial affairs with the prosperous Rajah:— “He is an incapable who does not rise to power, For at all events Destiny is on the look out for a capable man.” Some one has just reversed the statement and said:— “The incapables of the world have risen to power, How then can Destiny be on the look out for a capable man?” But the first is true, and the second is not a fair statement of facts. And among the events of that year was the appearance of a comet in the west. And, when Shah Mansur took to wearing a long tail to the back of his turban, they dubbed him ‘The Star with a tail’. And through his excessive economy and stinginess in the army expenses, and the pitch that he reached in grasping in season and out of season, people forgot the tyrannies of Rajah Muzaffar Khan and kept heaping upon him abundance of abuse:— “For many bads are worse than bad.”
78.40.4
In this same year news arrived that Shah Isma’il, son of Shah Tahmasp, Emperor of Persia, had been murdered, with the consent of the Amirs, by his own sister Pari Jan Khanum: and Mir Haidar, the riddle writer, found the tarikh of his accession in the word:—“A king of the face of the earth” and the tarikh of his death in:—“A king below the earth.” And the effect of the comet in that country became manifest, and in ‘Iraq the greatest perturbation resulted, while the Turks conquered Tabriz, Shirwan, and Mazandaran. And Sultan Muhammad Khodabandah, son of Shah Tahmasp by another mother, succeeded to the throne, as is related in its proper place. And the period of cursing and reviling the great Companions of the Prophet, which had lasted for 1,000 months in direct opposition to authority, and involved the use of improper language towards the sons of Ummaiya, came to an end: but the heresy had already travelled from that country to this:— “Error came to Hind from the land of ‘Iraq, Know that ‘Iraq rhymes with road to Nifaq!”
78.40.5
While the imperial army was encamped at Mohani the Emperor wrote a firman to Qutb-ud-din Muhammad Khan, and Rajah Bhagwan Das ordering those two commanders to remain at Gungaudah. and Qulij Khan with other Amirs he ordered to accompany the pilgrim-caravan as far as I'dar, which is 40 cosses from Ahmadabad, and thence to send on a body of troops to convey them as far as Ahmadabad, while he himself should lay seize to I'dar, and extirpate Narain Das the Rajah of that place. So Qulij Khan in accordance with his orders remained at I'dar, and sent on Timur Khan Badakhshi with 500 horsemen to escort the caravan to a place of safety. But the Rajah of I'dar, like the Rana, after the fashion of robbers kept wandering from mountain to mountain, and from jungle to jungle; — “What does the Moon, that the Halo does not imitate?”
78.40.6
At this camping-place Shihab Khan, and Shah Budagh Khan with his son ‘Abd-ul-Matlab and Shah Fakhr-ud-din Khan and other zamindars of Malwah, came and paid their respects. And the Emperor left Ghazi Khan Badakhshi, who had been raised to the rank of Commander of a Thousand, with Sharif Muhammad Khan Atgah, and Mujahid Khan, and Turk Subhan Quli, with 3,000 cavalry at the station of Mohani. And the military commanders ‘Abdurrahman Beg son of Jalaluddin Beg, and ‘Abdurrahman son of Mu’ayyad Beg he left with 500 troops in the hill district; but he sent for Qutbuddin Khan and Rajah Bhagvan Das from Gogandah, and having stationed Shah Fakhruddin and Jaganath in Udipur, and Sayyid ‘Abdullah Khan and Rajah Bhagvan Das at the entrance of the defile of Udipur, the Emperor went himself into the neighbourhood of Banswala and Dungarpur. At this place Rajah Todar Mal arrived from Bengal, and brought to the Emperor 500 elephants from the spoil of that kingdom, and other valuables. While at this place he sent Qulij Khan (whom he had recalled from I'dar, and appointed Asaf Khan as leader of the army in his stead) together with Kalyan Rai Baqqal an inhabitant of Cambay to the port of Surat to obtain an agreement from the Europeans, so as to set free the ships of Sultan Khwajah, which for want of such an agreement were lying idle. Afterwards he was to come to Malwah and join the army.
78.40.7
In the month of Zihijjah of this year took place the New Year’s day of the 23rd year from the Accession. He celebrated that festival in the castle of Dibalpur one of the dependencies of Malwah. The compiler of this Compendium had on account of a severe sickness remained at Basawar. He now asked leave to proceed to the camp by way of Banswalah. At Hindun Sayyid ‘Abd-ullah Khan consented, but representing that road was blocked up and full of difficulties, he caused me to return and brought me to Bajunah. And after some days on account of my anxiety to perform my duty as one of the Imperial Imams, I went in company with Kazawi Khan by way of Gwalyar and Sarangpur, and Ujayn, and on the 12th of Zihijjah paid my respects to the Emperor in the confines of Dibalpur belonging to Malwah. Then I presented to the Emperor a valuable pocket-Qur'an, and a note-book of marvellous and rare sermons by Hafiz Muhammad Amin, a preacher of Qandahar, such a sweet-voiced preacher as whom had never been seen by any one in this generation. This Qur’an and note book had been carried off by some thieves from a certain halting-place a cos distant from Basawar, and Sayyid ‘Abdullah Khan had gone in pursuit and had handed over the things to me.
78.40.8
When I brought them into his presence, the Emperor evinced great pleasure, and calling Hafiz Muhammad Amin he said to him in joke: “They have brought me a pocket-Qur’an from somewhere or other, I make it a present to you” Hafiz recognizing it, was extremely delighted, and making profuse and boundless bows and prostrations by way of thanks, said: Your Majesty the very same day said to Sayyid ‘Abdullah Khan, 'If God will, you will find it, it can’t be really lost." When the Emperor enquired of the author the circumstances of its discovery, I replied: “A company of labourers, who in some of the villages of Basawar are occupied in digging wells and tanks &c., and who under pretext of this occupation do a little in highway robbery had stolen these articles. But one of them, having had a difference with his companion brought word to Sayyid 'Abdullah Khan, so that he was able to seize them all, and so they confessed the thefts they had committed. Then the Emperor said to Hāfiz; "If God will, the rest of the articles will also be found, so be of good cheer!” To this he replied: “I have attained my wish in the recovery of my Qur’an and note-book, which I teemed as an inheritance from my father and grandfather, and I cannot compose sermons myself. For the other things I don’t care much." And eventually (P.
78.40.9
214) on the return from that journey those articles were all found among the things taken from the countrymen, as the Emperor had said would be the case, and Sayyid ‘Abdullah Khan brought them into the Imperial presence at Fathpur. While at Dībalpur I was reinstated in my office of Imām, and Khwājah Daulat Nāzir had to keep me up to the mark, and in the old way one day and night out of the seven used to make me mount the pulpit, and the proverb became fulfilled: “Little Ahmad will not go to school, so they carry him”:—