Muntakhab al-tawarikh 79.10
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 79.10
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79.10.1
Shaikh ‘Abd-un-nabi came to Fathpur, and having made use of some rude language, the Emperor was unable to restrain his passion, and struck him in the face. He said : “Why don’t you strike with a knife ?” Then with a view to make him settle his account about the 7,000 rupees, which the Emperor had given him when he set off for Makkah, he was handed over as prisoner to Rajah Todar Mal, and for some time, like a defaulting tax-gatherer, they imprisoned him in the counting-house of the office ; and one night a mob strangled him, and he went to God. And the next day, until afternoon prayer, the minarets resounded with nothing but this: “Verily in this man ye have a warning ye that have eyes to see” This event took place in the year nine hundred and ninety-two. And “A Shaikh like a prophet” was found to give the date, in accordance with the verse: — “Although they used to say, The Shaikh is like the Prophet, It is not the Prophet, our Shaikh is like a Prophet.” “Heaven’s nature is to throw down heads, You must not withdraw your head from what is written. She has never nurtured any, that she has not killed, For she is tender in love, and stern in hatred.”
79.10.2
In this year that crucible of austerity, and devotion, that impersonation of piety and religious fervour, that spiritual effigy, and mirror of divine grace, that paragon of people of rapture and ecstasy Shaikh Jalal of T’hanesar (God rest his spirit!) became an inhabitant of the garden of Paradise: and “The Shaikh of Saints” was found to give the date. In the same year A'yaf Khan, Mir Bakhshi Sani, who had the title of Mirza Ghiyas-ud-din ‘Ali, gave up his place to his own nephew Mirza Ja‘far (who afterwards obtained the title of Asaf Khan), and then chose the last journey. And “May God be his help!” was found to give the date. And at this time His Majesty deposed Haji Ibrahim of Sarhind, as has been narrated, from the Çadrate of Gujrat. And when he heard that he had received many bribes, and that he kept many women, and that he desired to escape to the Dak’hin, he had him seized. For some time he entrusted him to Hakim ‘Ain ul-mulk, but after a time he sent him to the fortress of Rintamb’hor. Till at last having cast him from the pinnacle of exaltation, to the abyss of misery, he fulfilled every dream of vengeance. In this year Shaikh Mubarik of Nagor said in the presence of the Emperor to Bir Bar: “Just as there are interpolations in your holy books, so there are in ours; hence it is impossible to trust either.”
79.10.3
Some shameless and ill-starred wretches also asked His Majesty why, since a thousand years from the Hijrah were passed, he did not bring forward, like Shah Isma’il the First, some convincing proof. But His Majesty was at last convinced, that confidence in him as a leader was a matter of time, and good counsel, and did not require the sword. And indeed, if His Majesty, in setting up his claims, and making his innovations, had spent a little money, he would easily have got most of his courtiers, and much more the vulgar, into his devilish nets : — “ I see in 900 two conjunctions, I see the sign of Mahdi and that of Antichrist ; Either politics or religion must change, I clearly see the hidden secret.” At a council held for the renovating of the religion of the empire Rajah Bhagwan Das said : “ I would willingly believe that Hindus and Musalmans have each a bad religion, but only tell us what the new sect is, and what opinion they hold, so that I may believe.” His Majesty reflected a little, and ceased to urge the Rajah. But the alteration of the decisions of our glorious Faith was continued. And “ The innovation of heresy ” was found to give the date.
79.10.4
At this time His Majesty sent Qazi Jalal Multani, together with Khwajagi Fath-ullah bakhshi, who was a great opponent of the vile Shi‘ah sect, to the Dak’hin. The cause of his banishment was this, that he had forged in a farman a draught for five lacs of tankahs which he had drawn from the treasury for his own use. The Emperor thought it likely, that the rulers of that part, who were exceedingly bigoted in that heresy, would put Qazi to death with various tortures, and ignominy. But they, having heard of his constancy in the faith of the Islam, and his support of the word of God against liars, secretly believing in him considered his arrival as a great gain. Besides giving him the districts granted to him as madad-i-ma’ash they showed him every attention, and reckoned the very dust of his feet as collyrium. Thus through his innate good luck he became at the end of his life so honoured and respected, that however much he asked to be allowed to go on a pilgrimage to Makkah, they could not make up their minds to part with him, But at last he gained this felicity, and having arrived at Bath& wa Yathrab (may God magnify them both!) in glory and dignity, he obtained eternal acceptance, and there passed away from this old dust-bin "A life, about which thou hast been informed beforehand, From it seek not a happiness, which is eternal. A life, into which death can find an entrance, Say to it, Be long, or short, as you please.”
79.10.5
And in his place the Emperor appointed, as Qázi-lquzát, Qázi 'Abd-us-samí' the Transoxonian of Miyánkál, of whom the poet Qásim Khán Moují might have composed the verse: — “An elder from an honoured tribe, With a beard, like a white rose, a yard long.” He used to play chess for a wager, and to give away a great deal. His cup-draining was notoriously a congenital habit, and in his sect bribery and corruption were considered as a duty for the moment, and the making profit on bonds for debt, and on signing judicial decrees, as a positive command. But verily since there was no reference to faith or religion left, even this amount was something towards the removal of opprobrium.
79.10.6
During those days also the public prayers, and the azán, which was chanted five times a day for assembly to prayer in the state hall, were abolished. Names like Ahmad, Muhammad, Mustafá &c. became offensive to His Majesty, who thereby wished to please the infidels outside, and the princesses inside the Harem, till after some time those courtiers, who had such names, changed them; and such names as Yár Muhammad, Muhammad Khán, were altered to Rahmat. To call such miserable wretches by the name of our blessed prophet would indeed be wrong, and there was not only room for improvement by altering their names, but it was even necessary to do so, according to the proverb, ‘It is wrong to put fine jewels on the neck of a pig.’ This destructive fire broke out first in Ágrah, and burnt down house and home of both great and small, and eventually the fire extended to the graves of those who kindled it (may God abandon them!) — “Thou, O man, fond of words, Who for some worthless handfuls Desertest the Faith of God, In the confidence of thine own sophistry, What weakness hast thou seen in the Tradition, That thou wentest towards the irreligious? What fault didst thou find in the Qur’an, That thou followest the present world?”
79.10.7
In Rabi‘-us-sani of the year nine hundred and ninety the Sayyid Mir Fath-ullah of Shiraz, who in the regions of Theology, Mathematics, and Physics and in all branches of science both logical and traditional, and in talismans, and incantations, and discovering treasures, was without his equal in that age, in obedience to a farman requiring his presence, left ‘Adil Khan of the Dak’hin, and came to Fathpur. The Khan Khanan, and Hakim Abu-l-Fath in accordance with the Emperor’s command went out to meet him, and brought him to the imperial presence. He was honoured with the post of Sadr, whose only duty was erasure, in order that he might confiscate the lands of the poor, not give them. When the Emperor heard that he had been an immediate pupil of Mir Ghiyas-ud-din Mansur of Shiraz, who had not been over strict in religious matters, he thought that Fath-ullah would be only too glad to enter into his religious scheme. But Fath-ullah was such a staunch Shi‘ah, and at the same time such a worldly office-hunter, and such a worshipper of mammon and of the nobility, that he would not give up a jot of the tittles of bigoted Shi'ism. Even in the State hall he said with the greatest composure his Shi‘ah prayers, a thing which no one else would have dared to do. His Majesty, therefore, put him among the class of the bigots, but he connived at his practices, because he thought it desirable to encourage a man of such attainments and practical knowledge.