مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 2

English (machine translation) 2

Language: English

This is a kingdom of great importance; no other kingdom on earth can be compared with it, because of the vastness of its territories, the abundance of its wealth and armies, and the splendour of its Sultan when he rides out and when he halts, and in the seat [1] of his rule; its renown and reputation are sufficient [testimony]. I used to hear, from widespread reports and from composed books, things that filled the eye and the ear, yet I could not ascertain the truth of its reports because of its distance from us and the remoteness of its lands from us. When I began composing this book and sought out trustworthy informants, I found more than I used to hear and greater than I used to suppose. Consider a land in whose sea are pearls, in whose soil is gold, in whose mountains are rubies and diamonds, in whose ravines are aloeswood [2] and camphor [3], in whose cities are the thrones of kings, among whose wild beasts are the elephant and the rhinoceros [4], from whose iron come the swords of India, in which are mines of iron, mercury and lead, among whose growing places is that of saffron [5], and in some of whose valleys is crystal. Its good things are plentiful, its prices low, its armies beyond counting,

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and its realms beyond bounding. Its people possess wisdom and abundant intelligence; they are the nations most in control of their appetites, and the most ready to sacrifice their lives for whatever they think will bring them near [to God].

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Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Uqlīshī al-Gharnāṭī [1] said in Tuḥfat al-albāb [2]:

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Great kingship, great justice, abundant prosperity, good government, lasting plenty, and security without fear are in the lands of India and China. The people of India are the most learned of men in the kinds of wisdom, medicine, geometry and wondrous crafts that cannot be attained [by others]. In their mountains and islands grow the aloeswood tree and camphor and all kinds of aromatics, such as clove, nutmeg [3], spikenard [4], Chinese cinnamon [5], cinnamon and cassia bark [6],

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cardamom [1], cubeb [2], mace [3] and kinds of drugs (Manuscript p. 10). They have the musk deer and the civet cat, and from their lands come kinds of rubies, most of them from the island of Sarandīb [4].

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Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih [5] related in al-ʿIqd [6] from Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, who said: The king of India sent ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [7] a letter in which [was written]: "From the king of kings, who is the son of a thousand kings, whose throne [8] is the house of a thousand kings, in whose stable are a thousand elephants, and who has two rivers that grow aloeswood, costus [9], nutmeg and camphor, whose scent is perceived at twelve miles, to the king of the Arabs, who associates nothing with God. To proceed: I have sent a gift, and it is not a gift

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but a greeting. I would like you to send me a man to teach me and make me understand Islam and peace." By "the gift" he meant the letter.

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The learned, blessed shaykh, the remnant of the noble forebears, Mubārak b. Maḥmūd al-Anbāʾī, a descendant of Majdshāh, told me that Ḥājib Khāṣṣī [1] — may God grant benefit through his blessings, he being trustworthy and reliable, and acquainted with all that he relates because of his standing and that of his forebears among the kings of these lands — said: This kingdom is extremely vast. Its length is three [2] years [of travel], and its breadth from Sūmanāt [3] and Sarandīb [4] to Ghazna, and its length from the plain facing Aden to the Barrier of Alexander, where the Indian Sea issues from the Encircling Ocean [5]. Its cities, with their pulpits and thrones, its districts, villages, estates, rural districts [6] and markets, are contiguous, with no wasteland cutting them off or separating them.

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I say: what he mentioned of this distance in length and breadth is open to question, since the whole inhabited world does not amount to such a distance — unless he meant that this is the distance travelled by one who moves about in it until he has covered all of it, in which case it may be accepted with its reservations.

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He said: Under the obedience of this Sultan are the people of Qarājil [1]; they have from him a truce and safe-conduct in return for tributes conveyed to him from them, from which wealth accrues. This mountain of Qarājil has gold mines, from which countless [gold] is obtained. All these lands, by land and sea, are united [2] under their present Sultan, except the islands far out in the sea. As for the coast, not a span's breadth [3] remains that is not in his hand; he opened its locked places (Manuscript p. 11) and took possession of its strongholds. He now has the coinage [4] and the Friday sermon (khuṭba) throughout all these lands, with no partner sharing them with him.

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He said: I was present with him at great conquests, which I relate from direct eyewitness, in summary and not in detail, for fear of lengthening the account. The first he conquered was the kingdom of Tilang, which has extensive lands and many villages; the number of its villages is nine hundred thousand nine hundred villages. Then

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he conquered the lands of Jājnagar, which has seventy great villages, all of them ports on the sea [1], from which he obtained jewels, elephants, assorted fabrics, perfumes and spices. Then he conquered the lands of Lakhnawtī [2], which is the seat [3] of nine [4] kings. Then he conquered the lands of Dawākīr, which has eighty-four fortresses, all of great importance.

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Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn Ibn al-Khallāl al-Bazzī [5] said: It has one million two hundred thousand villages.

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We return to the account of Shaykh Mubārak. Shaykh Mubārak said: Then he conquered the lands of Samund, where were Sultan Balāl al-Dīwā and five infidel kings [6]. Then he conquered the lands of al-Maʿbar [7], which is a great province with ninety cities, ports on the sea, from whose revenue come perfumes, fine cloth (lānis), assorted fabrics and rarities from distant lands.

