The Book of Akbar 98: CHAPTER XV. · Her Majesty Alanquwa, the cupola of chastity and veil of purity.
The Akbarnama (H. Beveridge), vols. I–II 98
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- English
CHAPTER XV. · Her Majesty Alanquwa, the cupola of chastity and veil of purity.
98.1
Whatever, God, the wondrous Creator, brings forth from the hidden places of secrecy to the light of manifestation, is attended by extraordinary circumstances. But the sons of men fail to perceive these, from the heedlessness which has its props and foundation in fulness of life and the wrappage of worldliness. Were it not so, man would be ever standing at gaze and not applying himself to action. Hence the world-adorning Initiator hides most of the wonders of His power from the sight of mortals, but lest they should be entirely shut out from the extraordinary spectacle of the Divine decrees, He raises this veil from before a few of the holy hiding places of His secrets. And again, after much seeing, a heedlessness which fate has made a constituent of their natures, causes this very sight to become a screen against perception. And again after that, the universal benevolence of the Deity, for a thousand diverse purposes—one being the instruction of the minds of negligent mortals,—brings forth a new creation, and raising the veils and curtains somewhat, displays a wondrous picture.
98.2
The extraordinary story of her Majesty is a case in point. She was the happy-starred daughter (dukhtar-i-qudsī-akhtar) of Jūbna Bahādur of the Qiyāt tribe and Barlās family. Her physical and mental beauty went on increasing from her earliest years, until by loftiness of thought and sublimity of genius, she became the Unique of the Age, and by acknowledgment of friends and foes, relatives and strangers, was magnanimous, pious, and a lover of wisdom. The lights of theosophy shone from her countenance, the Divine secrets were manifested on her forehead. She sat secluded behind the screen of chastity and abode in the privy chamber of meditation on the Unity, was a theatre of holy epiphanies and an alighting-stage of Divine emanations. When she arrived at maturity, she was, according to the custom of princes and the practice of great ones of Church and State, given in marriage to Ziibun Biyan, king of Mughūlistan and her own cousin and (thus) they joined that unique pearl of purity with a temporal ruler. As he was not her match, he hastened to annihilation and her Majesty Alanquwa who was the repose (āsāyish) of the spiritual world, became likewise the ornament (ārāyish) of the temporal world and, applying herself of necessity to outward acts, she became the sovereign of her tribe (ūlūs).
98.3
One night this divinely radiant one was reposing on her bed, when suddenly a glorious light cast a ray into the tent and entered the mouth and throat of that fount of spiritual knowledge and glory. The cupola of chastity became pregnant by that light in the same way as did her Majesty (Hazrat) Miryam (Mary) the daughter of 'Imran (Amram).
98.4
Praised be the God who maintained holy human souls from Adam down to this child of light, in prosperity and adversity, abundance and want, victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, and other contrasted conditions, one after another, and made them partakers of emanations of the holy light. Before this holy light made its fortunate alighting from high heaven, Qiyan was withdrawn from the associations of climates and cities and supported in a solitary wilderness, and many ancestors were given to her (Alanquwa), generation after generation, for two thousand years in these Highlands (Kohistan), thereby purifying her and familiarizing her with the land of holiness and converting the human element into a collection of all degrees, Divine and earthly. When the spiritual preparation was complete, Yulduz Khan was brought—for the ends of Divine wisdom—from the mountains to the city, and seated on a throne, till the turn of the holy series reached her Majesty Alanquwa and that divine light, after passing without human instrumentality, through many eminent saints and sovereigns, displayed itself gloriously in the external world. That day (viz., of Alanquwa's conception) was the beginning of the manifestation of his Majesty, the king of kings, who after passing through divers stages was revealed to the world from the holy womb of her Majesty Miryam-makani for the accomplishment of things visible and invisible.
98.5
It needs a Plato of abstract thought to comprehend the saying "The Lord of Time (zaman) remains behind the veil whilst Time's products (zamaniyan), i.e., mortals, rend it with outward sorrow and inward anguish." But now returning to the beginning of the story, I repeat that the holy abode of that cupola of chastity was continually at auspicious times and seasons, made resplendent by the brilliance of that light and from time to time, her moral and material nature brightened by its effulgence. Those who by a soaring flight on the wings of genius, have passed beyond the worship of materiality and can behold the Causer, do not think occurrences like this strange or wonderful in the wide domain of Divine power, and the incredulity of worshippers of routine and superficiality is of no weight in their esteem. As for those who have remained among secondary causes and have not advanced their foot further and cannot, by auspicious guidance, forego superficial computations, they too do not abide by their first principles, (i.e., are not consistent). For instance they admit there was a child without father or mother, viz., the first man or Adam, and they accept a child without a mother, whom they call Eve. Why then not admit a child without a father? Especially when they are fully assured of such an occurrence in the case of Jesus and Mary.