The Memoirs of Bābur 911.8
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 911.8
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911.8.1
Mullā-zāda Mullā `Us̤mān was another. He was a native of Chīrkh, in the Luhūgur _tūmān_ of the _tūmān_ of Kābul[1127] and was called the Born Mullā (_Mullā-zāda_) because in Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's time he used to give lessons when 14 years old. He went to Herī on his way from Samarkand to make the circuit of the _ka`ba_, was there stopped, and made to remain by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā. He was very learned, the most so of his time. People say he was nearing the rank of Ijtihād[1128] but he did not reach it. It is said of him that he once asked, "How should a person forget a thing heard?" A strong memory he must have had! Mīr Jamālu'd-dīn the Traditionalist[1129] was another. He had no equal in Khurāsān for knowledge of the Muḥammadan Traditions. He was advanced in years and is still alive (934 to 937 AH.). Mīr Murtāẓ was another. He was well-versed in the sciences [Sidenote: Fol. 178b.] of philosophy and metaphysics; he was called _murtāẓ_ (ascetic) because he fasted a great deal. He was madly fond of chess, so much so that if he had met two players, he would hold one by the skirt while he played his game out with the other, as much as to say, "Don't go!" Mīr Mas`ūd of Sherwān was another.[1130]
911.8.2
Mīr `Abdu'l-ghafūr of Lār was another. Disciple and pupil both of Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_, he had read aloud most of the Mullā's poems (_mas̤nawī_) in his presence, and wrote a plain exposition of the _Nafaḥāt_.[1131] He had good acquaintance with the exoteric sciences, and in the esoteric ones also was very successful. He was a curiously casual and unceremonious person; no person styled Mullā by any-one soever was debarred from submitting a (Qorān) chapter to him for exposition; moreover whatever the place in which he heard there was a darwīsh, he had no rest till he had reached that darwīsh's presence. He was ill when I was in Khurāsān (912 AH.); I went to enquire for him where he lay in the Mullā's College,[1132] after I had made the circuit of the Mullā's tomb. He died a few days later, of that same illness. Mīr `Atā'u'l-lāh of Mashhad was another.[1133] He knew the Arabian sciences well and also wrote a Persian treatise on rhyme. That treatise is well-done but it has the defect that he brings into it, as his examples, couplets of his own and, assuming them [Sidenote: Fol. 179.] to be correct, prefixes to each, "As must be observed in the following couplet by your slave" (_banda_). Several rivals of his find deserved comment in this treatise. He wrote another on the curiosities of verse, entitled _Badāi`u's-sanāi_; a very well-written treatise. He may have swerved from the Faith.
911.8.3
Qāẓī Ikhtiyār was another. He was an excellent Qāẓī and wrote a treatise in Persian on Jurisprudence, an admirable treatise; he also, in order to give elucidation (_iqtibās_), made a collection of homonymous verses from the Qorān. He came with Muḥammad-i-yūsuf to see me at the time I met the Mīrzās on the Murgh-āb (912 AH.). Talk turning on the Bāburī script,[1134] he asked me about it, letter by letter; I wrote it out, letter by letter; he went through it, letter by letter, and having learned its plan, wrote something in it there and then. Mīr Muḥammad-i-yūsuf was another; he was a pupil of the Shaikhu'l-islām[1135] and afterwards was advanced to his place. In some assemblies he, in others, Qāẓī Ikhtiyār took the higher place. Towards the end of his life he was so infatuated with soldiering and military command, that except of those two tasks, what could be learned from his conversation? what known from his pen? Though he failed in both, those two ambitions ended by giving to the winds his goods and his life, his house and his home. He may have been a Shī`a. (_k. The Poets._) [Sidenote: Fol. 179b.] The all-surpassing head of the poet-band was Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_. Others were Shaikhīm Suhailī and Ḥasan of `Alī _Jalāīr_[1136] whose names have been mentioned already as in the circle of the Mīrzā's begs and household.