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And the learned jurist Sirāj al-Dīn Abū al-Ṣafāʾ ʿUmar b. Isḥāq b. Aḥmad told me

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al-Shiblī al-ʿAwaḍī, from the province of ʿAwaḍ in India — he is one of the eminent jurists who attend the presence of the Sultan at Delhi — told me that the principal provinces in the kingdom of this Sultan are twenty-three, namely: the province of Delhi, the province of Dawākīr, the province of Multān, the province of Kahrān, the province of Sāmānā, the province of Sīwistān, the province of Wajā, the province of Hāsī, the province of Sarastī, the province of al-Maʿbar, the province of Tilang, the province of Gujarāt, the province of Badawān, the province of ʿAwaḍ, the province of Qannawj, the province of Lakhnawtī, the province of Bihār, the province of Karah, the province of Mālwa, the province of Nahāwar, the province of Kalānūr, the province of Jājnagar, the province of Tilanj, and the province of Dhūr Samund. These provinces comprise one thousand two hundred cities, all of them cities with buildings (manuscript 12), large or small, for all of them have districts and flourishing, populous villages. I do not know the number of their villages; I only know that the province of Qannawj has one hundred and twenty lakhs, each lakh being a hundred thousand villages, which makes twelve million villages; and the province of

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Tilang has thirty-six lakhs, which makes three million six hundred thousand villages. The province of Mālwa is larger than Qannawj, but I have not ascertained its number. As for al-Maʿbar, it comprises several large islands, each of them a splendid kingdom, such as Kawlam, Fattan, al-Saylān and Malībār.

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Shaykh Mubārak said: Lakhnawtī has two hundred thousand boats, small and light for travel; if an archer shoots an arrow from the stern of one, it lands in the middle of it because of the speed of its course. This is apart from the large ones, which do not reach even part of this number; some of them contain mills, ovens and markets, and sometimes some of their inhabitants do not come to know one another until after a time, because of their size and magnitude. I have extracted precisely from the Geography its length, which is from al-Wāq Wāq to opposite Aden, and its breadth from Sarandīb to Bawārū, which lies west of Qaraqorum. I state it in a more extended and clearer expression for whoever examines the map-plate in the complete Geography, and we say: its length is from the outlet of the Indian Sea from the Encircling Ocean at the end of China in the east, short of the Island of Jewels and al-Wāq Wāq which slant toward the south, following the sea to where it turns westward at the island of al-Mūja, the mother of the islands of China, along the length of the sea until it ends at the gulf of the west; then it extends from there by land and sea

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heading north to Bawārū west of Qaraqorum on the border of the land of Kāshghar, to the border of the land of Makrān, extending along the river of Makrān until it enters Sind at its border near Kirmān. There the region of India ends on land, its last point being al-Manṣūra, while its islands in the sea continue as far as opposite Aden. As for its breadth, it is from Sarandīb and what lies in its direction to the south, to Bawārū and what lies in its direction to the north. The boundaries of this kingdom are: on the south the sea and what extends along it of the district of Qarājil; on the east Lahāwar and Kalāwar; on the north the land of the Turks; and on the west Siyālkūt and the desert.

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(manuscript p. 13) The city of Delhi is the capital of the kingdom; after it comes Qubbat al-Islām, which is the city of Dawākīr; this Sultan rebuilt it and named it Qubbat al-Islām. He said: Delhi is in the fourth clime. I say: al-Malik al-Muʾayyad, lord of Ḥamāh — God have mercy on him — said the same in Taqwīm

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al-buldān, and transmitted it from trustworthy experts in this field.

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Shaykh Mubārak said: As for Qubbat al-Islām, it is in the third [clime]. I left it before it was completed, and it is now six years since I was there; I do not think it will have been completed, because of the vastness of what was begun in extending the city's layout and the magnitude of the building. This Sultan had divided it so that it would be built in quarters, a quarter for the people of each class: the soldiers in a quarter, the viziers and secretaries in a quarter, the judges and scholars in a quarter, the shaykhs and fakirs in a quarter, the merchants and tradesmen in a quarter; and in every quarter whatever it needs of mosques, minarets, markets, baths, mills, ovens and craftsmen of every kind, even dyers and painters and tanners, so that the people of one quarter would not need another for selling or buying, taking or giving, each quarter being like a separate city standing by itself, in need of nothing from any other. There is no waste land in this kingdom except about twenty days' journey adjoining Ghazna, because of the tug-of-war between the ruler of India and the ruler of Turkistān and Transoxiana over the edges

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of contention, or idle mountains, or tangled thickets; and the yields of those, from aromatic plants, spices and drugs used in medicines, are incomparably more profitable than cultivated crops.

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I say: The learned Niẓām al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥakīm showed me an old work on the countries, in which it is mentioned that the villages of all of Multān are one hundred and twenty-six thousand villages registered in the dīwān; it and Delhi are in the fourth [clime], and most of the kingdom is in the second and third. All of it is spacious and its lands healthy, except the rice fields, which are unwholesome and whose tracts are disagreeable.

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It is related in that work that Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Thaqafī obtained in Sind forty bahārs of gold, each bahār being three hundred (manuscript p. 14) and thirty-three manns. He said: and from the lands of Ghazna and Qandahār is its last border. I asked Shaykh Mubārak: what is the land of India and its environs like? He told me that it has flowing rivers, nearly a thousand rivers large and small, some equalling the Nile in size, some less than it, some less than that, and some like other rivers; on the banks of the rivers are villages and cities. It has dense trees and wide meadows. It is a temperate country, all its seasons spring; breezes blow there and a gentle breeze wafts, and rains fall continuously for four months, mostly

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at the end of spring into the following summer. It has kinds of grains: wheat, rice, barley, chickpeas, lentils, mung beans, cowpeas and sesame; but broad beans are hardly found there.

