تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.107
English (machine translation) 13.107
- Language
- English
13.107.1
On the third Thursday Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn died. I learned of it and hastened to enter the city for fear of disorder. I met his nephew Nāṣir al-Dīn, who succeeded him, going out to the camp, having been sent for, since the sultan had no son. He asked me to go back with him, but I refused, and this left an impression on his heart. This Nāṣir al-Dīn had been a servant in Dihlī before his uncle became king; when his uncle became king he fled to him in the guise of a faqīr, and it was destined that he should reign after him.
13.107.2
When he received the oath of allegiance the poets praised him and he rewarded them generously. The first to rise and recite was the qāḍī Ṣadr al-Zamān, to whom he gave five hundred dinars and a robe of honour; then the vizier known as al-Qāḍī, to whom he gave two thousand dinars in dirhams; and he gave me three hundred dinars and a robe of honour. He distributed alms among the poor and the needy. When the preacher delivered the first khuṭba in his name, dinars and dirhams were scattered over him from gold and silver trays. The mourning for Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn was held: every day they completed a recitation of the Qurʾān at his tomb, then the reciters of the tenths recited, then food was brought and the people ate, and then dirhams were given to each person according to his rank. They kept this up for forty days, and thereafter they do the same on the anniversary of his death every year.
13.107.3
The first thing Sultan Nāṣir al-Dīn did was to dismiss his uncle's vizier and demand money from him. He appointed to the vizierate Malik Badr al-Dīn, whom his uncle had sent to meet me when I was in Fattan; he died soon after, and the admiral Khwāja Surūr was appointed vizier. [The sultan] ordered that he be addressed as Khwāja Jahān, as the vizier is addressed in Dihlī, and whoever addressed him otherwise was fined a fixed number of dinars.
13.107.4
Then Sultan Nāṣir al-Dīn killed the son of his paternal aunt, who was married to the daughter of Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn, and married her after him. He learned that Malik Masʿūd had visited [that man] in his prison before his death, so he killed him too; and he killed Malik Bahādur, who was one of the brave, generous and virtuous men.
13.107.5
He ordered that I be given all the ships his uncle had assigned for the islands. Then a deadly fever struck me there and I thought it would be the end of me. God inspired me to take tamarind, which is plentiful there; I took about
13.107.6
a raṭl of it, put it in water and drank it. It purged me for three days, and God cured me of my illness. I came to dislike that city and asked permission to travel. The sultan said to me: "How can you travel when only one month remains of the sailing season for the islands? Stay until we give you everything that Khund ʿĀlam ordered for you." I refused, and he wrote for me to Fattan so that I could sail in whichever ship I wished. I returned to Fattan and found eight ships sailing to Yemen, and I sailed in one of them. We encountered four warships, which fought us for a little while and then withdrew. We reached Kawlam, and as I still had some remnant of illness I stayed there three months. Then I boarded a ship bound for Sultan Jamāl al-Dīn al-Hinawrī, and the infidels came out against us between Hinawr and Fākanūr.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic