The Rashīdī History 51: CHAPTER XXVII. · MUHAMMAD KHAN, SON OF KHIZIR KHWAJA KHAN.

51

This Muhammad Khan was the son of Khizir Khwaja Khan, who had, besides Muhammad Khan, other sons; among these were Sham-i-Jahan Khan and Nakhsh-i-Jahan Khan. After Isan Bugha Khan, excepting Tughluk Timur Khan, there was no one left in the country of the Moghuls who was of the first rank of Khakans. This fact I have already mentioned. After the death of Tughluk Timur Khan, Amir Kamaruddin murdered all Tughluk's sons, so that there was no one left but Khizir Khwaja Khan. (This I have also already stated.) This last Khan left many sons and grandsons; the details of the lives of all of them have not, however, been preserved in the Moghul traditions. In fine, I have recounted what I considered worthy of belief regarding the history of the ancestors of the Khakans. But I have not been able to learn any details concerning their uncles and cousins. Consequently I have only mentioned the sons of Khizir Khwaja Khan, as for example, Muhammad Khan: for in him the race of Moghul Khakans came to an end.
Muhammad Khan was a wealthy prince and a good Musulman. He persisted in following the road of justice and equity, and was so unremitting in his exertions, that during his blessed reign most of the tribes of the Moghuls became Musulmans.
It is well known what severe measures he had recourse to, in bringing the Moghuls to be believers in Islam. If, for instance, a Moghul did not wear a turban [dastár] a horseshoe nail was driven into his head: and treatment of this kind was common. (May God recompense him with good.)
In the Moghul records it is stated that Amir Khudaidad himself raised six Khans to the Khanship, and this Muhammad Khan was one of the number.
Muhammad Khan built a Rabát on the northern side of the defile of Chadir Kul. In the construction of this building he employed stones of great size, the like of which are only to be seen in the temples of Kashmir. The Rabát contains an entrance hall 20 gaz in height. When you enter by the main door, you turn to the right hand along a passage which measures 30 gaz. You then come to a dome which is about 20 gaz and beautifully proportioned. There is a passage round the dome, and in the sides of it; and in the passage itself are beautiful cells. On the western side there is also a mosque 15 gaz in height, which has more than twenty doors. The whole building is of stone, and over the doors there are huge solid blocks of stone, which I thought very wonderful, before I had seen the temples in Kashmir.
In the time of Muhammad Khan, the learned Mirza Ulugh Beg was reigning in Mavara-un-Nahr by the appointment of his father, Mirza Shah Rukh; he was the founder of the famous observatory and the author of the astronomical tables called Zij Kurkan, Mirza Shah Rukh was king of Khorasan and Irak. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but if we refer to other dates, we find that he must have died before 860 of the Hajra. (But God knows best.)