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I say: I suppose the absence of beans there is because it is a land of sages, and they hold that beans corrupt the substance of the intellect; for this reason the Sabians forbade them. He said: Among its fruits there are some figs and grapes, abundant pomegranates — sweet, bitter and sour — bananas, peaches, citrons, lemons, limes (al-labm), bitter oranges, sycamore figs, the black mulberry called firṣād, yellow and green melons, cucumbers, snake-cucumbers, ʿajūr melons and figs; grapes are the scarcest of all these kinds. Quinces are found there and are also imported; as for pears and apples, they are rarer than quinces. It has other fruits unknown in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, namely the ʿanbā, the mahwā, the lakaḥ, the karīkā, the ījalī, the fakī, the naghzak, and other excellent, delicious fruits. As for the coconut (nārjīl), which is called the Indian nut, nothing equals it; it is green and full of its oil. As for the ḥumar, which is called the Indian date (tamarind), it is a wild tree that grows on the mountains. Coconuts and bananas are scarcer in Delhi than in the surrounding lands, though they are still found in abundance. As for

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sugar cane, it is plentiful and common throughout all these lands. One kind is black, dry and hard of stalk; it is the best for sucking, not for pressing, and is found nowhere else. From its other kinds a great deal of sugar is made, cheap, both rock sugar and ordinary sugar, but it does not solidify; rather it is like white semolina. There is rice there — as Shaykh Mubārak b. Majd Shādhān told me — of twenty-one kinds. They have turnips, carrots, gourds, aubergines, asparagus and ginger, which they cook when it is green, as carrots are cooked, and it has a fine taste that nothing equals. There are chard, onions, garlic, fennel and thyme, and kinds of fragrant plants: roses, water-lilies, violets, the bān, which is the willow, the narcissus, which is the ʿabhar, and henna blossom, which is the fāghiya. Likewise sesame oil, from which comes their lamp fuel; olive oil reaches them only as an import. Honey is more than plentiful, but wax is found only in the Sultan's palaces and no one is allowed it.

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There are countless grazing animals — water buffaloes, cattle, sheep and goats — and domestic fowl: chickens, local pigeons and geese, the last being the scarcest kind. The Indian chicken is almost as big as a goose. All this is sold at the cheapest rates and lowest prices. Clarified butter and milk of every kind are plentiful, taken no account of and of no value. In its markets are sold varied foods — roasts, rice, pan-cooked and fried dishes, assorted dishes, and sweets of sixty-five kinds — and beer (fuqqāʿ) and drinks such as are hardly seen in any other city. There are countless craftsmen: makers of swords, bows, lances and kinds of lances, and mail, goldsmiths, gold-embroiderers, saddlers, and other masters of every craft pertaining to men and women, to men of the sword and of the pen, and to the common people. Camels are few and belong only to the Sultan and the khāns, amīrs, viziers and great men of state with him. Horses are numerous and of two kinds: Arab horses and pack-horses (birdhawn), most of which do not perform well; for this reason

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they are brought to India from all the neighbouring lands of the Turks, and Arab horses are led there from Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq, although in the interior of India there are Arab horses of noble pedigree, for which very high prices are paid, but they are few. When horses stay there long they weaken. As for mules and donkeys, riding them is considered disgraceful among them; no jurist or man of learning thinks it proper to ride a mule, and riding a donkey is for them a great humiliation and a great shame; rather, everyone rides horses. As for baggage, that of the elite is carried on horses and that of the common people on oxen, on which pack-saddles are placed and the loads carried; they are fast-moving and long-striding.

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I asked Shaykh Mubārak about the city of Delhi and its condition. He told me that Delhi is several cities joined into one city, each with a known name; Delhi is only one of them, but its name has come to be applied to them all. It extends in length and breadth, the circuit of its built-up area being forty miles. Its buildings are of stone and brick, its roofs of timber, and its floors paved with a white stone resembling marble. No one builds there more than two storeys, and some have a single storey. None paves with marble except the Sultan.

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Shaykh Abū Bakr b. al-Khallāl said: This is the circuit of old Delhi; what has been added to it is otherwise. He said: All that is now called by the name of Delhi comprises twenty-one cities,

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and its gardens run in straight lines, each line twelve miles, on three of its sides; the western side is bare because a mountain is near it there. In Delhi there are a thousand madrasas, one of them for the Shāfiʿīs and all the rest for the Ḥanafīs, and about seventy hospitals (māristāns), which are called there houses of healing. In it and its territory there are some two thousand Sufi lodges (khānqāhs) and hospices (ribāṭs). It has great convents, long markets and many baths. All its water comes from dug wells with shallow drawing depth, seven cubits at the deepest, with water-wheels on them. The drinking water of its people is rainwater in wide tanks in which the rains collect, each tank an arch-span wide, its height an arrow-shot and more. There is the congregational mosque famous for its minaret, which he said has no equal on the face of the earth in its bulk and height. Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn b. al-Khallāl al-Bazzī the Sufi said that its height is six hundred cubits into the air.

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Shaykh Mubārak said: As for the Sultan's palaces and residences in Delhi, they are exclusive

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to his own residence and the residence of his harem, the private quarters of his slave-girls [1] and concubines [2], and the houses of his servants and mamlūks. None of the khāns or the amīrs lives with him, and none of them is there except when they attend for service; then each one goes back to his own house. Their attendance is twice every day, early each morning and after the afternoon prayer. The amīrs are ranked in these grades: the highest in standing are the khāns, then the maliks, then the amīrs, then the iṣbahsālārs [3], then the troops. In his service are eighty khāns or more, and his army is nine hundred thousand horsemen of these, some at his court and some throughout the other lands; all of them are paid by his dīwān [4] and all are embraced by his bounty. His troops are Turks, Khiṭāy, Persians and Indians, and among them are the pahlawāns [5] and the shikārs [6], and of the remaining kinds and races, all of them with branded horses, excellent weapons and conspicuous, abundant finery. Most of the amīrs and troops occupy themselves with jurisprudence,

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and they in particular [1], and the people of India in general, follow the school of Abū Ḥanīfa, may God be pleased with him. He [2] has three thousand elephants, verified, which in wars wear bargustuwāns [3] of gilded iron; in times of peace they wear caparisons of brocade [4], figured silk and kinds of silk, and are adorned with pavilions and plated litters, and towers of nailed wood are bound on them, in which the men of India take their fighting positions. On an elephant there are from ten men to six men, according to what the elephant can carry. He has twenty thousand Turkish mamlūks.

