Firishta's History (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) 6.1.4

6.1.4

Mahmood, who, it is stated, was deficient in personal beauty, said one day (observing himself in a glass), "The sight of a king should brighten the eyes of the beholders; but nature has been so unkind to me, that my appearance is positively forbidding." His Vizier replied, "It is not one in ten thousand of a king's subjects who are blessed with a sight of him; but your Majesty's virtues are diffused over all." But to proceed with our history. Mahmood was the eldest son of Subooktugeen. His mother was the daughter of a person of good family in Zabulistan; for which reason she is termed Zabuly. He was born on the night of the ninth Mohurrum, in the year 357 of the Hijra, (15th December, 967,)—and Minhaj-oos-Siraj Joorjany states, that his birth took place on the same day of the year as that of the Prophet. Subooktugeen being asleep at the time of his birth, dreamed that he beheld a green tree springing forth from the fire-place of his house, which threw its shadow over the face of the earth, screening with its boughs, from the storms of heaven, the whole animal creation. This, indeed, was verified by the justice of Mahmood; for it has been metaphorically stated, that in his reign the wolf and the lamb drank together at the same brook. In the first month of his reign, a vein of gold, resembling a tree, of three cubits in depth, was discovered in a mine in Seestan, which yielded pure gold till the reign of Musaood, when it was lost in consequence of an earthquake.