The Nāṣirī Generations 258.6.6

258.6.6

Abu-l-Ghazi, Bahadur’s history has I-lan, but in the Tarikh-i-Alfi this place is, invariably, styled the fortress of Lar-jan—and it is also stated that it was on a mountain in Tabaristan, which, in after times, was noted for a spring, the drops of water from which petrified. The same authority states that Yamah [as in our author, and the Jabah of others] detached a Mughal-leader named Suntae with a force to invest it. No one could call to recollection the time when that stronghold ever wanted for water, for cisterns had been constructed previously, capable of containing such a quantity of water that if no rain fell for years, when they were once filled, there would have been no want of it. It seemed, however, as though Providence was against the Khwarazmis and Musalmans in general, for, in fifteen days after the investment began, there was scarcely any water remaining, and no rain fell—an unusual event in that district—from the time the Mughals invested it. Consequently, the Sultan’s mother, Turkan Khatun, and the Wazir, Nasir-ud-Din, who was there also, were compelled to come down, and surrender. Almost at the moment of their reaching the foot of the walls the rain began to fall, and continued to pour, in such wise, that the water flowed out under the portals of the fortress!