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[…] and ten thousand eunuch servants, a thousand treasurers (khazandār) [5] and a thousand bearers (bashmaqdār) [6], and he has two hundred thousand at his stirrup [7] who wear arms (manuscript p. 18), walk at the Sultan's stirrup and fight on foot before him. None of the khāns, maliks, amīrs or iṣbahsālārs employs troops to whom he grants fiefs on his own behalf, as is done in Egypt and Syria; rather, each of them bears the cost only of himself and his complement of troops, their employment being

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for the Sultan, and their pay from his dīwān. Whatever is assigned for that khān, malik, amīr or iṣbahsālār remains his own personal portion. The chamberlains, the office-holders and those charged with duties among the men of the sword are drawn from the khāns, maliks and amīrs, each rank having what suits it according to its measure. As for the iṣbahsālārs, none of them is deemed fit to be close to the Sultan; from them come only governors of a kind and those of like standing. A khān has ten thousand horsemen, a malik a thousand horsemen, an amīr a hundred horsemen, and the iṣbahsālārs fewer than that.

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As for their pay, the khāns, maliks, amīrs and iṣbahsālārs have lands fixed for them by the dīwān; if they do not yield more, they do not yield less, and usually they bring in many times what they were assessed at.

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Each khān has two lakhs [1], each lakh being a hundred thousand tankas [2], each tanka eight dirhams; this is his personal portion, from which nothing goes to any of his troops. Each malik has from sixty thousand to fifty thousand tankas, each amīr forty thousand to thirty thousand tankas, and the iṣbahsālārs twenty thousand tankas or thereabouts. As for the troops, each soldier has from ten thousand tankas to a thousand tankas; as for the Sultan's mamlūks, each mamlūk has from five thousand tankas to a thousand tankas, besides their food, clothing and fodder [3]. The troops and mamlūks have no lands; they take their money in cash from the treasury. As for those others, the lands are something else.

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He said: At present, if the revenues of the lands allotted to them do not exceed the assessment [1], they at least do not fall short; and some of them obtain twice what it was assessed at, or more.

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As for the slaves, each slave among them receives every month two mann [2] of wheat and rice as food, and every day (manuscript p. 19) three sērs [3] of meat with what is needed, and every month ten white tankas, and every year four suits of clothing.

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This Sultan has a ṭirāz workshop [4] in which there are four thousand silk-weavers [5] who make the various fabrics for robes of honour [6], clothing and gifts, in addition to the cloth brought to him from China, Iraq and Alexandria. Every year he distributes two hundred thousand complete suits of clothing: a hundred thousand in spring and a hundred thousand in autumn.

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The spring clothing is mostly of Alexandrian cloth, made in Alexandria; the autumn clothing is all silk, made in the Sultan's ṭirāz workshop in Delhi, and cloth of China and Iraq. He also distributes clothing to the Sufi lodges and ribāṭs. He has four thousand

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gold-embroiderers [1], who make gold embroidery for the rest of the harem, work on the things he uses, and on what he bestows as robes of honour on the men of his state and gives to their women.

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Every year he distributes ten thousand Arab horses of branded Arab stock, some saddled and bridled, some Arab without saddle or bridle. The saddled and bridled ones are of various kinds: some are caparisoned and some ornamented, and those caparisoned and bridled ones

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are some with gold and some with silver. As for what he gives of horses and packhorses (birdhawn), it is beyond count: they are given in droves upon droves and distributed by hundreds upon hundreds [2].

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Despite the abundance of horses in [his] lands and the great numbers brought to him, he seeks them from every region and pays the highest prices for them, because of how much he gives and bestows. Even so they are costly, and profitable for those who trade in them, because of the great gains, the armies and the multitude of people.

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ʿAlī b. Manṣūr al-ʿUqaylī, one of the amīrs of the Arabs of Baḥrayn, who are among those who bring horses from Baḥrayn to this Sultan, told me that the people of these lands have a mark in a horse which they recognise among themselves; whenever they see it in a horse, they buy it for whatever its price may reach.

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This Sultan has a deputy from among the khāns, called amīrt […], whose fief is the size of a great province, about [that of] Iraq; and a vizier, whose fief is the size of the province of Iraq. He has four (manuscript

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p. 20) deputies, each of whom is called shiqq [1], each having from forty thousand to twenty thousand tankas. He has four dabīrān [2], that is, secretaries of the privy, each having one of the great port cities of large revenue, and each of them has about three hundred clerks, the least of whom, with the smallest pay, has ten tankas.

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As for their great men, they have villages and estates, and among them are some who have fifty villages. The Ṣadr-i Jahān—which is the title of the chief qāḍī, who in our time is Kamāl al-Dīn b. al-Burhān—has ten villages, whose yield comes to nearly sixty thousand tankas; he is also called Ṣadr al-Islām, and he is the highest of the deputies of judicial authority. The Shaykh al-Islām, who is the shaykh of shaykhs, has the same, and the muḥtasib has a village whose yield comes to nearly eight thousand tankas.

