The Rashīdī History 106.5

106.5

In the meanwhile Sultán Ahmad Tambal, who had been in the service of Omar Shaikh Mirzá, although he belonged to the race of the Moghul Amirs, revolted in Andiján, on account of the improvidence of the Khán, and having got possession of that place, began to shoot the arrows of insurrection at the target of sovereignty. The two Kháns consequently went to crush him — Sultán Mahmud Khán, leaving his son Sultán Muhammad Sultán in Táshkand with a strong army, wherewith to oppose his perfidious enemies. My father, too, had been left in Uratippa to oppose Sháhi Beg Khán. And they imagined that the latter could not pass between these two armies. But in reality he looked upon it as an opportunity to be seized, thinking that he would never again find the two Kháns with so small a force. Therefore he hastened from Samarkand to Farghána, passing by Uratippa on his road. [My father] thinking he had come to lay siege to the town, began to busy himself with its defence. At the hour of afternoon prayer, [Sháhi Beg] came and encamped close to the town. After the sun had deprived the world of its light, and had thrown the shadows of night upon the eyes of all creation, he broke up his camp and marched away with all possible speed, so that before the men in the fort had begun to inquire in which direction he had gone, he was many farsákhs away.