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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 7.2

Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354 7.2

Language
English

7.2.1

The next morning I went along a broad road, which led to a ruined village. Then I took another road, but with the same result as before. Several days passed in this manner. One day I came to some tangled trees with a tank of water between them. The space under these trees was like a room, and at the sides of the tank were plants like dittany and others. I intended to stop there until God should send someone to bring me to inhabited country, but I recovered a little strength, so I arose and walked along a road on which I found the tracks of cattle. I found a bull carrying a packsaddle and a sickle, but after all this road led to the villages of the infidels. Then I followed up another road, and this brought me to a ruined village. There I saw two naked blacks, and in fear of them I remained under some trees there. At nightfall I entered the village and found a house in one of whose rooms there was something like a large jar of the sort they make to store grain in. At the bottom of it there was a hole large enough to admit a man, so I crept into it and found inside it a layer of chopped straw, and amongst this a stone on which I laid my head and went to sleep. On the top of the jar there was a bird which kept fluttering its wings most of the night—I suppose it was frightened, so we made a pair of frightened creatures. This went on for seven days from the day on which I was taken prisoner, which was a Saturday.

7.2.2

On the seventh day I came to a village of the unbelievers which was inhabited and possessed a tank of water and plots of vegetables. I asked them for some food but they refused to give me any. However, in the neighbourhood of a well I found some radish leaves and ate them. I went into the village, and found a troop of infidels with sentries posted. The sentries challenged me but I did not answer them and sat down on the ground. One of them came over with a drawn sword and raised it to strike me, but I paid no attention to him, so utterly weary did I feel. Then he searched me but found nothing on me, so he took the shirt whose sleeves I had given to the old man who had had charge of me. On the eighth day I was consumed with thirst and I had no water at all. I came to a ruined village but found no tank in it. They have a custom in those villages of making tanks in which the rain-water collects, and this supplies them with drinking water all the year round. Then I went along a road and this brought me to an uncased well over which was a rope of vegetable fibre, but there was no vessel on it to draw water with. I took a piece of cloth which I had on my head and tied it to the rope and sucked the water that soaked into it, but that did not slake my thirst. I tied on my shoe next and drew up water in it, but that did not satisfy me either, so I drew water with it a second time, but the rope broke and the shoe fell back into the well.

7.2.3

I then tied on the other shoe and drank until my thirst was assuaged. After that I cut the shoe and tied its uppers on my foot with the rope off the well and bits of cloth which I found there. While I was tying this on and wondering what to do, a person appeared before me. I looked at him, and lo! it was a black-skinned man, carrying a jug and a staff in his hand, and a wallet on his shoulder. He gave me the Muslim greeting “Peace be upon you” and I replied “Upon you be peace and the mercy and blessings of God.” Then he asked me in Persian who I was, and I answered “A man astray,” and he said: “So am I.” Thereupon he tied his jug to a rope which he had with him and drew up some water. I wished to drink but he saying “Have patience,” opened his wallet and brought out a handful of black chick-peas fried with a little rice. After I had eaten some of this and drunk, he made his ablutions and prayed two prostrations and I did the same. Thereupon he asked me my name. I answered “Muhammad” and asked him his, to which he replied “Joyous Heart.” I took this as a good omen and rejoiced at it. After this he said to me “In the name of God accompany me.” I said “Yes,” and walked on with him for a little, then I found my limbs giving way, and as I was unable to stand up I sat down. He said “What is the matter with you?” I answered “I was able to walk before meeting you, but now that I have met you I cannot.” Whereupon he said “Glory be to God!

7.2.4

Mount on my shoulders.” I said to him “You are weak, and have not strength for that,” but he replied “God will give me strength. You must do so.” So I got up on his shoulders and he said to me “Say God is sufficient for us and an excellent guardian.” I repeated this over and over again, but I could not keep my eyes open, and regained consciousness only on feeling myself falling to the ground. Then I woke up, but found no trace of the man, and lo! I was in an inhabited village. I entered it and found it was a village of Hindu peasants with a Muslim governor. They informed him about me and he came to meet me. I asked him the name of this village and he replied “Taj Biira.” The distance from there to Koel, where our party was, is two farsakhs. The governor provided a horse to take me to his house and gave me hot food, and I washed. Then he said to me: “I have here a garment and a turban which were left in my charge by a certain Arab from Egypt, one of the soldiers belonging to the corps at Koel.” I said to him “Bring them; I shall wear them until I reach camp.” When he brought them I found that they were two of my own garments which I had given to that very Arab when we came to Koel.

7.2.5

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.

7.2.6

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.

7.2.7

Ibn Battūta], let Wajih al-Mulk, the qadi of Dawlat Abad, go in his place.” We came next to the small town of Mawrī, and thence reached Marh, a large town, inhabited chiefly by infidels under Muslim control. It takes its name from the Malawa, a tribe of Hindus, of very powerful build and good-looking; their women especially are exceedingly beautiful and famous for the charms of their company. From Marh we travelled to ‘Alābūr [Alapur], a small town inhabited like the former by infidels under Muslim control. A day’s journey from there lived an infidel sultan, named Qatam, who was sultan of Janbil and was killed after besieging Guyalyur [Gwalior]. The governor of ‘Alabur was the Abyssinian Badr, a slave of the sultan’s, a man whose bravery passed into a proverb. He was continually making raids on the infidels alone and single handed, killing and taking captive, so that his fame spread far and wide and the infidels went in fear of him. He was tall and corpulent, and used to eat a whole sheep at a meal, and I was told that after eating he would drink about a pound and a half of ghee, following the custom of the Abyssinians in their own country. He had a son nearly as brave as himself. During a raid on a village belonging to some Hindus Badr’s horse fell with him into a matamore and the villagers surrounded him and killed him.

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