The Nāṣirī Generations 258.2.4

258.2.4

and, when he reached the Masjid-i-Jami’, or Friday’s Masjid, beheld a great and lofty building, towards which he urged forward his horse, and rode into it, with his son, even up to the most sacred place within it—the Safrah-i-Maksurah: the place where the Imam stands when officiating—and inquired: “Is this the Sultan’s palace?” They replied: “This is the house of God.” He then dismounted from his horse, certainly not out of respect, mounted two or three steps of the pulpit, and sat down [Alfi says, Tuli ascended to the pulpit] and [according to Sharaf-ud-Din, ’Ali,] commanded his troops, saying: “There is no forage in the plain by means of which they [the people] may satiate the horses, [see ye to it].” The Fanakati, Fasih, Alfi, and others, however, relate more circumstantially, that he said to those present: “The plain [or open country outside] is destitute of grass: it behoveth that ye fill the bellies of my horses,” and, on this, they opened the granaries [of the city], and brought forth grain. The Mughals then drew their horses into the Masjid, and made the chests, in which the sections of the Kur’an—which is generally in thirty sections of sixteen pages each—and other religious books were kept, troughs for their horses to feed out of, while the books were trodden under foot;