The Rashīdī History 124.1

124.1

After Shahi Beg Khan had put my father to death, he despatched an emissary to Bokhara with instructions to throw me into the river, and thus send me to join those who had been drowned in the river of Khojand. Although the order was an obnoxious one to Ubaid Sultan, who received it (for he was married to my sister), still it was impossible for him to refuse. But how excellent a thing it is that the Almighty has power to check the violent and, if He so wills it, to restrain the hand of the cruel : so that, without His consent, the tyrant cannot touch a single hair of any man's head. And this is confirmed by the events of this disturbed time. For, in his glory, vanity and magnificence, see how many royal families Shahi Beg Khan destroyed, and the number of princely houses he annihilated! For example, Sultan Husaini and his followers, to the number of nearly 200,000 persons ; Sultan Mahmud and the Mirzas with nearly 50,000 men — these all suffered at the hands of Shahi Beg Khan. Again the royal houses of Samarkand and of Mirza Sultan Ahmad: to what extremities were they not all driven by this tyrant ? In a short space of time, he scattered to the winds of annihilation many governors and officials, so that the dust of their existence formed towers on the plains of non-existence, which reached up to the heavens, and from the mists of their sighs a frightful whirlwind arose in the deserts.