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He has one thousand two hundred physicians; ten thousand falconers (bāzdār) who ride horses and carry birds trained for the hunt; three thousand beaters who drive the game; five hundred boon companions; and one thousand two hundred musicians and entertainers, not counting the slave entertainers, who are a thousand slaves assigned specifically to learning singing; and a thousand poets in the three languages, Arabic, Persian and Hindi,

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men of refined taste. His treasury provides for all of these, and his gifts pour upon them. Whenever he learns that one of his entertainers has sung for someone else, he has him killed. I asked him what stipends these people receive, and he said: "I know nothing of their stipends except those of the boon companions: some of them have two villages, some one village, and each of them receives from forty thousand tankas to thirty thousand to twenty thousand tankas, according to their rank, besides robes of honour, garments and gifts."

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(Shaykh Abū Bakr b. al-Khallāl al-Bazzī the Sufi said: He has two hundred agents who travel through the lands with his wealth, buying for him, and each of them has a thousand tankas in every city.) Shaykh Mubārak said:

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The table is spread for this Sultan at the set times at both ends of the day, twice every day, and twenty thousand people eat from it, such as the khans, kings, amirs, isfahsalārs and the notables of the army. As for his private meal, the jurists attend it with him—two hundred jurists at lunch and dinner—to eat with him and kneel before him.

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Shaykh Abū Bakr b. al-Khallāl al-Bazzī said: I asked the Sultan's cook how many animals are slaughtered in his kitchens each day. He said: Two thousand five hundred head of cattle and two thousand head of sheep are slaughtered, not counting fattened horses and various kinds of birds.

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Shaykh Mubārak said: Of the army, only the notables and those whom necessity calls attend this Sultan's audience, because of their great number. Likewise, at his private gatherings not all the holders of service among the boon companions and singers attend, except by turns; and likewise the holders of offices such as the dabīrs, the physicians and those of similar standing attend only by turns. As for the poets,

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they attend at particular times of the year, such as the two festivals, the seasonal occasions, the beginning of the month of Ramaḍān, and whenever there is a fresh victory over enemies, a conquest, or anything else on which sultans are congratulated or for which one undertakes to praise them.

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The affairs of the army in particular, and indeed of the people in general, belong to the Amīrat; the affairs of the jurists and scholars, both resident and arriving, all belong to the Ṣadr-i Jahān; the affairs of the jurists resident and arriving to the Shaykh al-Islām; and the affairs of the generality of arrivals and visiting delegations, and of the men of letters and poets resident and arriving, to the dabīrs, who are the secretaries.

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The chief qāḍī Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Ghūrī the Ḥanafī told me that Sultan Muḥammad b. Ṭughluqshāh had dispatched Mughṣān, one of his secretaries, to the territory of Sultan Abū Saʿīd, and sent with him a million tankas to be given as alms at the shrines in Kūfa, Iraq and those regions. This Mughṣān was of ill intent, and he gathered his belongings, resolved

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not to return to the court of the one who had sent him. His arrival coincided with the death of Abū Saʿīd, so he was able to carry out what he intended. He came to Baghdad with about five hundred horses belonging to him and his companions, then went on to Damascus. He said: Then I heard that he returned from there to Iraq, stayed in Baghdad and settled there.

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I say: The learned Niẓām al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍāʾil Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥakīm told me about this man's affair and said that he had seen him in Damascus, but he did not mention the amount of this alms. Al-Subkī, al-Multānī and al-Bazzī likewise told me about him; though their wording differed, the sense was one. Each of them said that this Mughṣān was among the learned, the notables and the virtuous elite.

2.65

Shaykh Abū Bakr al-Bazzī said: Before this Sultan's majesty limbs tremble, and the earth quakes at his procession. He devotes much attention to the affairs of his realm and of his rule, and he sits in person to give justice to his subjects.

2.66

Khwāja Aḥmad b. Khwāja ʿUmar b. Musāfir said, according to what was reported from him, that he holds a public sitting to have people's petitions read to him, and no one carrying any weapon, not even a knife, enters his presence, except the secretary alone.

2.67

The Sultan has with him full arms, even the quiver, the bow and the arrows; wherever

2.68

he sits, his weapons never leave him. He said: This is always his custom.

2.69

As for this Sultan's riding out, it varies: sometimes it is for war, sometimes for moving within Delhi from place to place, and sometimes within his palaces. When he rides out to war, mountains move, sands flow, seas surge, […] and lightnings flash—things the eye would believe false and the tongue is bound from describing. On the elephants the towers are like a city or a strong fortress; the eye sees nothing but the raised dust and the darkness of a night stretched over the day. No one carries black in his banners except him alone: on the right wing he has black banners, and on the left wing […] banners, with golden dragons on them; the Sultan has black banners with a great golden dragon in their midst. As for the rest of the amirs, each carries what suits him. As for the drums beaten for the Sultan in residence and on campaign, they are beaten for him as for Alexander Dhū al-Qarnayn: two hundred camels with kettledrums, forty camels with great drums (kūsāt), twenty trumpets and ten cymbals; the five nawbas are also beaten for him. Countless treasures are carried with him, besides led horses beyond counting.

2.70

As for hunting, he goes out lightly equipped, with no more than a hundred thousand horsemen

2.71

and two hundred elephants. He takes with him four wooden palaces on eight hundred camels, each palace on two hundred camels, all covered with black silk hangings embroidered with gold; each palace has two storeys, not counting the tents and the khargāhs.

2.72

When he moves from one place to another for pleasure or the like, he has about thirty thousand horsemen with him, the same number of elephants, and a thousand led horses, saddled and bridled, some caparisoned in gold, some ornamented (MS p. 23) and collared, and some of them inlaid with jewels and rubies.

2.73

As for his riding within his palaces, Shaykh Muḥammad al-Khujandī, who was among those who had entered Delhi and had served in the army there, told me that he saw him go out from one palace to another riding, with the parasol (jatr) over his head and the armour-bearers (silāḥdāriyya); and he saw him carried, with the weapons in their hands, and around him nearly twelve thousand mamlūks, all of them on foot; none among them was mounted except the bearer of the parasol, the armour-bearers and the jamdāriyya, the bearers of the garments.

2.74

Shaykh Mubārak told me that this Sultan has seven parasols carried over his head, two of them inlaid [with jewels] and beyond price; and his court has such magnificence and grandeur, such imperial (shāhanshāhī) rules and royal ceremonial, as was never practised except by Alexander Dhū al-Qarnayn or by Malikshāh b. Alp Arslān.

2.75

As for the khāns, kings and amīrs, none of them rides, whether travelling or at home, except with banners. The most a khān carries is nine banners, and the least an amīr carries is three. The most a khān leads at home is ten led horses, and the most an amīr leads at home is [two] led horses.

2.76

On journeys, however, it is as far as each one's means, generosity of heart and liberality reach; yet when they come to the Sultan's gate they shrink, for his sun eclipses their stars and his sea buffets their clouds. And with all this, this Sultan is a man of piety, beneficence and humility before God Most High.

2.77

Abū al-Ṣafāʾ ʿUmar b. Isḥāq al-Subkī told me that he saw him go down to the funeral of a righteous faqīr who had died, and carry his bier on his shoulder. He has abundant merit: he knows by heart the Book of God

2.78

Most High and the book al-Hidāya according to the school of Imām Abū Ḥanīfa, may God be pleased with him; he excels in the rational sciences, writes a fine hand, and has a broad mastery of mathematics, discipline of the soul and letters; he composes poetry and versifies, has it recited to him, understands its meanings and discusses them with the scholars, debates with the learned, and takes the poets in particular to task in Persian, for he clings to its fringes and knows its paths.

2.79

He said: I heard him discussing the sense in which yesterday precedes today, of what category it is, since they said that precedence is either in time, in rank or in essence, and this cannot be any of these divisions; and he established that (MS p. 24) their statement was refuted by this, because yesterday precedes, but not by any of these.

2.80

He said: I saw him take the reins of the discussion over everyone present, many as the scholars were.

2.81

He said: The scholars attend his assembly and break their fast with him in the month of Ramaḍān, and each night the Ṣadr-i Jahān orders one of those present to put forward a subtle point; then the company take up the discussion of it in the Sultan's presence, and he is like one of them, speaking with them and debating among them, and being answered back. He is one who permits nothing forbidden and tolerates no one in a reprehensible act; no one dares

2.82

to commit openly anything prohibited in [his] lands. What he condemns most severely is wine: he applies the prescribed punishment (ḥadd) for it and is extremely harsh in punishing those of his intimates who indulge in it.

2.83

The noble sayyid Tāj al-Dīn b. Abī al-Mujāhid al-Ḥasan al-Samarqandī told me that one of the great khāns in Delhi used to drink wine, was addicted to it and persisted in it; he was forbidden but would not desist. This Sultan was gravely angered with him, seized him and took his wealth, and the total of what was found belonging to him was four hundred million mithqāls and thirty-seven thousand mithqāls of red gold. This story suffices to show both his extremity in condemning wrongdoing and the vastness of the wealth of these lands, for this sum, reckoned in Egyptian qinṭārs, comes to forty-three thousand qinṭārs or seven hundred qinṭārs of gold, which is almost beyond all count and reckoning.

2.84

This sharīf Ḥasan al-Samarqandī, who had roamed the earth and travelled the horizons, also told me about the wealth of these lands and things like this or similar that bewilder the mind. And [the Sultan] has such works of piety and charity as the world inscribes on the pages of its good deeds and the days record on the brightest of their lives. I heard from him accounts whose details I did not know until the blessed Shaykh Mubārak told me that this Sultan gives in alms every day two lakhs, no less, equivalent in the currency of Egypt and Syria to one million six hundred thousand dirhams each day; and sometimes his alms on certain days reach fifty lakhs. At the sighting of each new moon of every month he gives two lakhs in alms, a constant custom he never breaks. He bears a continuous allowance for forty thousand faqīrs, each receiving every day one dirham and five (MS p. 25) raṭls of wheat bread or rice; and he has appointed a thousand jurists to schools, their salaries charged to his treasury (dīwān), to teach orphans and the children of the people

2.85

reading and writing. He does not leave a single beggar in Delhi soliciting the people; rather, whoever begs is prevented from doing so and is assigned what is allotted to others like him among the poor.

2.86

As for his beneficence to strangers and to those who place their hopes in him, it almost passes the bounds of belief.

