تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 10.5
English (machine translation) 10.5
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10.5.1
One day I rode with ʿAlāʾ al-Mulk and we came to a plain seven miles from the city, known as Tārnā. There I saw countless stones shaped like human beings and animals; many of them were worn and their forms effaced, so that only the shape of a head or a foot or some other part remained. Among the stones were also shapes of grains: wheat, chickpeas, beans and lentils. There were remains of a city wall and the walls of houses. Then we saw the outline of a house containing a room of hewn stone, in the middle of which was a platform of hewn stones, as though it were a single stone, bearing the figure of a man, except that his head was elongated, his mouth was on one side of his face, and his hands were behind his back like a man bound.
10.5.2
There were waters there with a terrible stench, and writing in Hindi on some of the walls. ʿAlāʾ al-Mulk told me that the historians claim that in this place there was a great city whose people were given to corruption, so they were turned into stone! Their king is the one on the platform in the house we mentioned, which to this day is called the King's House, and the writing in Hindi on some of the walls there records the date of the destruction of the people of that city, which was about a thousand years ago.
10.5.3
I stayed in this city with ʿAlāʾ al-Mulk for five days; then he provided me generously with provisions and I left him for the city of Bakār (with a over the single-dotted bā'). It is a fine city, cut through by a channel from the river of Sind, and in the middle of that channel is a fine hospice providing food for travellers coming and going, built by Kushlū Khān during his governorship of the land of Sind; he will be mentioned later.
10.5.4
In this city I met the jurist and imām Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī; I met its qāḍī, named Abū Ḥanīfa; and I met the devout and ascetic shaykh Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Shīrāzī, who was one of those of great age: he told me that he was over one hundred and twenty years old.
10.5.5
Then I travelled from the city of Bakār and reached the city of Ūjah — its name is spelled with u after the hamza and a after the j. It is a large city on the river of Sind, with fine markets and good buildings. Its amīr at that time was the excellent malik, the sharīf Jalāl al-Dīn al-Kījī, one of the brave and generous; he died in this city after a fall from his horse.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic