Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.41
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 78.41
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78.41.1
“Either thou goest, or otherwise they will carry thee, there is no choice”. On account of anxiety for the affairs of that kingdom, the Emperor remained some days at Dībalpur. And some of the great Amīrs, such as Shahāb-ud-dīn Ahmad Khān he sent, with the jāgīrdārs of Mālwah, against Rājah ‘Alī Khān in the direction of Asīr and Burhānpūr, to subdue that district. And Shahbāz Khān, Bakhshī, was to see to the branding of the horses and the mustering of the army. At that station Rājah Todar Mall, together with I‘timād Khān of Gujarāt, was appointed to look into revenues of the country of Gujarāt, and into the stores of that kingdom. At this time news came of the defeat of Rājah Narāin Dās, and the taking of Īdar. The particulars are as follows. When Qulīj Khān, through the efforts of ‘Alī Murād Uzbek, who had been sent to fetch him, had left Īdar and returned to Court, and Āsaf Khān had been appointed to the command, the Rājah of Īdar, who had become an outcast and wanderer, had with the assistance of Rānā Kokā and other zamīndārs collected an army and advanced to within ten kroses of the station of Māl, intending to make a night attack.
78.41.2
Then Aṣaf Khān and Mirzā Muḥammad Muqīm and Tīmūr Badakhshī, and Mīr Abū-l-ghays Bokhārī, and Mīr Muḥammad Ma'ṣūm Bakrī, &c. agreed that it would be the best plan (P. 245), leaving about 500 horse to guard the station, themselves to make a night attack on the enemy, and so anticipate him in his plans. Accordingly just at daybreak on the 4th of Zī-ḥijjah, in the year nine hundred and eighty-four (984), when they had proceeded 7 cosses, Rājah Narāin Dās met them coming in the opposite direction armed cap à pie, and immediately attacked them, and arrows and swords and javelins began flying in the air. And Mirzā Muḥammad Muqīm, who was in the van in advance of every one, in drinking the draught of martyrdom still showed his superiority. Defeat fell on the infidels, and they fled to a man and skulked like foxes in their holes. When the dispatch of Aṣaf Khān arrived, a farmān of commendation was issued to the officers of that army. In this year Mīr Sayyid Muḥammad Mīr'Adl, who had been appointed to the government of Bhakkar, sent Sayyid Abū-l-Faẓl and his other sons against Sahwī (?), and then reduced that fortress in a short space of time. And Mīr Sayyid Abu-l Qāsim son of Mīr Sayyid Qā'ish (who is one of the most important personages of Bhakkar and had come to do homage at Court) was raised to the rank of a body-guardsman. And this line gives the date:— “To the sons of the Prophet belongs the taking of Sahwī”.
78.41.3
And in this year the Mīr 'Adl departed this life, and the date is given by the following:— Sayyid-i-Fāzil—May God deal with him according to excellence (faz̤l)! Among the events of this time was the arrival of Sharīf of Āmul, and his interview with the Emperor while he was at Dībālpur. The sum of the matter is as follows: This reprobate apostate (P. 246) had run from country to country, like a dog that has burnt its foot, and turning from one sect to another, he went on wrangling until he became a perfect heretic. For some time he studied after the vain fashion of Çūfiism, which is void of all -sophy, in the school of Maulānā Muhammad Zāhid of Balkh, nephew of the great Shaikh Husain of Khwārizm (God sanctify his tomb!), and had lived with darveshes. But as he had little of the darvesh in him he set on foot abundance of vain talk and senseless effrontery, and blurted it out, so that they expelled him. The Maulānā wrote a poem against him in which the following verse occurs:— "There was a heretic, and Sharīf was his name, Perfect he thought himself, not perfect all the same!" In his wanderings he came to the Dak'hin, where from his want of self-restraint he betrayed the filthiness of his disposition, and the rulers of the Dak'hin wished to cleanse the tablet of existence of his image, but eventually he was only set on a donkey and shown about the city in disgrace.
