The History of Fīrūz Shāh (Baranī) 1.3

1.3

The sons of the late Sultán did not bear themselves like princes, and were unfitted for the duties of royalty, which, saving only those of the prophetic office, are the highest and most important in the world. Under the influence of these Turk Slaves all the great men, and the sons of those great men who had been maliks and wazírs, were upon some pretence or other set aside, and after their removal the Shamsí Slaves became the leading men of the State, and acquired the dignity of Khán. * * * These Shamsí slaves had been fellow slaves, and when they became all at once great and powerful, no one would give precedence or acknowledge inferiority to another. In possessions and display, in grandeur and dignity, they vied with each other, and in their proud vaunts and boasts every one exclaimed to the other, "What art thou that I am not, and what wilt thou be that I shall not be?" The incompetence of the sons of Shamsu-d dín, and the arrogance of the Shamsí slaves, thus brought into contempt that throne which had been among the most dignified and exalted in the world.