The Rashīdī History 113.1

113.1

It has been related above, how Kunduz submitted without resistance, on the advent of the victorious army of Mahmud Sultan; also how I, after being confined in prison by Khusrau Sháh for a year, obtained my release, went and joined my father, and together with all the members of my family, proceeded to Shahr-i-Sabz, which Sháhi Beg Khan had given to my father [together with its dependencies]. In the beginning of Sagittarius, Sháhi Beg Khan marched on Khwarizm. All the heads of the Moghuls, whether Sultáns or Amirs, together with their train, were dwelling among the Uzbegs, and fear and apprehension continually occupied their hearts. In the meanwhile, Mahmud Sultán, who had always been a defender of the Moghuls, died in Kunduz, whereat all the Moghuls, and especially my father, were much afflicted and saddened. For Mahmud Sultan had borne him such love, and had bestowed so much kindness on him, that if ever one of Sháhi Beg Khán's nobles wrote a letter of cruelty or violence upon the tablet of the imagination concerning my father, he would draw a line through it with the pen of his protection; or else would erase this writing from the tablet of the rancorous heart of the evil-minded man, with the penknife of punishment. In fact, he recognised it as his duty to side with my father in all things. His death was a source of great uneasiness to the Moghuls in general, and to my father in particular.