78.41.4
But since Hindūstān is a wide place, where there is an open field for all licentiousness, and no one interferes with another’s business, so that every one can do just as he pleases, at this time he made his way to Mālwah, and settled at a place five kōroh distant from the Imperial camp. Every foolish and frivolous word that proceeded out of his mouth instead of being wholesome food was the poison of asps, and became the absorbing topic of general conversation. Many persons blind to God’s mercies, especially the heretics of ‘Irāq (who separated themselves from the Truth of the Faith, like a hair from the dough, ‘Nabathæans’ exactly describes them, and they are destined to be the foremost worshippers of Antichrist) gathered round him, and at his orders spread abroad the report that he was the Restorer promised for the tenth century, the sensation was immense. As soon as His Majesty heard of him he invited him one night to a private audience in a long prayer-room, which was made of cloth, and in which the Emperor and his suite used to say the five daily prayers at the stated hours. Ridiculous in his exterior, ugly in shape, with his neck stooping forward, he performed his obeisance, and then stood still with his arms crossed, you could scarcely see how his blue eye (which is said to be a sign of hostility to the Prophet— peace be upon shed lies, falsehood, and hypocrisy.
78.41.5
There he stood for a long and when he got the order to sit down, he prostrated himself worship, and then sat down duzanu like an Indian camel, there he held tete a tete with the Emperor, and discussed various questions. No one except the Hakim-ul-mulk was allowed to present with them, but every now and then from a distance, when raised his voice, I could catch the word 'ilm [knowledge]. He chewed the cud of a host of foolish stories, and called them “the Truth of Truths”, and ‘the Foundation of Fundamentals’:— “A race both outwardly and inwardly ignorant Through ignorance is lost in folly. They are immersed in heresy and call it Truth! There is no power or might except in God!” The whole talk of the man was a mere repetition of the ideas of Mahmud of Basakhwan, who lived in the time of Timur the Lord of Conjunction, at Basakhwan, which is the name of a village in the neighbourhood of Gilan. Mahmud had written thirteen treatises of dirty filth, full of such droppings of heresy as no religion or sect would suffer, and containing nothing but deceitful flattery, which he called ‘science of expressed and implied language’. The chief work of this miserable wretch is entitled Bahr u Kuzah, containing such loathsome nonsense, that when the ear eats thereof it turns sick. How the devil would have laughed in his sleeve, had he heard it, and what capers he would have cut!
78.41.6
And this gross fellow Sharif had also written a regular conflict of absurdities, which he named “First glimpses of the Truth,” in which he blindly follows Mir ‘Abdulawwal. This book is written (P. 248) in loose, deceptive aphorisms, each beginning with the word mifarmāyand: it is a regular poser, and a mass of ridiculous silly nonsense. But in spite of this folly, in accordance with the saying: ‘Verily God the King brings people to people,’ he so carried things before him, and knew so well how to turn to his own account the spirit of the age and mankind, that he is now a Commander of One Thousand, and one of the apostles of His Majesty’s religion in Bengal, possessor of the four degrees of Faith, and in his turn summoning faithful disciples to these degrees. An account of these degrees will be given later on:— “Regard not the reprobation or approval of the common people, For their business is always either to pray or to purr. Common people believe in a Cow as a God, And do not believe in Noah as a prophet.” We make our complaint unto God on account of this world: if ever it does good, it immediately repents; and if it does evil, it goes on in its evil course. The following just suits his case:— “I was last year a star of the lowest dimension, This year I am the Pole-star of religion. If I last out another year, I shall be the Pole-star of the religion of ‘Alí.”
78.41.7
And when the Emperor had satisfactorily settled the affairs of that district, he started thence by successive stages by way of Ranthambōr, and hunting as he went along arrived on the 23rd of Çafar of the year nine hundred and eighty five (985) at Fatḥpūr. And Shaikh Faizī, who now enjoys the title of the King of Poets, wrote an ode, of which the opening lines are: