The Book of Akbar 175.2.1

175.2.1

When this record of confidence had been executed, the deliberations began. His Majesty gave lofty counsels and uttered excellent words. With his pearling tongue he said, “The miserable end of those who deviate from the straight highway of concord is known to all. Especially since not long ago when Sultan Husain Mirza beat the drum of death in Khurasan, he left eighteen capable and fortune-favoured sons and yet, in spite of all their array of wealth, in consequence of fraternal discord, the kingdom of Khurasan (which for so many years had been a centre of peace), became in a short space a centre of calamities and was transferred to Shahi Beg. No trace remained of any of the sons except of Badi‘u-z-zaman who went to Turkey, and all the sons of the Mirza had been reviled and reprobated by high and low. With what difficulty had his Majesty Giti-sitāni-Firdaus-makānī conquered a Hindūstān—so vast a country! If through your disunion it pass from our possession into the hands of nobodies (nākasān) what will the wise say of you? Now is the time to sink the head into the bosom of good counsel and to exsert it from jealousy's collar, so that you may attain headship among mankind, and be a means of gaining the favour of God."