911.8.4
Āṣafī was another,[1137] he taking Āṣafī for his pen-name because he was a wazīr's son. His verse does not want for grace or sentiment, but has no merit through passion and ecstacy. He himself made the claim, "I have never packed up (_būlmādī_) my odes to make the oasis (_wādī_) of a collection."[1138] This was affectation, his younger brothers and his intimates having collected his odes. He wrote little else but odes. He waited on me when I went into Khurāsān (912 AH.). Banā'i was another; he was a native of Herī and took such a pen-name (Banā'i) on account of his father Ustād Muḥammad _Sabz-banā_.[1139] His odes have grace and ecstacy. One poem (_mas̤nawī_) of his on the topic of fruits, is in the _mutaqārib_ measure;[1140] it is random and not worked up. Another short poem is in the _khafīf_ measure, so also is a longer one finished towards the end of his life. He will have known nothing of music in his young days and `Alī-sher Beg seems to have taunted him about it, so one winter when the Mīrzā, taking `Alī-sher Beg with him, went to winter in Merv, Banā'i stayed behind in Herī and so applied himself to study music that before the heats he had composed several works. These he played and sang, airs with variations, when the Mīrzā came back to Herī in the heats. [Sidenote: Fol. 180.] All amazed, `Alī-sher Beg praised him. His musical compositions are perfect;
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one was an air known as _Nuh-rang_ (Nine modulations), and having both the theme (_tūkānash_) and the variation (_yīla_) on the note called _rāst_(?). Banā'i was `Alī-sher Beg's rival; it will have been on this account he was so much ill-treated. When at last he could bear it no longer, he went into Aẕarbāījān and `Irāq to the presence of Ya'qūb Beg; he did not remain however in those parts after Ya`qūb Beg's death (896 AH.-1491 AD.) but went back to Herī, just the same with his jokes and retorts. Here is one of them:—`Alī-sher at a chess-party in stretching his leg touched Banā'i on the hinder-parts and said jestingly, "It is the sad nuisance of Herī that a man can't stretch his leg without its touching a poet's backside." "Nor draw it up again," retorted Banā'i.[1141] In the end the upshot of his jesting was that he had to leave Herī again; he went then to Samarkand.[1142] A great many good new things used to be made for `Alī-sher Beg, so whenever any-one produced a novelty, he called it `Alī-sher's in order to give it credit and vogue.[1143] Some things were called after him in compliment _e.g._ because when he had ear-ache, he wrapped his head up in one of the blue triangular kerchiefs women tie over their heads in winter, that kerchief was called `Alī-sher's comforter. Then again, Banā'i when he had decided to leave Herī, ordered a quite new kind of pad for his ass and [Sidenote: Fol. 180b.] dubbed it `Alī-sher's.
911.8.6
Maulānā Saifī of Bukhārā was another;[1144] he was a Mullā complete[1145] who in proof of his mullā-ship used to give a list of the books he had read. He put two _dīwāns_ together, one being for the use of tradesmen (_ḥarfa-kar_), and he also wrote many fables. That he wrote no _mas̤nawī_ is shewn by the following quatrain:— Though the _mas̤nawī_ be the orthodox verse, _I_ know the ode has Divine command; Five couplets that charm the heart _I_ know to outmatch the Two Quintets.[1146] A Persian prosody he wrote is at once brief and prolix, brief in the sense of omitting things that should be included, and prolix in the sense that plain and simple matters are detailed down to the diacritical points, down even to their Arabic points.[1147] He is said to have been a great drinker, a bad drinker, and a mightily strong-fisted man. `Abdu'l-lāh the _mas̤nawī_-writer was another.[1148] He was from Jām and was the Mullā's sister's son. Hātifī was his pen-name. He wrote poems (_mas̤nawī_) in emulation of the Two Quintets,[1149] and called them _Haft-manẕar_ (Seven-faces) in imitation of the _Haft-paikar_ (Seven-faces). In emulation of the _Sikandar-nāma_ he composed the _Tīmūr-nāma_. His most renowned _mas̤nawī_ is _Laila and Majnūn_, but its reputation is greater than its charm.
911.8.7
Mīr Ḥusain the Enigmatist[1150] was another. He seems to have had no equal in making riddles, to have given his whole time to it, and to have been a curiously humble, disconsolate (_nā-murād_) [Sidenote: Fol. 181.] and harmless (_bī-bad_) person. Mīr Muḥammad _Badakhshī_ of Ishkīmīsh was another. As Ishkīmīsh is not in Badakhshān, it is odd he should have made it his pen-name. His verse does not rank with that of the poets previously mentioned,[1151] and though he wrote a treatise on riddles, his riddles are not first-rate. He was a very pleasant companion; he waited on me in Samarkand (917 AH.).