The Book of Akbar 376.4
The Akbarnama (H. Beveridge), vols. I–II 376.4
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376.4.1
While Bairam Khan was in Pattan he was continually visiting its gardens, &c., and one day he went on the great pond, which is a delightful excursion, and has within it a pavilion which can be reached by boat. At the time when he disembarked and was about to mount his equipage, that ignorant, unrighteous one and 30 or 40 other Afghan wretches came to the bank of the pond to attack Bairam Khan. It appeared as if they had come to pay their respects to him, and so he called them to him. When that villain went up to him he incontinently drew his dagger and struck Bairam Khan on the back with such force that the point came out at his breast. Another wretch struck him on the head with a sword and finished him. In such a condition did he, fortunate in his end, depart from this world with the words Allah Akbar (God is great) on his lips. He had the bliss of martyrdom which was ever his wish, and for which he asked in his morning prayers and for which he sought the prayers of the men of God. One day, in the very midst of his authority, one of the simple-minded Saiyids said, as he rose up to quit his levee, that he would say the Fatiha with the intention that the Nawab should obtain martyrdom ; Bairam Khan smiled and said, “My good Sir (Mir), why this commotion, and why this regret, we wish for martyrdom, but not in such a hurry.”
376.4.2
In fine, his companions were disconcerted and confused at this and dispersed, and Bairām Khan lay in the dust and in his blood till some faquirs and poor men lifted up his bloody corpse and committed it to earth in the precincts of the tomb of Shaikh Hisām who was one of the great Shaikhs of his time. On the day of Bad 22 Bahman, Divine month, corresponding to Friday 14th Jumada-al-awal 968, 31st January 1561, this catastrophe occurred. Qasim Arslān made the following chronogram:— Verse. When Bairām donned the pilgrim’s dress to visit the K‘aaba His martyrdom by the way fulfilled his object. An invisible angel uttered this chronogram Shahid shud Muhammad Bairám. (Muhammad Bairám became a martyr, 968). Afterwards the body was removed to Mashhad by the exertions of Husain Quli Khan the Khan Jahan and buried there. On the occasion of this strange catastrophe the vagabonds of Pattan plundered Bairam Khan’s camp, and left nothing undone in the way of insolence. The horror of the murder produced great affliction among the people of the deceased. Muhammad Amin Diwana, Babai Zambur and Khwaja Mulk brought away ‘Abdu-r-rahim, Bairam Khan’s heir, and who was then four years old, from the scene of the catastrophe along with his mother and some servants, and went off to Ahmadabad. A crowd of Afghan wretches quickly followed them, and the unfortunate sufferers had to fight the whole of their way through to Ahmadabad.
376.4.3
They stayed there four months, and then Muhammad Amin Diwana and some servants took the proper course and set off for the mankind-protecting court, taking with them ‘Abdu-r-rahim. Before they had kissed the threshold, news of Bairam Khan’s death had reached H.M. the Shahinshah, and a gracious order was issued for the attendance of ‘Abdu-r-rahim. This order reached Jalor at the time of friendlessness and orphanage and was healing for broken hopes. The purport of the order was that he should come to Court and be reared by the Shahinshāh. Several true men such as Babai Zambūr, Yadgar Husain, brought that new fruit of loyalty to Agra in the middle of the sixth divine year, corresponding to the beginning of 969, September 1561, and submitted him to the testing eye of H.M., and exalted him by prostration on the threshold. H.M. the Shahinshah, in spite of evilspeakers and evil-thinkers received that child of lustrous forehead, in the lines of whose brow there were the notes of nobleness and truth, with inborn kindness, and reared him in the shadow of his own supervision. In a short time he was distinguished by the title of Mirzā Khan. Day by day his good manners and nobility of nature revealed themselves, and he attained to lofty eminence. He was raised to the very highest rank, that of Khan-Khanān. An account of this will be given in its proper place.
376.4.4
In the end of this year, beginning in fortune and ending in joy, the cupola of chastity Māham Anaga, who was linked to H.M. the Shāhinshāh by real and ostensible ties, and to whose knowledge and perspicacity the bridle for opening and closing all affairs, political and financial, was, through the blessings of the sublime regard to business, entrusted at this time, formed the design of marrying her elder son Baqi Muhammad Khān. As one daughter of Baqi Khan Baqlani had been married to Adham Khan, she wished that the other daughter should be united to her elder son and that she might prepare a delightful banquet in view of the holy advent (of Akbar). With this design she obtained leave from the sublime Court, and engaged herself in arranging this joy-giving festival. The marriage-feast was adjusted according to the rules of magnificent spirits, and alert and skilful attendants on the sublime threshold applied their arts to the fitting up of the premises and to the disposition of the entertainment. At the petition of this fortunate and approved servant H.M. the Shahinshah in his abundant grace and favour bestowed the light of his presence on that picture-gallery of delight. Every day there was a new arrangement of the festival, and all and sundry partook of excellence and joy. Among the melancholy occurrences of this time was the appearance in H.M. the Shahinshah’s holy person of some obstruction (sahra cand) from pustules.
376.4.5
The sincere loyalists and the superficial cognoscenti were grieved, but it was not hidden from the acute and far-sighted that the great Physician, upon whose will depend health and sickness, and of whose justice and equity, sorrow and joy are the manifestations, doth, for the purposes of prosperity and wisdom, make that servant whom he shall raise to high rank and bring to the garden of eternal joy, and make successful both in temporal and in spiritual matters, subject in the first instance to things repugnant in their nature. The design of this is to increase watchfulness, or to avert the evil eye, so that in recompense therefore he may ascend on the steps of desires and be filled with eternal joy. In accord with this wise design, the equable body of H.M. the Shahinshah became at this time somewhat heated, and his holy temperament declined from the centre of equability. What shall I say of how the hearts of the faithful bled, and how their livers melted? The shopkeeper spirits of business-men became disturbed. After some days some pimples, which were like rue to the disease, came out on the surface of the skin, and Almighty God decreed, as was fitting, the preservation of that great one whom He himself had formed. In a short space of time that commotion died down, and that note of loss was erased, and there was complete health. The sick world became well, and the troubled minds of the good were refreshed.
376.4.6
For the sake of thanksgiving for the Divine bounty, there were gifts and largesses. Want departed from the country of the poor, longing subsided in the hearts of the supplicants. The imperial servants showered gifts in proportion to their condition and loyalty, and were bestowers of joy on mankind.