The Memoirs of Bābur 933.4.5

933.4.5

Our motive for these remarks and for repeating these statements is that, by reason of human frailty, of the customs of kings and of the great, all of us, from the Shāh to the sipāhī, in the heyday of our youth, have transgressed and done what we ought not to have done. After some days of sorrow and repentance, we abandoned evil practices one by one, and the gates of retrogression became closed. But the renunciation of wine, the greatest and most indispensable of renunciations, remained under a veil in the chamber of deeds _pledged to appear in due season_, and did not show its countenance until the glorious hour when we had put on the garb of the holy warrior and had encamped with the army of Islām over against the infidels in order to slay them. On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say "_Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of God, and that truth which hath been revealed?_"[2026] Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness, and we earnestly knocked at the gates of repentance. The Guide of Help assisted us, according to the saying "_Whoever knocks and re-knocks, to him it will be opened_", and an order was given that with the Holy War there should [Sidenote: Fol. 313b.] begin the still greater war which has to be waged against sensuality.