The Rashīdī History 171.1

171.1

The context here demands some further details of the life of Mansur Khan. He was the oldest son of Sultan Ahmad Khan, son of Yunus Khan. The experiences of Sultan Ahmad Khan's elder brother, Sultan Mahmud Khan (which have been touched upon in their proper place in this book, and will be mentioned, in detail in the First Part, are briefly as follows. [Sultan Ahmad Khan] dismissed the old Amirs of Yunus Khan, and set up in their places some mean persons [arazil] whose flattery suited the Khan's nature. To these men he gave up the management of all important affairs of State, and they, with their narrow-minded views and want of judgment, so worked upon the Khan, that he estranged his old friends — that is to say, the Uzbeg Kazak and the kings of the Chaghatai — and made new ones of his old enemies, thinking that they would be his true allies ; but these [in the end] ruined him.