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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 12.13

English (machine translation) 12.13

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English

12.13.1

This Shihāb al-Dīn was a friend of the Malik al-Tujjār al-Kāzarūnī, surnamed Barwīz. The Sultan had granted the Malik al-Tujjār the city of Kanbāya as a fief and had promised to appoint him to the vizierate. So he sent to his friend Shihāb al-Dīn to come to him, and he came, having prepared a gift for the Sultan: an enclosure of cut woollen cloth decorated with gold leaf, a pavilion to match it, a tent and an annex tent, and a rest tent, all of decorated woollen cloth, and many mules. When Shihāb al-Dīn arrived with this gift to his friend the Malik al-Tujjār, he found him setting out for the capital with the revenues of his lands that he had collected and with a gift for the Sultan.

12.13.2

The vizier Khwāja Jahān learned of the Sultan's promise to appoint him to the vizierate, and he became jealous of it and was disturbed by it. Before that time the lands of Kanbāya and al-Juzarāt had been under the vizier's authority, and their people were attached to him, devoted to him and served him; most of them were infidels, and some were rebels who held out in the mountains. So the vizier secretly instigated them to attack the Malik al-Tujjār when he set out for the capital. When he set out with the treasure and the wealth, with Shihāb al-Dīn and his gift accompanying him, they halted one day in the forenoon as was their custom; the troops dispersed and most of them slept. Then the infidels attacked them in a great host, killed the Malik al-Tujjār, and plundered the wealth, the treasure, and the gift of

12.13.3

Shihāb al-Dīn, who himself escaped. The informants wrote to the Sultan about this, and he ordered that Shihāb al-Dīn be given thirty thousand dinars from the revenues of the lands of Nahrawāla and return to his own country. This was offered to him, but he refused to accept it, saying: "My only aim is to see the Sultan and kiss the ground before him." They wrote this to the Sultan, and his words pleased him, and he ordered that he be brought to the capital with honour.

12.13.4

The day he came before the Sultan happened to be the day we came before him, and he bestowed robes of honour on all of us, ordered that we be lodged, and gave Shihāb al-Dīn an ample gift. Some time after that he ordered six thousand tankas [for me], as we shall relate. On that day he asked about Shihāb al-Dīn: "Where is he?" Bahāʾ al-Dīn ibn al-Falakī said to him:

12.13.5

"Yā Khwand-i ʿālam, na-mīdānam" — meaning, "We do not know." Then he said to him, "Shanīdam zaḥmat dārad" — meaning, "I have heard that he is ill." The Sultan said to him, "Baraw hamīn zamān dar khizāna yak lak tanka zar bigīrī wa pīsh-i ū bibarī tā dil-i ū khwash shawad" — meaning, "Go this moment to the treasury, take from it one hundred thousand gold tankas, and carry them to him so that his heart may be glad." He did so and gave them to him, and the Sultan ordered that he buy with it whatever Indian goods he liked, and that no one else should buy anything until he had equipped himself. He also ordered for him three ships fitted with their tackle, together with the sailors' pay and provisions, so that he could travel in them. So he set sail and landed at the island of Hurmuz, where he built a great house, which I saw afterwards.

12.13.6

I also saw Shihāb al-Dīn, when everything he had was gone, at Shīrāz begging from its sultan Abū Isḥāq. Such is the wealth of these lands of Hind! Rarely does anyone leave them with it, save the odd one, and if he does leave with it and reaches some other country, God sends upon him a calamity that destroys what he holds, as happened to this Shihāb al-Dīn: in the strife between the king of Hurmuz and his two nephews everything he had was taken from him, and he came out stripped of his wealth!

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