The Nāṣirī Generations 157.1

157.1

Malik ’Ala-ud-Din, Muhammad, was the son of Malik Shuja’-ud-Din, Abi-’Ali, and he was the uncle’s son of both the Sultans, Ghiyas-ud-Din and Mu’izz-ud-Din, and was older than either of the brothers. He had performed the pilgrimage, as well as fought against infidels; and, in addressing him, they [the Sultans] used to style him Khudawand [my Lord]. The daughter of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din, who was named Mah Malik [Malikah], and styled by the title of Jalal-ud-Dunya wa-ud-Din, whose mother was the daughter of Sultan ’Ala-ud-Din, Jahan-soz, was married to Malik ’Ala-ud-Din. That daughter was a highly dignified princess, and knew the sacred Kur’an by heart, and she had also committed to memory the Akhbar-i-Shihabi [the Shihabi traditions], and her handwriting was as pearls befitting a king. Once every year she was in the habit of performing a prayer of two genuflexions, during which she would repeat the whole Kur’an from beginning to end. The cause of her passing from the world a maid was this, that, before he was joined in wedlock to her, Malik ’Ala-ud-Din, Muhammad, possessed a Turkish hand-maid, who was the mother of his son [Rukn-ud-Din]; but he had contracted marriage with her, and was not capable of consummating his marriage with this princess. In beauty, purity, and self-restraint, she had no equal in the whole world.