2.87

The learned Niẓām al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍāʾil Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥakīm al-Ṭayyārī told me: There was with us at the Ordu [1], in the service of Sultan Abū Saʿīd [2], a man named ʿAḍud b. Qāḍī Yazd, who aspired to the vizierate, though he was not fit for it nor counted among those equal to it; he kept stirring up trouble against the viziers and sowing discord among the people of the Ordu. So they agreed to send him away, and dispatched him as an envoy to Delhi with a message whose content was greetings, friendship, inquiry and solicitude; they made this an outward pretext for removing him, and their intention was that he should not return. When he reached Delhi, came into the presence of this Sultan and delivered the message to him, [the Sultan] received him warmly, honoured him with robes of honour and gifts, gave him a place of welcome and ample room under his protection, and granted him a load of money. Then, when he wished to depart and return to the one who had sent him, [the Sultan] said to him: 'Enter the treasury and take whatever you wish.' This Sayyid ʿAḍud was a shrewd man, and when he entered the treasury he took nothing but a single copy of the Qurʾān. The Sultan heard of this and was pleased by it, and said to him: 'Why did you take nothing but this Qurʾān?' He said: 'Because the Sultan has already made me rich by his bounty, and I found nothing nobler than the Book of God.' [The Sultan's] admiration for his deed and his words increased, and it made

2.88

a very favourable impression on him, and he gave him a great deal of money, part of it for himself and part of it to take with him for Abū Saʿīd by way of a gift. The total that reached him from [the Sultan], both what was for Abū Saʿīd and what was for himself, was eight hundred tumans [1] — the tuman being ten thousand current dinars, and the dinar six dirhams — so that this sum comes to eight million current dinars, equivalent to forty-eight million dirhams. When he returned with this abundant wealth, he feared it would be taken from him at the Ordu, so he divided it into portions and hid it from view. Now Amīr Aḥmad, son of Khwāja [2] (manuscript p. 26) Rashīd, brother of the vizier, had been involved in an affair that required his removal from the Ordu, but out of regard for the position of his brother the vizier Ghiyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad, he was given a written appointment as amīr of the īlkāh [3], which means that he governs wherever he halts in the realm, even over its governors. On his way he came upon this Sayyid ʿAḍud and took a great deal from him; it is likely that he made of it several loads of gold and silver vessels to present to Abū Saʿīd and the khātūns [4], and I reckon he intended it as his means of returning to the Ordu. But death overtook him swiftly; then Abū Saʿīd and Sayyid ʿAḍud died, those days came to an end, the gold was gone, and what they had gained availed no one [5].

2.89

Ibn al-Ḥakīm said: This Sultan, the ruler of Delhi, has an extraordinary generosity, and his beneficence to strangers is immense. A certain scholar from the lands of Persia came to him and presented him with books of philosophy, among them al-Shifāʾ of Ibn Sīnā [1]. It happened that when he stood before him and presented it to him, a splendid load of precious jewels had been brought to [the Sultan], and he scooped out a handful of it and gave it to him; it was worth twenty thousand mithqāls of gold, besides the rest of what he bestowed on him.

2.90

Al-Sharīf al-Samarqandī told me that the people of Bukhārā [2] come to him with yellow melons that they keep preserved in winter, and he gives them lavish gifts.

2.91

He said [3]: Among them was one I know who brought him two loads of melons; most of them spoiled, and only twenty-two melons arrived with him, yet he gave him three thousand mithqāls of gold.

2.92

Shaykh Abū Bakr b. Abī al-Ḥasan al-Multānī, known as Ibn al-Tāj al-Ḥāfiẓ [4], said: What reached us in Multān and was widely known among us there — and then I travelled to Delhi and stayed there,

2.93

and found it widely known there too — is that this Sultan has bound himself never to name less than that amount in his grants.

2.94

Al-Khujandī [1] told me: I went to him and gained access to him, and he bestowed on me a thousand mithqāls of gold. Then he asked whether I preferred to stay or to return, and I said: 'I choose to stay.' So he enrolled me among the troops.

2.95

Shaykh Abū Bakr b. al-Khallāl al-Bazzī the Sufi told me: This Sultan sent with a group, of whom I was (manuscript p. 27) one, three lakhs [2] of gold to Transoxiana, one lakh of it to be distributed among the scholars, one lakh to be given in charity to the jurists, and with the third lakh purchases to be made for him [3].

2.96

He said: He told us: 'I have heard that Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn al-Ṣāgharjī, the shaykh of Samarqand [4], excels in the sciences and in asceticism, and that no money stays with him. Give him forty thousand tankas to provide for his journey to Multān [5]; then, when he enters our lands, we shall be generous to him with wealth.' Then he said: 'If you do not find him, give this sum to his household so that they may deliver it to him when he comes, and let them know that we are asking for him, so that he may provision himself for the journey to Multān.'

2.97

He said: When we reached Samarqand, we found that he had gone into the land of China, so we gave the money

2.98

to his slave-girl and informed her of the Sultan's desire for him and his urging that he come.

2.99

The jurist Abū al-Ṣafāʾ ʿUmar b. Isḥāq al-Shiblī told me that this Sultan never parts from the scholars, whether travelling or at home [1]. He said: We were with him on one of his campaigns, and while we were on the way, letters bearing glad tidings of victories came to him from the vanguard of his armies while we were in his presence. He was delighted and said: 'This is through the blessing of these scholars.' Then he ordered that they enter the treasury and carry from it as much as they could, and that any of them who was weak should appoint someone to carry that money for him. He said: They entered the treasury, but neither I nor many like me entered, because we were not of that rank. Each of them carried two bags, each bag ten thousand dirhams, except one of them who carried three bags, two under his armpits and another on his head. When the Sultan saw them he laughed in amazement at the greed of the one who carried three, and asked about the rest of the group who had not entered, like me. He was told that these were of lower rank than those, for those were professors and these were tutors (muʿīds). So he ordered ten thousand dirhams for each of us, and it was distributed among us.

