The Nāṣirī Generations 152.3
Tabakat-i-Nasiri 152.3
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152.3.1
When they [the envoys] had discharged the purport of their mission, Sultan Mu’izz-ud-Din did not become agreeable to the proposed union, and hostility arose. As the Almighty God had ordained that the whole of the dominions of Iran should fall under the sway of Muhammad, Khwarazm Shah, he, upon several occasions, towards the close of Ghiyas-ud-Din’s life, retired discomfited before the forces of Ghur and Ghaznin, and, at last, those Sultans died before him. Upon several occasions rich dresses of honour from the Court of the Khilafat, from the Lord of the Faithful, Al- Mustazi B’illah, and from the Lord of the Faithful, Un-Nasir-ud-Din Ullah, reached the Court of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din. On the first occasion, Ibn-ur-Rabbi' came; and the Kazi, Majd-ud-Din, [styled] the Model, went along with him to the Court of the Khilafat, and, on the second occasion, Ibn-ul-Khatib came; and the father of this their servant, Maulana Saraj-ud-Din, son of Minhaj-i-Saraj, he [the Sultan] nominated to proceed along with him to the Court of the Khilafat. On the arrival of the honorary dress from the Court of Un-Nasir-ud-Din Ullah, the imperial five times a day was assumed by the Sultan. His dominions became wide and extended, and from the east [eastern extremity] of Hindustan, from the frontier of Chin and Ma-Chin, as far as ’Irak, and from the river Jihun and Khurasan to the sea-shore of Hurmuz, the Khutbah was adorned by his auspicious name. He reigned for a period of forty-three years.
152.3.2
His bounty and benefactions, bestowed upon the meritorious, the learned, the recluse, and the devout, reached to the extremes of the empire of Islam, from the east to the west, to ’Arab and to ’Ajam, to Turkistan and to Hind; and the names of all those meriting his bounty and charity were recorded in his civil courts and record offices. His life extended to a period of sixty-three years; and the removal of this great monarch from this transitory sphere to the eternal habitation took place at the city of Hirat, on Wednesday, the 27th of the sacred month of Jamadi-ul-Awwal, 599 H. His mausoleum was raised by the side of the Jami’ Masjid of Hirat. The mercy of the Almighty be upon him! The Most High God had adorned the incomparable nature of the victorious Sultan, Ghiyas-ud-Din, Muhammad-i-Sam, with divers virtues and endowments, both outward and inward; and his Court was graced with learned doctors of religion and law ecclesiastical, accomplished scholars, illustrious philosophers, and the celebrated in eloquence; and his magnificent Court had become the asylum of the world, and the retreat of the worthy and laudable persons of the earth. Chiefs of the [holders of] religious tenets of every sect were there gathered together, incomparable poets were there present, and masters in the art of poetry and prose were entertained in the service of his sublime Court.
152.3.3
At the outset of the career of those sovereigns [Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din and Mu’izz-ud-Din], both the brothers followed the tenets of the Kirami sect, in imitation of their ancestors and [the people of] their dominions; but Sultan Mu’izz-ud-Din, Muhammad-i-Sam, the younger brother, when he ascended the Ghaznin throne, the people of that city and territory being followers of the tenets of the Great Imam, Abu Hanifah of Kufa, in conformity with them, adopted the doctrines of Abu Hanifah. Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din, however, saw, whilst in a dream, that he was used to be in the same masjid along with the illustrious Kazi, Wahid-ud-Din, Marwazi, who followed the religious doctrines of the Traditionists, and who was one of the leaders of the Shafi’i sect. Unexpectedly, Imam Shafi himself enters, and proceeds to the Mihrab and begins to repeat the prayers; and Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din, and Kazi Wahid-ud-Din, both of them follow Imam Shafi in so doing.
152.3.4
On awakening from his dream, the Sultan commanded, so that, at break of day, Kazi Wahid-ud-Din was requested to deliver a discourse. When he occupied the seat of the pulpit, he remarked, during the discourse, saying, “Sovereign of Islam! this your servant hath during the past night dreamt a dream,” and he related the very same dream that the Sultan had himself dreamt, for he had had one like it; whereupon, when the Kazi descended from the chair, and went up to make his obeisance to the Sultan, the latter seized the blessed hand of Kazi, Wahid-ud-Din, and adopted the tenets of Imam Shafi'i. When the withdrawal of the Sultan to the sect of the Traditionists became divulged, a load came upon the hearts of the ’Ulama of the sect of Muhammad-i-Kiram [the Kiramis]. Of this body, the great ecclesiastics were numerous; but, at that time, the most eloquent among them all was Imam, Sadr-ud-Din, ’Ali, Haisam, the Nishapuri, who was resident at, and the head of the college of the city of Afshin of Gharjistan. He composed a strophe on the Sultan, and in it censured his withdrawal from the sect; and, when that strophe came to the Sultan’s knowledge, his sacred mind became much irritated with him, and Imam Sadr-ud-Din found it impossible to continue to dwell within the dominions of Ghur. The strophe is this: — [This polemical squib is of some length, and varies more or less in almost every copy, is of no particular interest, and need scarcely be translated.]
152.3.5
Imam Sadr-ud-Din, on this account, removed out of the territory of Ghur, and proceeded to Nishapur, and there he remained for the space of a year; after which he despatched [another] strophe to the presence of the Sultan, so that he was sent for to come back again, and a robe of honour was despatched; and he returned to the Court from Nishapur again. Strophe: — [These lines have also been left out for the reasons previously given. As may be imagined, they are as full of fulsome adulation as the first were of aspersion.]
