The Nāṣirī Generations 149.2.1

149.2.1

The chronicler states that, during these seven days, the air, from the blackness of the smoke, continued as black as night; and those nights, from the flames raging in the burning city, were lighted up as light as day. During these seven days, likewise, rapine, plunder, and massacre were carried on with the utmost pertinacity and vindictiveness. All the men that were found were killed, and the women and children were made captive. 'Ala-ud-Din commanded that the whole of the [remains of the] Mahmudi Sultans should be exhumed from their graves and burnt, except those of Sultan Mahmud, the Ghazi, Sultan Mas’ud, and Sultan Ibrahim; and, during the whole of these seven days, ’Ala-ud-Din gave himself up to wine and carousal within the palaces of the Sultans of Ghaznin. During this time he gave directions so that the tomb of Sultan Saif-ud-Din, Suri, and the mausoleum of the Malik-ul-Jibal [Kutb-ud-Din, Muhammad], were sought out, and coffins prepared; and caused preparations to be made for putting his whole army into mourning. When the eighth night came round, and the city had become entirely desolated and consumed, and its inhabitants massacred, Sultan ’Ala-ud-Din, on that night, improvised several strophes eulogistic of himself, and gave them to the minstrels, with directions to sing them accompanied by their changs and chighanahs before him; and the lines, which are appropriate, are as follows:—