2.100

He said: With him the beacon of the religious law stands firm, and the market of the people of learning thrives in his presence; they are treated with reverence and veneration, and they take the utmost care over whatever upholds their standing: right conduct outward and inward, constant reading of knowledge (manuscript p. 28) and teaching it, scrupulousness in all their affairs, and moderation in all their circumstances. This Sultan does not slacken in striving at holy war by land and sea; neither his rein nor his spearhead is turned back from it. This remains his custom, before his eyes and behind his ears. He has achieved a great deal in exalting the word of faith and spreading Islam in those

2.101

regions, until the light of Islam shone forth in that darkness and the lightning-flashes of guidance gleamed in those skies. He destroyed the fire-temples, broke the idols (budd) and images, and emptied the land of those who are not righteous, except those under the dhimma pact. Through him Islam reached the farthest East, and met the rising of the sun with the radiance of the shining dawn; and he carried the banner of the community of Muḥammad, as Abū Naṣr al-ʿUtbī said, to where no banner had reached and no sura or verse had been recited. He built congregational mosques and mosques, put an end to the [heathen] chanting with the call to prayer, silenced the murmuring with the Qurʾān, set the people of this faith upon the heads of the infidels, and made them inherit—by God's aid—their wealth, their dwellings and a land they had not trodden. Moreover, with every fluttering thing a fluttering thing is extended for him: on land the eagles of the banners, and at sea the ravens of the ships, the vessels raised up like mountains; so that not a day passes without the sale of many thousands of slaves at the lowest prices, because of the abundance of captives and seizures.

2.102

All these told me that the price of a serving slave-girl in the city of Delhi does not exceed eight tankas, and those suitable for service and for the bed fifteen tankas; outside Delhi they are cheaper than these prices.

2.103

Abū al-Ṣafāʾ ʿUmar b. Abī Isḥāq al-Shiblī told me that he bought a useful adolescent slave for four dirhams; judge by this. He said: Yet despite the cheapness of slaves, there are Indian slave-girls whose price reaches twenty thousand tankas and more, and so on.

2.104

Ibn al-Tāj al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Multānī told me — I said: How can a slave-girl reach this price despite the cheapness? He told me — each one [told me this] in a separate sitting — [it is] because of her beautiful form and the grace of her manners, and because most such slave-girls know the Qurʾān by heart, write (manuscript p. 29) a script, recite poems and reports, are skilled at singing and playing the lute, and play chess and backgammon. These slave-girls vie with one another in such things: one says, 'I will take my master's heart in three days'; another says, 'I will take his heart in a day'; another says, 'I will take his heart in an hour'; and another says, 'I will take his heart in the blink of an eye.'

2.105

They said: The beautiful Indian women are more lovely than the Turks and Qipchaqs, besides being distinguished by great refinement and captivating accomplishment. Most of them are golden in complexion, and among them are fair ones of a radiant whiteness mixed with red. Despite the abundance of Turks, Qipchaqs, Rūm and all other races among them, no one is preferred to the beautiful Indian women, because of their perfect beauty and sweetness, and other things too subtle for words.

2.106

Sirāj al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Shiblī told me that none wear the linen garments imported into this

2.107

kingdom from the Rūs and Alexandria except those whom the Sultan clothes in them; otherwise their shirts and garments are of fine cotton. He said: Garments are made of it resembling the Baghdadi lengths of cloth—but how can the Baghdadi lengths and the naṣāfī compare with them, for their fineness and delicacy of texture? Some of them equal the lawānis in fineness, along with [….]

2.108

Shaykh Mubārak told me that no one wears, or rides with saddles covered or ornamented with gold, except one on whom the Sultan has bestowed something of them; when he bestows on him something ornamented with gold, it is permission for him to acquire as much of it as he wishes. As for most of them, they ride on [saddles] covered or ornamented with silver.

2.109

He said: The Sultan bestows on those in his service, of their various kinds—men of the sword, the pen and learning—every splendid thing and precious sort: lands and wealth, jewels, horses, gold-ornamented saddles, golden belts, and fabrics of various kinds and types—except elephants, which belong to him alone; no one among all the people shares them with him. He said: The elephants have large allowances for their fodder; perhaps these three thousand elephants (manuscript p. 30) could be sustained only by the revenue of a large kingdom. I asked him: How much do they get? He said:

2.110

Their breeds and shapes differ, and their fodder according to these differences. I will tell you the most each elephant needs per day and the least. The most it needs per day is forty raṭls of rice, sixty raṭls of barley, twenty raṭls of ghee and half a load of grass. As for what their keepers and attendants need, that is a large sum and many things. He said: The superintendent (shiḥna) of the elephants is a great man among the grandees of the state.

2.111

Al-Shiblī said: His fief is the size of a large province such as Iraq. As for the arrangement of the kings of this kingdom in battle positions: the Sultan stands in the centre, with the imams and scholars around him and the archers before and behind him; the right and left wings extend, joined to the flanks; before him are the elephants clad in iron armour, bearing towers nailed onto them in which are the fighters, as we said earlier; in the towers are openings for shooting arrows and for throwing flasks of naphtha. In front of the elephants are the slave foot-soldiers, lightly clad, with swords and weapons, clearing room for the elephants and engaging the horses with swords, while the archers in the towers cover them from above and behind. The cavalry on the right and left close the edges of the ground upon the enemy and fight around and behind the elephants, so that the fleeing man finds no escape and no way in; hardly anyone survives before them, because of the armies encircling them, the arrows and naphtha falling from above them, and the foot-soldiers striking at them stealthily from below; death comes to them from every place, and calamity surrounds them on every side.

First 111 of 154 passages. Read on

Translations (1)

Masáliku-l Absár (extracts) — Henry Miers Elliot & John Dowson 1871, English

Linked texts (1)

مسالك الأبصار في ممالك الأمصار — Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī, Arabic