تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.47.20

13.47.20

وكتبت تلك الليلة إلى أصحابي بكول معلما لهم بسلامتي فجاءوا إلي بفرس وثياب، واستبشروا بي ووجدت جواب السلطان قد وصلهم، وبعث بفتى يسمى بسنبل الجامدار عوضا من كافور المستشهد، وأمرنا أن نتمادى على سفرنا، ووجدتهم أيضا قد كتبوا للسلطان بما كان من أمري وتشاءموا بهذه السفرة لما جرى فيها علي وعلى كافور، وهم يريدون أن يرجعوا، فلما رأيت تأكيد السلطان في السفر، أكدت عليهم وقوى عزمي، فقالوا ألا ترى ما اتفق في بداية هذه السفرة والسلطان يعذرك، فلنرجع إليه أو نقيم حتى يصل جوابه، فقلت لهم: لا يمكن المقام وحيث ما كنا أدركنا الجواب.

I found that the sultan’s reply had reached them and that he had sent a eunuch named Sunbul, the keeper of the wardrobe, in place of the martyred Kāfūr, with orders to pursue our journey. I found, too, that they had written to the sultan about me, and that they regarded the journey as ill-omened on account of what had happened to me and to Kāfūr, and were wanting to go back. But when I saw that the sultan insisted upon the journey, I urged them on with great determination. They answered: “Do you not see what has befallen us at the very outset of this mission ? The sultan will excuse you, so let us return to him, or stay here until his reply reaches us.” But I said: “ We cannot stay, and wherever we are his reply will overtake us.” We left Koel, therefore, and encamped at Burj Būra [Burjpur], where there is a fine hermitage in which lives a beautiful and virtuous shaykh called Muhammad the Naked, because he wears nothing but a cloth from his navel to the ground. Thence we travelled to the river known as Ab-i Siyah [“Black Water,” Kalindi] and from there reached the city of Qinawj [Kanauj]. It is a large, well-built and strongly fortified city; prices there are cheap and sugar plentiful, and it is surrounded by a great wall. We spent three days here and during this time received the sultan’s reply to the letter about me. It ran thus “ If no trace is found of so-and-so [i.e.

I was extremely astonished at this, then I thought of the man who had carried me on his shoulders and I remembered what the saint Abu ‘Abdallah al-Murshidi had told me, as I have related in the first journey, when he said to me: “You will enter the land of India and meet there my brother Dilshad, who will deliver you from a misfortune which will befall you there.” I remembered too how he had said, when I asked him his name, “Joyous Heart” which, translated into Persian, is Dilshad. So I knew that it was he whom the saint had foretold that I should meet, and that he too was one of the saints, but I enjoyed no more of his company than the short space which I have related. The same night I wrote to my friends at Koel to inform them of my safety, and they came, bringing me a horse and clothes and rejoiced at my escape.