152.3.6
Trustworthy persons have thus related, that Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din, in his early youth, was greatly addicted to conviviality, and fond of the sports of the field; and from the capital city, Firuz-koh, which was the seat of government, as far as the Zamin [district] and town of Dawar, which was the winter capital, not a human being dared to pursue the chase. Between these two cities [towns] is a distance of forty leagues, and he [the Sultan] had commanded that a pillar should be erected at each league of distance; and in Zamin-i-Dawar he had laid out a garden, and he had given it the name of Garden of Iram; and certainly, for pleasantness and freshness, no such garden had ever been seen in the whole world, nor did any monarch possess the like of it. The length of this garden was more than sufficient for two courses of a horse, and the whole of its glades were adorned with pine and juniper-trees, and various sorts of shrubs and odoriferous herbs; and the Sultan had commanded, so that, adjoining the wall of that garden, a plain had been cleared corresponding in length and breadth with the garden itself.
152.3.7
Once every year he used to give directions, so that for a distance of fifty or sixty leagues or more, a nargah [semicircle] of huntsmen would be drawn out; and it would require the space of a whole month for the two extremities of this semicircle of huntsmen to close up. More than ten thousand wild beasts and animals of the chase, of all species and descriptions, used to be driven into that plain; and, on the days of chase the Sultan was in the habit of coming out on the pavilion of the garden, and holding a convivial entertainment; and his slaves, his Maliks, and the servants of the Court, one by one, with the royal permission, would mount on horseback and enter the plain, and chase and kill the game in the Sultan's august sight Upon one occasion he was desirous of entering the plain and enjoying the sport, upon which Fakhr-ud-Din, Mubarak Shah, got upon his feet, and repeated a quatrain. The Sultan retracted his intention, and devoted himself to enjoyment The following is the quatrain in question:— “To follow the wine, the beloved, and enjoyment, Will be better than that thou shouldst pursue the chase. When the gazelle of paradise is within thy net, Of what use that thou shouldst follow the mountain goat?”
152.3.8
Trustworthy persons have related that, when Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din forswore wine, and devoted himself to rectitude and goodness, at the period that Sultan Shah, Khwarazm Shah brought the forces of Khita against Khurasan, and made Marw his capital, the latter began to harry the border-tracts of the territory of Ghur, and brought his troops to the Dahanah-i-Sher—the Lion's Jaws—[Pass] of Sarakhs, and despatched an emissary to the presence of the Sultan, Ghiyas-ud-Din, and preferred certain requests of his own to him. The Sultan commanded that an entertainment should be prepared to do honour to the envoy, and a gay party was brought together. Wine was circulated among the Maliks and Amirs of Ghur, and the envoy was treated with great honour; and he was plied with wine, in order that, when in a state of inebriety, the disposition of Sultan Shah might be discovered from his emissary. For the Sultan’s own drinking, sweet pomegranate juice was poured into a flask, and, when it came to the Sultan’s turn to pledge, they would fill his goblet with that pomegranate juice, and would present it to him. When the envoy of Sultan Shah became excited from the effects of the wine, he rose to his knees, and requested a minstrel to sing the following quatrain, which he accordingly did:—
152.3.9
“Of that lion whose abode is within the Lion’s Jaws, The lions of the universe are in great affright. Thou shouldst, O lion, from ‘The Jaws’ show thy teeth, Since these are [as though] in ‘The Lion’s Jaws’ from terror.” When the envoy called for this verse, and the minstrel sang it, Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din’s colour changed, and the Maliks of Ghur became much agitated. Khwajah Safi-ud-Din, Mahmud, one of the most distinguished of the Wazirs of his Court, and who was a miracle of wit and address, and endowed with a forcible poetic genius, and composed excellent poetry, arose to his feet, and, looking on the ground, in reply to the envoy, called on the minstrel for this verse:— “On that day when we shall raise the standard of hostility, And shall take in hand the enemy of the territory of the world, Should any lion from ‘The Jaws’ [dare] show his teeth, We, with our mace, will crush his teeth within ‘The Jaws.’”
152.3.10
Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din was greatly pleased at this, and bestowed a liberal present upon the Khwajah, and honoured him with honorary dresses of great value; and the whole of the Maliks commended him. The Almighty have mercy upon the whole of them! and may He keep the Sultan of Islam, the sovereign of the seven climes, the great king of kings, the lord over all the rulers of Turk, ’Arab, and ’Ajam, the defender of the world and of the faith, the glory of Islam and of the Faithful, the aider of kings and emperors, the protector of the dominions of the Almighty, the pastor of the servants of God, the aided by Heaven, the victorious over the greatest of all species, the place of safety to the orthodox, the heir of the dominions of Suliman, Abu-l-Muzaffar-i-Mahmud, son of the Sultan [I-yal-timish], the Kasim [the co-sharer] of the Lord of the Faithful, in sovereignty and dominion for years unending, permanent and lasting, for the sake of His Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace abundantly abundant! Titles and Names of the Sultan — Offspring, Sultan-ul-A'zam, Ghiyas-ud-Din, Mahmud. Malikah-ul-Mu'azzamah, Jalal-ud-Dunya wa-ud-Din. Length of his reign Forty-three years. Summer capital The City of Firuz-koh of Ghur. Winter capital: — The district of Dawar. Kazis of his Court, Kazi-ul-Kuzat [Chief Kazi], Mu'izz-ud-Din, Harawi Kazi Shihab-ud-Din, Harmawadi Wazirs of the Kingdom, Shams-ul-Mulk, 'Abd-ul-Jabbar, Kidani. Fakhr-ul-Mulk, Sharaf-ud-Din, Wadan.
152.3.11
’Ain-ul-Mulk, Surani [or Suriani]. Zahir-ul-Mulk, ’Abd-ullah, Sanjari. Jalal-ud-Din, Diw-Shari [or Diw-Shahi]. Majd-ul-Mulk, Khwajah Safi-ud-Din.