Firishta's History (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) 70.10

70.10

It is recorded, that Mahmood Shah was a strict promoter of the law of the Koran, permitting no neglect on the smallest point, which occasioned the judges to take cognisance of all deviations in points of morality. One day a woman convicted of adultery was brought to the court of justice to receive sentence; when the judge, asking her how she came to be guilty of so heinous a crime, she replied, "How could I think, O judge! that the act was unlawful? seeing that one man may have four wives, why might not I, also, indulge with equal propriety in four husbands? If I am in error, I repent, and will not offend by a repetition of the crime." The judge was perplexed, and suffered her to escape only with a reproof! — Mahmood Shah Bahmuny reigned nineteen years, nine months, and twenty-four days.