Muntakhab al-tawarikh 79.11.5

79.11.5

During the time that I was compiling the events of the seventh year, and was engaged on the life of the second true Khalifah (may God be propitious to him !) I had just finished the account of the foundation of Kufah, and the building and destruction of Qasr-ul-imarat, which was narrated in detail together with the cause of its destruction, and the marriage of Umm Kulsum, daughter of the Amir-ul-muminin ‘Ali (God be propitious to them both !), as well as the institution of five stated times for prayer, the fall of the city of Nasibin, and the scorpions big as cocks, which were made use of to effect its capture, when one night Asaf Khan Salis, who was the same as Mirza Ja'far, thought proper to dispute the correctness of these facts. Notwithstanding this, Shaikh Abu-l-Fazl and Ghazi Khan Badakhshi confirmed my assertions shortly afterwards. When I was asked whence I got this information, I replied that I had seen it in books, and had written accordingly, and that it was not my own invention. Immediately the Rauzat-ul-Ahbab and other historical books were called for from the library, and given to Naqib Khan to verify the accuracy of the statement, which by God’s grace, being found correct, I was relieved from the charge of invention.