The Book of Akbar 9.4

9.4

Sharif Khan related that when his brother Shamsu-d-din Muhammad Khan Atga was in Ghazni, in the 22nd year of his age, he dreamt he saw the moon come into his arms. He related the fact to his venerable father Mir Yar Muhammad Ghaznavi who was a spiritually-minded householder, and the latter rejoiced at the happy appearance of the auspicious circumstance and interpreted it to mean that God would, one day, bestow a great privilege upon him which would be the means of exalting their family. And so it turned out, for by the blessings of that full Moon of glory of the heaven (Akbar) the family was raised from the nadir of the dust to the zenith of heaven. Another circumstance was communicated by religious, right-thinking persons, viz. that when her Highness Miryam Makani—may the shadows of her glory be eternal—was pregnant with the holy elements of his Majesty, a strange light was perceptible from her bright brows. Often her divine countenance had to observers, the appearance of mirrors such as are fastened by tirewomen near the temples of secluded chaste ones. And the star of fortune sang this strain with the tongue of ecstasy. Verse. I placed the clouded brow on the path of fortune, I hung a thousand mirrors on the forehead.