مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 2.87

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