تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 10.3.4

10.3.4

News of them reached ʿImād al-Mulk Sartīz, the Sultan's mamlūk, who was at that time amīr of the amīrs of Sind and resided at Multān. He gathered the troops and made ready by land and on the river of Sind; between Multān and Sīwasitān is ten days. Qayṣar came out against him and battle was joined, and Qayṣar and those with him were routed in the most shameful defeat and fortified themselves in the city. He besieged them, set up mangonels against them, and the siege grew severe, so they asked for a guarantee of safety forty days after he had encamped against them. He granted them safety, but when they came down to him he betrayed them, seized their wealth and ordered them to be killed. Every day he would behead some of them, cut others in half at the waist, and flay others, stuff their skins with straw and hang them on the city wall, so that most of the wall had those skins hung upon it, terrifying whoever looked at them. He collected their heads in the middle of the city, and they were like a mound there! I stayed in that city just after this event, in a large madrasa there, and used to sleep on its roof; when I woke in the night I would see those hanging skins and be filled with revulsion at them. I could not bear to stay in the madrasa, so I moved away from it. The learned, excellent and just jurist ʿAlāʾ al-Mulk al-Khurāsānī, known as Faṣīḥ al-Dīn, formerly qāḍī of Harāt, had come to the King of Hind, who appointed him over the city of Lāharī and its districts in the land of Sind. He had taken part in this campaign with ʿImād al-Mulk Sartīz with the troops under him, and I resolved to travel with him to the city of Lāharī. He had fifteen vessels with which he had come on the river of Sind, carrying his baggage, and I travelled with him.